Stung!

I waltzed around bragging for 27 years that I had not been stung by a bee for 27 years. I am uproud of the pride with which I did this, because practically the next week, a bee flew into my bike helmet and stung me on the ear. And just when I thought it was safe to go back to my bee-boasting, I stood on my lot yesterday chatting with James, felt a pinch on the back of my knee, squished the pincher with a reflexive snap, and spent the next four hours trying to ease the sting with a combination of arnica gel and Cabernet-Sauvignon.


Not so easily alleviated the sting issued by the neighborhood anti-welcome wagon brigade, a committee of two who took it upon themselves to visit James while he was knee-deep in rebar and inform him, in great detail, how sad it is that this new house is taking the place of the lovely, green, empty lot that they evidently thought of as their own little private slice of weed-infested Eden. Never mind that this project is 1) James’s first ever lead construction project; 2) my future home and the first house I’ve established on my own, and 3) the culmination of the talents, plans, and dreams of half dozen people. One woman’s idyll is another’s eyesore, apparently.

To be fair, things aren’t so pretty right now at 1510 17th, unless your idea of “pretty” is a hole in the ground, a silt fence, piles of dirt, yards of rebar, foundation forms, and a mishmash of cryptic neon paint markings, string, buckets, and junk (including this little red piece of crap wheelbarrow that someone just wheeled over and left on the property a couple weeks ago). In the eyes of this beholder, it goes way beyond pretty, all the way to full-on smoking hot. Jessica Alba hot. George Clooney hot. Matthew McConaughey-naked-on-the-beach hot. I’ve never seen so beautiful a pile of dirt and its accompanying hole in my life. I think you’ll agree, even if certain cranky neighbors whose window-crack views of the bay may or may not be obscured by my house don’t.

The hole, in all its glory (hee hee), is gradually disappearing, and the alleged view-blocking about to begin. I returned home yesterday to find the street between Larrabee and Donovan clogged with equipment—trucks and trailers, a cement mixer and a pumper. I parked and disembarked the Vanbulance, clapped my hands, and ran across the street in my school clothes to watch as the footings were poured. I destroyed my nylons and got my pumps dirty, but it was totally worth it to watch as the foundation of my future home began to take shape. The event wasn’t even ruined when I stood near a neighbor who was watching the pour and said to his four-year-old daughter, “These big machines are really noisy, huh?” and she replied, “Yeah. This is what we have to listen to ALL day.”

Across the street, my less-amnst-encumbered and more welcoming neighbors, the ones providing me with a home base(ment), a mailing address, and a place to store my voluminous collection of rubber stamps and crafting supplies, celebrated the progress with smiles and excitment. "It's not just negative space now," Tom said, referring to the disappearing hole. "It's a positive one!." And I thought, yeah, it is. Despite the bees...and the b-words.