Wow, have four months really passed? Yes, indeed. There are several reasons for my absence here, most notably that we were both gone to the USA for two months (in fact, Julie is still there for another week). It was both work and pleasure for us - we each had office trips mixed in with visits to friends, and I also did a tour of 33 shows, just returning Tuesday. When I'm out of the country, I never really feel like blogging here, and with all the moving around I didn't have much chance to sit and write anyway.

Even before we left, though, it was a bit hard to blog in this space. The house has become a boondoggle, an albatross, even - dare I say it - a joke. Traveling around and seeing friends, everyone would ask if it was done yet, and I would just have to roll my eyes and murmur...nope, nope. Not yet.

It has been three years now since we broke ground, and the time has come for us to get serious. Although we're happy with our living situation in our rental, it feels like we have been treading water, waiting on our own house to be done. The point of moving to Mexico was to buy a house to live in, and still, that goal has not been achieved, nearly four years after driving down from California.

The final impetus for really getting on the ball about finishing our home was going to visit the land on Wednesday. Historically - yes, we can speak from experience - when we leave on a trip, all work comes to a grinding halt, regardless of promises made and emails sent. This time was no different. There was some progress - our entrance gate is about 80% completed - but for two months, our hope was that nearly everything remaining would be finished. This did not take place. And as usual there were curveballs - the tile we'd bought to surround our tub is a type of thick glass, which apparently needed to be custom cut at a high cost - and our architect never bothered to contact us about it, though email is our usual mode of communication. She just did it, but only, apparently, last week. Bah.

More than anything, we can feel the end of the year coming, and we can't bear the thought of 2009 arriving and our house, begun in 2005, stil not being completed. So it is with great reluctance that we have decided to cancel the trip to Italy we were looking forward to (airline miles are our friend), and though we each have a bit of travel this fall, as much as possible we are going to stick around and make this project our priority. I met with our architect yesterday and made her commit to some firm, aggressive deadlines, and by golly, I'm going to visit the site every day if I can, making sure that progress is being made.

Basically, we need her to finish the tile in the master bathroom, install the tub and sink, put up a bit of drywall, and have a railing for the terrace put in. She committed to having all this happen in the next five weeks. After that comes paint, then doors, then closets, then the kitchen. Then, the installation of our solar setup...then, furniture. And we move in.

Can all this happen by December 31, 2008? Stay tuned!

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...