Foundation Preparation & Fear

Okay -- so I got my new iPhone to talk to my computer and now I can post photos from the phone -- I know -- nobody is impressed, but I am jazzed.

This is the old kitchen linoleum that we are getting rid of! Good riddance!

And here is what I found scrawled on one of the inside walls. Sad, really, to see my house walls covered in disrespectful scratchings and scribbles. But, these walls do have to go to make room for the new walls!

Here are some views of the trenches dug in the side yard where the foundation for the new family room and expanded kitchen will go.

And here's Jackson, woo hoo, helping load the van with all those boxes of poetry books.

Please note the rubble. That's real rubble. How many of us really see real rubble in our daily lives? Thankfully, not many of us here in Cupertino. It's frightening, rubble is. It is profoundly unsettling to see a house fall down, even if you've planned for it, asked for it, and are paying for it. I think I need a poem. Thank God for Elizabeth Bishop. (See below)

And this is Ruth's philodendron, that lived with Bob when Ruth did, and has spent the last 15 years in our hall bathroom, crawling across the ceiling. It's looking for a new home -- even philodendrons are sometimes afraid.

"September rain falls on the house.
In the failing light, the old grandmother
sits in the kitchen with the child
beside the Little Marvel Stove,
reading the jokes from the almanac,
laughing and talking to hide her tears."

(from 'Sestina' by Elizabeth Bishop)