windows on the world

I am off through the slanting morning light to town again. The train—the last of the rush hour trains—is more full than the one I usually take just 40 minutes later. The train riders are a varied set: high school kids in school uniforms, business people with official-looking papers, university students highlighting text books, lots of people reading the relatively awful newspapers available here. The fellows behind me are talking about their common interest which seems to be collecting antique sound-making devices: jukeboxes, old telephones, old record players. I’ve turned on my ipod to get away from my weird eavesdropping curiosity about how much the last thingy sold for on ebay and how much it cost to ship it around the world.

For those of you looking for a house update: The saga of the windows continues today. How have the windows gone wrong? Let me count the ways: they have the wrong general look (we’d wanted one look for the front of the windows and they did it a different way). They open wrong (we’d wanted windows that swing open from the sides; most of these siwng open from the top). They are dribbling in with a new couple of windows arriving every day (when we were told they’d all get here on the 18^th). And, er, there is mostly no glass in the windows at all.

So, after a Saturday meeting with one of the window fellows, on Monday, Michael called the window place, irritated. The two people he’d been working with had different opinions about when the glaziers would come and who they’d coordinate with. One fellow said it was our builder’s responsibility to contact glaziers and the other one said it was the company’s responsibility to coordinate that with the builder. In any case, both were surprised that the glaziers hadn’t been in touch with us. Michael, frustrated with all this talk, said, “I need you to get someone to my house to put glass in the windowpanes!

“What do you mean?” the window guy said, confused.

“I mean that there is no glass in the windows!” Michael told him. “All the fixed panes of windows are open and the house is totally unprotected!” The fellow still didn’t understand quite what Michael meant. Which windows were missing glass? “I want you to get in your car and drive by my house,” Michael told him, “and then I really want you to find a way to get glass in the windows before the next storm.”

A couple of hours later, Michael got a phone call from the window guy. “There’s NO glass in your windows!” he said. Michael agreed. “Your house is totally unprotected against the elements!” he said, upset. Michael agreed. “I’ve never seen anything like this!” the glass fellow continued. Michael allowed that he had never seen anything like it either. There were promises made and, allegedly, there will be glass in our windows by the end of the day today. We’ll see how that works.

Windows by today, skylights finished by tomorrow, the kitchen finished next Tuesday, floor sanders in next Wednesday. We think we’ll move 10 March. Zowie. And now we'll be able to remember why we bought this house in the first place!

PS The windows look excitingly good--they're still wrong, but SO much better than plywood!