women at work

I got an e-mail message from the site foreman, saying that if we were planning to stain the front door, we should do it soon, since the glass strips are ready to be inserted . So we decided to run down today--on a Halloween hangover--to finish it. (We don't want to be the excuse for any delays.) Even in the natural untouched state (above), it looked elegant, but the inside of the genkan entranceway is stained, and we're planning to do the clapboard siding as well. The stain has surprised us with the way it matches the old houses color, so we're going full speed ahead.

M brought her brand of concentration to the job . . .
. . . as did m, who as you can see takes after her mom.

Between the three of us, we were done in no time with was what was a more difficult job than expected--well, not difficult but rather painstaking in having to do all the places where the glass panels will slide into place. But it was great fun working together. There is still plenty of staining to do, but the only part that has to be done before we move in are the new shoji doors, three full-size doors and two window panels, which have to be done before the paper is attached.

But anyway, the front door is done, and it looks great, and the glass can go in with no time wasted.

M & m & m & m

bI'm not quite sure how all the M's and m's are going to take this move. That's Marco and Mario (who are, I'm convinced, a gay couple who've decided to live with us) with M. They don't know about the move yet, although Mario was dragged down to the old house many times before it was torn down. He loved running around the place and chasing bugs and he knows how to chill. Marco is a little more uptight; he was given to us after his owner died, and the owner's husband had pretty much left him in a small cage for a long time--so he stays in the "give me some affection" mode most of the time.
I've had to ask the contractor to leave some openings in the kitchen tile for these depictions of the boys, done in tile by m and her granddad. We also want to fill in a few spaces with some of these pieces of ceramics that wash up on the beach.
We have yet to stain these tesuri, or handrails on the second-floor windows. If you sit on the window sills, these are the perfect height to rest your elbow while looking down the beach and thinking about things to keep you from thinking about the things that you should be thinking of.
m's mom has a chore: to make a ceramic bowl that will become a sink that fits this slab of wood in the second-floor bathroom. We've chosen the glaze, the size, etc.--now it's just up to the clay's acceptance to mold itself into a cool shape in her hands.
A brief glimpse into the future from the second floor atrium: the walls have yet to be finished, the shoji aren't stained, the paper isn't attached and you can't see the floor. But if I squint my eyes, I can kind of see what it will look like in a few weeks.

death with brush (3)

Since m's daycare center had shut down from the pig flu epidemic, we decided I'd take the day off on Friday and we'd all go down and finish off the staining. M's sister Y came with us. (Thanks for the photos, Y, and for spending all that time with m.) When we got there, the tategu-ya--the door craftsman--was working on the main entrance door. Unlike the old interior doors, these doors are rather tall, so my brother-in-law Jim, who is six-nine and has sworn he won't come and visit unless I provide him with a hard-hat, would approve. (Although since to get into the house proper, he'd have to duck through a shoji door that's about five-ten, he'd probably whack me with his hard-hat.)
The tategu-ya is responsible for all the doors, including shoji, sliding doors, hinged doors, and all the doors to the various cabinets and closets around the house. It's a narrow specialty, since the carpenters have already built all the cabinet structures except for the doors, for example. He was working pretty much the entire day fitting these large doors, working with both a sander and a traditional plane. He'd put them up, take them down, take a few millimeters off here and there and put them back up and eyeball them again. He's going to be doing that for a few days, so we won't be able to stain them until next week.
The kitchen tiles had been laid down, though the grout had yet to been put in. This will definitely be the most Western-style of all the rooms.
And, while M did all the hard stuff, like the frames around the windows and doors, I applied myself to the big beams that cross the ceiling of the main bedroom. It was easy compared to the ceilings downstairs, but there was more area than I'd expected. We are now officially ready for the application of the keisodo plaster walls (downstairs) and keisodo cloth walls (upstairs) that will wrap up the interior finish.
I climbed out on the scaffolding to find this beautifully shaped piece connecting the gutter to the down spout. Yamada-san had told me they had found a gutter series that had been designed by an architect that they could get cheaply, but . . . damn, this is nice. Yes, a fine gutter that could change the reputations of gutters in general.
m had found a way to spruce up her eyebrows with the wood stain. She told me she looks just like a popular TV star that has huge eyebrows.
I guess it's the last time I'll be viewing the sun set into the Izu peninsula horizon through the scaffolding. It goes down on Monday--the scaffolding as well as the sun--so next week we'll be looking at a fairly complete exterior, naked to the world. It will be a birth of sorts, and I wonder if it will look anything like what we'd imagined. Though come to think of it, that's what I was wondering at the last birth I attended, and that turned out okay.

pumps and ladders

m's back going to her day care center; her thoughts about the accident seem to be fading as quickly as the bruise on her side. M finished meeting with the police yesterday, and they were egging her on to make her complaint as strong as possible so they could throw the book at the driver. We've still got negotiating to do with the driver's insurance company since regular health insurance doesn't cover accidents and we've got a $3000 bill from the hospital. So life's back to normal, except that I keep waking up from nightmares in which I'm unable to do anything to save people from death. Weird situations, too, like chasing Marina on a rickety steel ladder hundreds of feet in the air when a little baby also appears, and I have to make a choice between going after Marina or the baby. And the baby falls. . . . Four nights in a row now.

We've made all our requests to the architect now, and are waiting for his final plans which he'll bring on the 26th. If they're okay, they'll turn them in to get a building permit, and the clock starts. One of the last-minute changes we made was to keep the washing machine near the bath, instead of having it in a nook off the kitchen. It's pretty common in Japan to use the bath water for doing the wash; it's just gray water since no soap is used. A lot of washing machines even come with built-in pumps and hoses.

m is okay and I am so very grateful

Little m is okay. She was hit by a car last night in a horrific scene, with all of us within feet of her, but unable to do anything. Her little 5-year-old body was picked up and thrown 20 feet, and she landed on her side in the middle of the road. By the time I reached her, she was trying to get up and was gasping for air. I lifted her and took her to the side of the road with M and looked back at the driver. He looked at us for a moment, made eye contact and then drove off. I was screaming at him, then took m to a grassy patch on the roadside and laid her down. M was calling an ambulance.

There's plenty of guilt to go around. We were in Warabi, M's family's home, after taking some futons from the beach house to store there while we're building. There's a cheap vegetable store across the road and, as everyone else does, we waited for a break in traffic (it's not a major thoroughfare), and crossed. On the way back, I had already crossed with the bag of shopping and looked back to see little m on her own--she'd slipped her aunt's grip--standing on the yellow line. I screamed at her to stop and wait but she took two steps across the road and thunk.

The van hit her, lifted her up in the air and then both moved out of my line of vision--all in slow motion. And I died inside. That saying about life passing in front of your eyes? It was like watching a future go by, imagining life without her. I dropped all the shopping and ran around the corner, dreading what I was going to see, but she was already moving.

M's sister Y and several other people, including 2 young guys from the vegetable store, took off after the van, but he was moving fast. Little m was in shock, moving her legs and trying to get up, but she was complaining about pain in her chest and hip and I held her down and stroked her head, trying to feel for any head injuries. There were no visible wounds or scratches even, but she kept complaing about her hip. A young guy came back to tell us that he had chased down the driver (he had been in the car right behind, and had the amazing presence of mind to not gawk, but take off when the guy did), and some of the young men from the vegetable store were now holding him for the police. The driver of the taxi just next to where m was hit had stopped to help, and gave us his name as a witness before having to leave.

The paramedics were working on m and the police hadn't arrived yet. She was talking and answering questions and they lifted her on the stretcher and put her in the ambulance. M got in and they told me to wait for the police. I ran down the road for 400 meters to the place where they were holding the driver. I started to go around the van to get to the driver, but the people stopped me and said they had it under control. They said to go back to the scene and tell the police when they arrived where they had stopped them.

The police had arrived by the time I ran back. We went through a short explanation and then they brought the driver back. I kept asking if I could go to the hospital, because I really couldn't stand being around the driver. He was acting completely nonchalant, ignoring me and m's aunt Y, until finally one of the cops started yelling at him to apologize. Which he finally did, begrudgingly. I screamed at him, "Why did you run away? How could you?" and he just kept shrugging. Y was doing most of the talking, and they finally let me go.

By the time I got to the hospital, they had finished with the blood tests and x-rays, and M and m were waiting in one of the emergency rooms. m was still in shock, kind of staring silently at us. I said that she'd never told me she could fly, but I saw her fly through the air. She must have been trying to get out of the way of the car. Did she remember flying? And she nodded and smiled. And slowly started coming back to the real m.

Amazingly, the only visible damage was a bruise that was slowly changing color on her hip. There were no scrapes or scratches or cuts. The doctor returned with the test results and said there were no signs of internal bleeding and no sign of injury to her head, but that some readings are difficult because of the shock factor, so they wanted to keep her overnight for observation. Which got m crying, since she wanted to go home.

M and I spent a lot of time there at the bed, just hugging each other, while waiting for them to make the arrangements. After they got settled in, I had to get back to Tokyo to feed the cat, and spend a lot of time on the phone with the police. Not a lot of sleep last night. The image of that car slamming into her little body and seeing her tossed out of my sight just keeps playing in my mind whether my eyes are closed or open.

Y told me that after I left, she and the cops finally got a reason from the driver for his running. He told them that he was in a hurry because he'd promised to lend the car to his brother.

I don't know what to say about all the incredible people there at the time. It was as if they had all been through accident rehearsals. After Y was unable to chase down the van on foot, people along the route were handing her memos that they had written the licence plate info on. The young guys at the vegetable store had taken it upon themselves to go and hold the driver after he'd been stopped. While I was waiting, people young and old were coming up to ask if I was the father, and then would hand me canned drinks and say kind things. The paramedics, police, everyone was extremely professional and very, very kind.

I just got the call from M that they finished the tests this morning and the doctor was very optimistic. I'm not going to wait for the results; I'm heading out now.

I am so very grateful. I'll put this down as a miracle, regardless of what anyone thinks.

On a Rock or a Soft Place

This is not easy, trying to hurry up and slow down at the same time. I want to move forward on so many things, but every time a problem arises, I want the time to think it through.

This is the sea side view of the proposed house with late afternoon winter lighting, and we're no closer to getting this realized than we were a month ago. We just had another meeting with the contractors, and it was as if we were moving sideways, even backwards. Costs went up, ideas went down, new problems sprang up and my enthusiasm took a bungee jump off a bridge.

The immediate decision was that we're going to have to drill for the jiban chosa, a test of the earth to see if it will hold the proposed structure. I'm not sure why we have to go through this with two structures already on the property. But they say if we don't do it now, we'll have to do it after they've been taken down, and if we find they have to reinforce the earth then it will add more than a million unexpected yen to our budget. So I guess I'd rather know that now.

The contractor said he doesn't expect any problems, but when I brought up the fact that the obaasan, who was the former owner, said that the firm rock underneath was the reason the old house had made it through so many earthquakes and typhoons, he suddenly looked worried. It turns out he's concerned that the rock may be under only a part of the lot, and if the earth foundation is hard in one part and soft in another, the prefecture may demand that we strengthen the soft part by pounding supports into the soil.

So I'll stay down in Akiya over the weekend, and take a day off on Monday as they're coming to do the test at 9am. M's got a massage school end-of-year party on Sunday night, so it will just be m and I. Then Tuesday's a national holiday, so we'll end up with a looooong weekend. I suppose I can use it to start hauling stuff to the local dump. It's much cheaper if you do it yourself than if you hire someone, and I'm sure little m will get a thrill. It doesn't matter if it's a trip to Disneyland or a dump; she thrives on new experiences.