further updates

I thought it'd be all done by now as of this week.... BUT....

Last Tuesday was the original appointment day with the health inspector after spending 2 weeks hunting her down, how ever she did not show up. I kept calling everyday there after till Thursday, no answer, no calling back. She hit my limit by Friday. I called the main office attempted to change inspector, apparently, it's not an option. My call was forward to her supervisor, after explaining to him about the situation at 9:30 am, I received a call from the inspector herself at 1:30 pm announcing her arrival in an hour. My instinct tells me she's coming with a vengeance. Having a couple of guys there might defuse her a bit I thought, but my contractor was pouring concrete at another job site. After spending 20 mins at the shop, she quickly listed 14 items for correction. Items were passed by the building inspector, we now have to replace and re-finish by her rules. Well, she dumped a shit load of rotten lemons over my face there.

Late last week, I made arrangements to have furniture delivered on Saturday from 3 stores. Due to the inspection incident, I had to cancel them all except one that I picked up on Friday morning. My sis-in-law met with me at an antique store to pick up a Ching Dynasty antique bed I purchased back in Nov. When we showed up, the girl at the store raised an eyebrow, “just the 2 of you?”. Well, 4 ladies dissembled the bed into panels and loaded them up to my truck. The young lady was later inspired by the fact that women can do what our mind inhibits us from doing. Here I was hauling a truck full of furniture down the free way when I got the call from the inspector. Well, I can’t move the bed in as a result, so my sis-in-law suggested taking the whole thing back to her garage for temporary storage. 40 miles later, we were back to her house. Seeing my niece, nephew and my parents shifted my attention from the problems, I was happy to be there with the kids. It turned out the load was too big even for the garage.

Saturday, I dragged the whole load with me every where I went. My girlfriend’s taking a night class at UCLA, a marketing class for the medical industry. A paper is due next Thursday. I hauled the load to her house and stayed there over night to work on the paper. Lemom flower patels rained all over the bed over night, it smelled quite nice. A blessing from a fairy!

Sunday morning, I hauled the whole thing back to my place, some of the panels are too tall to go under the garage door, I ended up parking the truck on the street while I took a shower. Yes, I was paranoid the whole time. I invited a few LA tea members for a preview of the shop at 2 pm. There I hauled the whole thing back to where it was supposed to be 2 days later. The world does go around! After setting everything up and while waiting, I started unloading the tall pieces. My logic was to leave the heavy low height pieces on the truck so I can get in my garage, then unload them when the contractors are there on Monday. Takuro our newest LA tea member showed up and helped me moving, Will and Louis showed up soon after and lent helping hands too. I can’t thank these guys enough for helping! Nick joined us for tea later as well. After tea, I can’t resist the temptation to put the bed back together, so I did and it looks wonderful, covered with plastic sheets.

Today, I arrived at the shop early in the morning, had a meeting with my contractor Marco and Tim the plumber, discussed issues regarding the “corrections”. We decided to find out about what we can get away by meeting the inspector at her office tomorrow morning, Tim will be the spokes person. A couple of guys laid the bamboo floor and put on a second layer of stains over the counters. I went for a ride with Tim to a plumbing specialty store for a new water heater, one of the major replacements. Yeah the effort I put into moving that giant 75 gallon tank inside the store was a waste. Well, what can you do! No one seems to know the BTU equivalence of 18kw electric model. Health department says 80k btu, the manufacturer says 62k. Knowing this is a potential opportunity for the inspector to pick on, we printed the spec sheets for tomorrow’s meeting. Once she agrees to something, she can’t eat her own words later.

Any how, it was an interesting ride with Tim. Tim is a veteran from Ronald Reagan times, met the Reagans 4 times during his presidency at the white house with honors and metals. He seems to be well read judging from the conversation, well aware of world issues, and I found 3 books in his truck. When I first met Tim a week ago, he was a happy camper with a girlfriend. Over the weekend, his gf broke up with him, and that lead to an interesting conversation, rater unexpectedly profound. The subject of living together prior to marriage was the start of the conversation. His point of view is despite the common belief of living together prior marriage prepares you for an emerging marriage, statistic shows other wise, twice of the couples who lived together prior marriage tend to divorce more than ones who didn’t. A conventional old fashion care taker that Tim is, in his own words, explained what the word husband means, besides a woman’s spouse. Husband means a man with duty to make a woman happy, take good care of the people in the house, ensures the family is functioning smoothly. My eyes got a bit watery there. Then he carried on. What is self? The existence of self has no meaning unless you can please and contribute to your love ones. Self-centered which many of are in this society contributes to high divorce rate and self-isolation. What makes a man happier than waking up in the morning, a woman thanks god for a man’s presence in her life? Well… I don’t get to hear something like this with a serious tone much nowadays, or it was just words without delivery of action. It certainly made me contemplate for a while. Goodness in a man has no boundary, not limited by education background, profession, or bank account! Cheers to that!