I know it's been a long time. I am sorry. There are things to report, few of which are upbeat as regards to progress, hence it's been hard to generate the enthusiasm. But our bad luck leads to better stories for you, I know.

I seriously doubt I'll be the first, but let me warn those who are thinking of building a house; prepare yourself for an endless series of frustrations absolutely inconceivable at the outset.

Toward the end of February, we were told that it's time to buy shower faucet handles, or llaves, which is also the word for keys. Fine. As usual, this involves numerous trips to stores and to websites, picking out a design that we liked and that would be somewhat in harmony with the bathroom fixtures we'd already bought and with the tone of the rest of the house. In this case the process wasn't nearly as tortuous as picking tile (simply because there are less choices), and we settled on a nice set made by a popular and respected brand (Kohler). It happens to be the only brand carried by the international chain of tile stores where we've bought 90% of our tile.

However, as we were preparing to pay we were told that this brand requires a particular set of valves (simply put, the part of the faucet handles that you don't see) of the same brand; the more common universal valves won't work. We seemed to remember that all of the plumbing except the handles themselves had already been installed, so we decided to wait on the purchase and fired off an email to our architect telling her of the conversation, including a document listing the specifications. She responded in a few days and said that she'd checked on it, and that no changes would be necessary, we could use the handles we wanted with the existing valves. Curiously, however, she went on to say that the brand we wished to buy did not seem to be of "good quality" and that she highly recommended we instead use the national Mexican brand, which costs about a fifth of what Kohler does and which is not especially well-regarded. At that point, emitting from nowhere in particular, the distinct and not at all unfamiliar odor of rat wafted through the room, though it may have just been in our minds.

Rather than taking her at her word, we decided to check with the store again. This time, they brought out a set of the heavy brass valves for me to look at, explaining exactly which parts were incompatible with the standard handles. We were again impressed by the quality of the stuff, and decided that we'd be willing to swallow the cost of buying these valves and having the plumbing redone. We fired off another email to the architect, saying we had solid word that we needed these other valves, but we still wanted to go through with it.

Now, when we'd first asked our architect about the handles, the week before, the pipes were still visible and there was no tile yet laid in the master bathroom. That week, it was suddenly made top priority for the tile to be laid there, so when I visited the project over the weekend I realized that now, they'd have to tear out all the new tile to get at the valves underneath. More money and time to be lost...great.

The architect replied, saying she wanted to stop by the tile place herself to confer. More time passed; visiting the next weekend, we saw that no work had been done on any part of the house. These things were apparently the, well, key to progressing.

The next week, at last, she agreed; yep, we need the new valves (thanks for the tip!). Once again she advised us to use the national brand, citing all the work that would have to be done, but said it could be done if we really wanted it. By now, oh yes, we really wanted it, and could see that her advising against our favorite mark was just a way to avoid doing extra work. But there was a fresh, heretofore-unheard wrinkle. She told us that, unfortunately, it would be especially hard to install these valves because our walls aren't thick enough.

Our walls are not thick enough. A herd of rats, none of whom had showered in a week, scampered by in a tornado fog of garlic flatus. Did she expect us to believe that one must construct bathroom walls of a certain depth just so a certain brand of faucet handle could be used? Back in July of 2005, before the first brick had been laid, were we not only to have picked out our faucet handles but also pressed both architect and vendor hard enough so that someone, finally, would admit that we needed a double row of bricks in an interior bulkhead on the plans to support said handles?

You have GOT to be kidding me. We repaired to the store on our own once again to confirm this ridiculous preposition. Cheerily, they told us, oh right, you're gonna need 20 centimeters. We have about 15. "Oh yeah, that's normal."

It was this statement, coupled with the fact that every employee at this store recognizes us on the phone before introducing ourselves, that leads me to believe that they don't sell a whole lot of Kohler faucets in Oaxaca, and in fact, we may be the only people who have ever tried to buy them.

So, at this point, two months after our first inquiry, we finally gave up. It just seemed to finally be a bit much to not only break off a large section of fresh tile, dig out a large area of concrete, scrap the existing tubing, then replace it all, but also to have to add six inches to the wall, just so we could have our priceless little handles.

Oh well. At least we could have Kohler showerheads, both the store and the architect told us. At first.

Hahahahahahaha.

As some of you may remember, way back when we had a little episode with fenceposts spontaneously spawning in inconvenient places. Though that issue resolved itself as mysteriously as it began, once again poles have appeared in places we don't want them. In this case, they form a rough perimeter around our property, though in positions that don't seem to conform with what our deed says.

We were confused about it for a good week - could it be a neighbor? the town? the government? - but yesterday, finally, our architect fessed up, as if it was no big deal. She claims that during a visit a year ago, we had mentioned wanting posts to someday delineate our borders. So, for once, she took some initiative and made it happen, without bothering to ask us again. If only we could translate this initiative into real action...sigh.

One thing which has appeared, and welcomely so, is RUNNING WATER. Whoa!

They work! We think!

This feels like a really big step. I've been too chicken to actually use the fixtures yet - it's a little weird to see the precise route where your human by-products will travel to their resting/decomposing spot - but the water is there in the bowl and one must believe that there are pipes connecting it to the big treatment tank. Naturally, even after asking us by email three times and by telephone once, they installed the wrong sink with the wrong faucets in the wrong bathroom. But that wasn't even a surprise at this point.

And here's the big picture, currently:

Right now, they're working on a concrete base for the bathtub, after which they'll be tiling the remaining bathroom. Then they'll be doing a small addition to the wall at the top right (where the tank is), for safety's sake, after which painting should start. Poco a poco...

I'm sorry, once again I've neglected this blog. We've been busy, with Julie going to the States, my dad and stepmom coming to visit, and us having visited Puebla three times in two months just for the food.

There are lots of house happenings that I have to talk about, too. Yet still, let me temper it by saying that much remains to be done. As you may have noticed, we are well into 2008, and it will take a minor miracle for us to be in by July, our three-year anniversary of groundbreaking. We have become a cautionary parable ("These people moved to Mexico and it took three years to build a house, be warned against embarking on the same foolishness!"), or a humorous anecdote ("These people moved to Mexico and it took three years to build a house, hahahaha!"). Take your pick.

We had a great time with my folks. They were ambitious enough to agree to our plan for them to arrive in Mexico City, bus to Puebla, then bus to Oaxaca, all in the space of ten days. Meals were had, sights were seen, and many taxicabs were shared in DF. By the way, always agree on a price before entering a cab there. We stayed in the Zona Rosa, and for our frequent trips to the Polanco neighborhood, we were quoted both 25 pesos and 180 pesos, and a range in between. The largest city in North America rarely hesitates to take the opportunity to rip you off.

Showing off Oaxaca is always fun. This time, we rented a four-door car to spare our guests the uncomfortable indignity of being stuffed in the half-seats in the extended cab of our pickup. If you're going to rent in Mexico, first be sure to reserve a car online, you can get a rate nearly as cheap as is possible in the States, though the advertised walk-up rate can be five times that. And take really, really good care of the car while it's in your possession. As we found when renting a car out of DF, several years before moving here, they will search the vehicle high and low for any small dents or nicks you may have caused. In that earlier visit to Mexico City, we had to pay for new tires because there were "bumps" on them. I was luckier this time and nothing was found, but three men plus a little boy spent a full fifteen minutes inspecting every corner of the VW Polo, including the undercarriage, when I returned it after five days. Harrowing. Oh yes, and you're required to buy the daily insurance, which is probably a good thing.

We saw our house, saw the largest organic mass in the Americas, visited the rug town of Teotitlan and the pottery town of San Bartolo Coyotepec, went to market in Etla, found reasons to visit a small panolpy of other pueblas, and did a whole lot of walking downtown (with occasional stops into chocolate shops to revive ourselves with the smell). We may have run our visitors a little ragged, but I'm sure they weren't bored.

Now, on to our property. Probably the most exciting thing is that our entrance road is finished. Last weekend we actually drove down the new concrete tracks the steeply curving lane and up to our house. Unbelievable! We parked on the loose gravel that had been provided as a parking area on the sloping north side of our structure, and simply hopped out to walk right into our place. When it was time to leave, we hopped right in again, threw it in reverse...and spun like mad for a full minute 'til we smelled the tires burning. Uh oh. Loose gravel on a grade does not a solid surface make. Though our main worry had been the ascent of our lane, simply backing out of our parking spot then became a project for the rest of the afternoon. We dug away the stones, found cardboard to put under the wheels, and lurched forward and back to try to find a better angle, but we were getting absolutely nowhere. Our elation at the sight of our truck on our land had dissipated into a growing panic at getting it out of there again. Finally we found a couple of big flat boards, rolled forward onto them to get a head start, and noisily spun our way onto level ground, gravel flying in all directions.

Julie chose to hop out for the much more intimidating lane ascent, which went without incident except for a brief spin on some dirt that had been kicked up on the cement when we entered. I'd taken a running start to build up some good momentum and went on up at a smooth but slightly terrifying 25 mph or so - I didn't want to take any chances.

We have a gas tank on the roof, we have a water tank beside that, we have classic red roof tile, we have wall and floor tile completed in two bathrooms and waiting in boxes for the third. And we have toilets and sinks ready to be installed, a bit under duress. We received an urgent email from our architect earlier in the month saying we needed to buy toilets - NOW. Turns out that the bacteria who live inside the sewage treatment plant only have a six-month life before they starve, and it had suddenly been nearly half a year since installation. So we needed toilets, and fast, so we could send the microscopic little sanitation workers some...food. Ew. They're being installed today, and hopefully in enough time so we haven't killed them, or we're going to have a really terrible sewage problem in six months or so.

The forgetfulness on this important issue is just one of our continuing beefs with our architect. Sometimes it feels like we're at war, with bills and stern emails as the heavy rockets, and forgotten details and sudden panics as the undercover weapons of attrition. Each advance still feels like a chore, and there are seemingly countless steps left to go. Yet progress continues, and our house is looking more and more like a livable structure. With windows and working toilets, I can almost picture what it'll be like to actually wake up there every day, some time in the unimaginable future.