Drop My Monkey (Part II)

I'm starting to feel sorry for our contractors. They finally got their plans down to our budget area, and come in with complete architectural plans, beautifully rendered on a computer with all the symbols for everything from water/electricity to windows, beams, posts and earthquake reinforcement (detail above). And, of course, just as they sit back feeling pleased with their endeavors, we throw back at them with a completely different second floor, ripping out walls, water systems, windows and flopping stairwells, which has T-san, the architect, scribbling like mad until he comes up with:

Ahh, much better, we say, as T-san holds his heads in his hands. Okay, so the post (or strut) runs up right through the middle of the master bedroom, which we've moved six feet away from the beach-side windows, and the study is now directly overlooking the sea (which means working will be an incredibly strenuous undertaking). But now m has her closet accessible from her room, we've ended up with a large (by Japanese standards) walk-in closet with a loft, and to top it off, I've just found out that T-san didn't know that the term for the sliding wooden locks on traditional storm windows in Japanese is "monkey."

But T is nothing if not forgiving, both me for my arrogance at cockily bandying about an obscure term that he hasn't ever had to know to keep his clients happy (until now), and us for wanting to get the best out of what we're putting into this house. So he grins and promises to have the new plans for us in "two weeks--maybe three." Meanwhile, we commit to the ultrasound check of our soil, and start talking about schedule. As our feet settle in the slowly drying commitment we're making to our lives, M and I turn to each other and shrug. We've got another couple weeks to think of more things to drive T crazy.