'Our Year at The Fahm' - After 4.5 *Actual Years* - is Drawing to a Close

As all good things must do, our time here at The Fahm as full time residents is slowly drawing to a close. I am fresh off a month-long employment and housing exploration in my favorite hometown ever, Santa Cruz, CA, where we will be relocating - at least part-time - sooner rather than later.

Just Another Day at The Fahm

Yesterday began as a very pleasant day, with our morning spent introducing The Fahm to our visitors, my brother Joe and my nephew Benjamin. Raj gave Benjamin a very thorough tutorial in Lawn Tractoring, after which Benjamin rode off to spend several hours towing huge piles of brush to and fro, and mowing the back meadow and the backyard into submission. At nearly sixteen, Benjamin is quite tall, with wide shoulders and a rangy build; he looks perfectly at home with his straw Fahm hat on, rumbling around doing the work of a real live Fahm Hand.

Meanwhile, Joe and I headed out to pick blackberries.  The Sledding Meadow has wild blackberries growing all along the north side of the field, and I have been determined to harvest at least some of them.  Blackberry bushes are very pokey things, and these particular bushes are very, very wild and have never been near fertilizer or soil enhancement in their entire berry lives. The berries therefore tend to be very small and quite tart, and truly a pain in the a** to pick.

But pick we did, dropping the tiny but lovely berries plink, plonk, plink, plonk into our Tupperware containers. Joe was actually going more like "plink, plonk, popinthemouth, plink, plonk, popinthemouth" which went on for about an hour and a half. We ended up with a small but tidy and tasty harvest of just enough blackberries for two small pots of jam. As I've said, tiny berries, pokey plants, and pains in the a** really cut into our harvestational new word motivation.

Later in the afternoon Raj and Joe and Benjamin and Zoya went for a trek down to The Reservoir; I took advantage of their absence to make salsa then went upstairs to put my feet up and read my new library book for a few minutes. Vini went downstairs to start the rice for dinner and a little while later, tapped on my bedroom door. "Sara, the water coming out of the kitchen faucet is brown...What shall we do about it?"

"Perfect!" I thought to myself, "Now the WATER coming from our WELL is BROWN."

Out loud, I said, "Well, that's a problem, huh?" and we both laughed.  I checked the water in the upstairs bathroom, and it was brown. Then I showed Vini a funny video that I had just watched on the Intertubes, and we laughed at that, and then I went downstairs to see the brown water in the kitchen.

"I was just washing the rice, and I kept rinsing and rinsing, thinking, 'this is very dirty rice!' but after the 10th time of rinsing it and having the water stay brown, I said, 'hey, wait a minute!"

I told her I thought having some random thing go wrong while Joe and Benjamin are visiting is the perfect taste of Life in The Vortex that The Fahm represents, and therefore something to welcome, and we laughed at that. I was just trying to decide who to call: Raj? The Well Man up the road? David Oles? when Benjamin returned to The Vortex followed in short order by Raj, Zoya, and Joe. "Don't drink the water!" I commanded the sweaty disheveled quartet, "The water is brown. Something fell in the well."

"SHIT!" was Raj's heartfelt response, although happily he wasn't referring to what might have fallen in our well. He stated with great conviction that the brown color was just dirt, that something had indeed fallen from the interior surface of the well shaft and had just muddied the waters. It was somewhere around this point that Benjamin turned to me and said jokingly, "Relax!" Joe shook his head sharply saying with the wisdom of his own hard experience, "Oh Benjamin, never tell Auntie Sara to relax!" I gave Benjamin a very stern Death Stare but nevertheless said with great patience, "Benjamin, when someone, particularly someone of the MALE persuasion, tells me to RELAX, it really just makes me more UPTIGHT. Like UPTIGHT in a 'Rip Your Head From Your Body' sort of way, you know what I'm sayin'?"

As we explained the "Relax" rules to Benjamin, Raj went to the sink, to do some fiddling and twisting. After a few moments, "Uh...I need a screwdriver - now the tap's stuck open!" He went over to the tool bag and rootled through it muttering to himself, "Phillips or flathead? Phillips or flathead?" Joe, watching the chaos unfold from the relative safety of the kitchen doorway, revealed his perfect grasp of the situation, saying, "Hey! This is a real Fahm moment!"

We ran the water and ran the water and ran the water and eventually the water ran clear again, and so we are back to enjoying the crystalline frosty waters of The Fahm's Very Own Well.  All in all, just another day here in The Vortex...

Tornado Watch

I sent text messages to my Mom, and Michele, that we were under a tornado watch yesterday and the day before, tornado watch being something entirely new to me and therefore worthy of sharing.  In the middle of battening down the hatches here at The Fahm I received these text responses:

(From my Mom)

"Duck and cover!"

and

(From Michele)

"If you see The Wizard, ask for lots of cash and don't let any BIATCHES* near those slippers!"

Onward Unicorns!

*  "BIATCHES" is code for any person intent upon stealing one's Mojo**

** Mojo, Noun.

1. Self-confidence, Self-assuredness as in basis for belief in ones self in a situation.

...

2. Ability to bounce back from a debilitating trauma and negative attitude.

"Installing and Configuring The Fahm's Dish Network HD DVR" or, "Why Be a Dish Guy If You're Afraid of Heights?"

Saturday, while I was washing dinner dishes from the night before and the morning's breakfast dishes, doing 8 loads of laundry, filling the kitchen wood box, replenishing the kindling carrier, sweeping the kitchen floor to get up the worst of wood/leaf/log/ash detritus, and keeping the kitchen fire burning NO MATTER WHAT, Raj was having an entirely *different* set of adventures. After some deep confusion on the part of the Dish people, we were finally to have our Dish Network HD DVR installed, and Raj was especially primed for that; Celtics season opener is thundering down the lane toward us (tomorrow night, as a matter of fact), and he was getting a little antsy. The Dish Man arrived at the very last minute of his time window (when else?) in an unmarked minivan, honking, and for the hundredth time in a week, Raj and I murmured to one another chagrined, "We really need to get some street numbers to put on that mailbox!" before letting him in.

As I've mentioned, it was rainy and cold and windy but what's a little rain and cold after all to a New Englander when there's work to be done? David O. gave us a call, wanting to know if Raj would work with him to clear more of the downed trees straddling the two properties. It meant working with a gas-powered chain saw, and since Raj is never one to pass up that opportunity, I told him I would deal with the Dish Man. He put on my dad's old red windbreaker, pulled up the hood over his woolen watch cap, donned his work boots, then splashed off, whistling.

I was in the kitchen minding my own business, going back and forth between chores while listening to Wait Wait...Don't Tell Me! on WBUR (Boston's Public Radio Station!) when it suddenly occurred to me that I hadn't heard any sounds coming from the Dis (that's a typo but it's staying) Man for what seemed like a very long time though earlier I had seen him go past the house carrying his very tall, yellow, sturdy-looking aluminum ladder.  I was just going to check on him when he emerged looking somewhat strained, from the French Room, asking me to telephone Raj.  As I turned to reach for the phone Raj walked into the kitchen via the coal room, soaked to the skin, announcing brightly, "Hey! It's RAINING out there!"

The Dish Man pulled Raj aside for a whispered consultation before both disappeared toward the back of the house. Moments later I saw Raj go toward the barn before reappearing with Frank's very old, tall, rickety-looking wooden ladder (the scofflaw roofer made off with The Fahm's very tall, sturdy aluminum ladder but that's a whole 'nother Better Business Bureau issue) and heading back toward the French Room.

Raj told me the rest of the story after the Dish Man finally - and wearily - departed from The Vortex (aka The Fahm), too traumatized to do anything other than wave weakly at me as he drove away. 

As I think I've mentioned, it was rainy and cold.  The Fahm, as it happens, has very high and steeply pitched roofs, and, our particular Dish Man, as it also happens, is afraid of heights. The Dish Man asked if Raj wouldn't mind going up to the roof and adjusting the dish since Dish Man didn't feel it was safe for him to go up and do the adjusting.  This struck Raj as a rather odd request but being the good sport - and mountain goat - he agreed to climb right up the very old, tall, rickety-looking wooden ladder which he had leaned against the face of the house. But first, Raj and Dish Man spent 20 minutes using a rope as a hoist to get the ladder positioned where Dish Man thought it should be.  Raj finally got up to the dish and sat up there in the rain tweaking it, doing his best to follow Dish Man's less-than-descriptive instructions. Sample:

Dish Man: "Just turn it a little bit."

Raj: "Okay - I'm seeing at some numbers on the dial here..."

Dish Man: "You don't need to use those numbers."

Raj: "But,uh..."

Dish Man: "C'mon, just turn it a little bit, man!"
Raj: "OK. I turned it a little bit. Anything?"
Dish Man: "No. Not yet. Just turn it a little bit."
Raj: "OK. I turned it a little bit. Anything?"
Dish Man: "No. Not yet. Just turn it a little bit."
Raj: "OK. I turned it a little bit. Anything?"
Dish Man: "No. Not yet. Just turn it a little bit."

...

As Raj had plenty of time to take in his surroundings while sitting on the roof in the rain tweaking the dial, he happened to glance across the roof toward the back of the house where lo and behold: there was Dish Man's very tall, yellow, sturdy-looking aluminum ladder, leaning against the rear of the house. As Dish Man had never actually mentioned that ladder to Raj - even as he watched Raj haul the wooden one from the barn before leaning it against the front of The Fahm, and struggled with him to position it, Raj found that odd as well. Adding insult to injury, the devised method was not at all successful in getting adequate signal; after just over an hour of sitting on the roof in the cold windy rain, Raj came back down. Dish Man was very discouraged. Raj was very determined.

What followed were lengthy negotiations between Dish Man, Dish HQ, and Raj; apparently Dish Man is compensated PER JOB and per diem, not per hour. Raj couldn't help but overhear - as Dish Man spent interminable minutes on the phone with Dish HQ - that Dish Man was trying to convince Dish HQ to implement their "Inclement Weather" measures. Implementing such measures would mean that Dish Man would be compensated right away for our job as if he had finished the job, and then he would receive additional pay for the same job, when he returned to finish the job after the weather was not so inclement. Raj got on the phone with them and argued for Dish Man's dispensation. Dish HQ wasn't having any of it. Dish Man was even more discouraged. Raj was just as determined.

Raj hung up the phone and looked at Dish Man. Dish Man rolled his eyes skyward and heaved a deep, deep sigh. He turned around resignedly, stepped outside to the back of the house, climbed right up his ladder, adjusted the dish, and within moments, had acquired sufficient signal. Dish Man, not at all happy that he had ended up on what he clearly viewed as "Suicide Roof," slunk down from the ladder, and returned to the French Room (for what we all hoped was the final time) with visibly quaky knees.

AFTER ONLY 4.5 HOURS.

Raj gathered up all the cash we had in the house and raided the Accord's ashtray for coin so we could give him a tip.  We hadn't been to the bank yet, and had paid Chip in cash just the afternoon before, so Dish Man's tip came to the grand sum of only $20 - in singles, a $5 bill, a $10 bill and $1 coins.  He appreciated the gesture though, and could certainly see that we had given him everything we had on hand.  Raj and I haven't independently tested the DVR function yet but we will, and before tomorrow night's 7:30 p.m. EDT tip-off against the Cavs!

Tourbillon

Raj and I agreed the other day that The Fahm must lie in a tourbillon (a real word that I did not make up but that I lurve) along the lines of the Bermuda Triangle, or more benignly, the Santa Cruz Mystery Spot.  Murphy's Law trumps every other law including, occasionally, Newton's and Einstein's.

Things that should fit, do not. Items disappear with appalling regularity before reappearing in unexpected places.  Repair and/or replacement of virtually anything on The Fahm costs approximately 4x the national average for the same repair anywhere else AND is 4x more complicated. Latched doors open of their own accord. Lamps turn on and off by themselves in the middle of the night. As noted previously, kitchen utensils are capable of independent motion.

Brimstone Manor - aka The Fahm - is upping the ante!  ;)