Halperin & Christ

the floor was completed. the trim is done and painted. two accent walls in each bathroom are painted and all the thresholds between tiles and wood floor are done!

eric’s cousins and mom arrived and joined the tile babes and sanded, caulked and spackled windows.

the green tiles for the kitchen floor finally came and were installed by beth and emilio.

we have two tile dudes: colton and avi.

the bathroom floors are all grouted.

christian michiganders came at about 2:00 to install finish flooring and we were pushed off the job! now we will have to paint over finished floor….go figure……this process works in mysterious ways!

so we took the afternoon off, luckily we had an early start and lots of helpers so still much was accomplished.

eric golfed, rose relaxed and the rest of us swam in the gulf.

you know it’s hot when the gulf water is hotter than your shower water.

we are going to the shed for blues and bbq tonight.

we are all saddened by the loss of michael jackson, farrah fawcett and teo the dog (ruben, emilio and avi’s dog).

tile threshold         finished floor   jambed window     

today in her final effort before she left laura grouted the beautiful  biloxi blue bath floor. but she was not alone in the effort. the tile babes rallied in support of her. barb’s final effort was fully engaged with rose in finishing the pink floor layout and cementing tiles. those two tile babes will be sorely missed. we are hoping to recruit new babes later in the week.

the pink floor continues in it’s quest to equal the magnificence of the blue floor. it’s about 2 days away, more work to be done, fewer babes to do it. our techniques though have improved.

the boys were jambing on and on. they may never finish. (not!)

soon we will be caulking, sanding and painting the newly applied jambs and trim.

clearly it was way to hot for most people to work so instead many visitors came by to check our handiwork: david perkes (head architect of gccds),vince(fellow architect), seth (shirley’s architect), stan the materials man with much insight about life after the storm and jeremy of hope force.

record high temperatures continue to engulf the gulf………today not a breeze was to be felt.

t

     grouting          w/ architect        tile babes

last night fran industriously did the laundry.  fortunately eric’s shorts emerged from the wash, fresh and clean, unfortunately his phone emerged from the wash dead and limpid, ready for the trash (which is picked up on tuesdays and fridays).

fortunately eric was able to work all day. unfortunately fran and eric had to leave a bit early to go to the verizon store.

fortunately there was a $100 of credit for equipment, unfortunately it didn’t cover the new pink blackberrry fran purchased.

meanwhile………………………

a tremendously terrific transitional threshold was tiled by three of the titillating tile tarts……

we have two new tile babes in our midst, three new tile cutters, one new jamber, one new backer board installer and two new runners.  much was accomplished!

the kids and ruben salted themselves in the gulf which ruben discovered is not fresh water.

beth slept for 5 hours.

emilio won at uno twice.

a sumptuous meal was prepared which included fresh local produce and all is good at the historic harrison house.

tomorrow is another day.

after a slow frustrating start to the day where we were introduced to non-profit bureaucracy and idiotic red tape we perservered, found the key to the back door of the supply warehouse and got us some tiles to begin our day.

fran  propositioned a guy (Guy) in the lowes parking lot and the guy (Guy) had a truck and delivered our 5 sheets of hardi backer to the job site. way to go guy (Guy), way to go Fran.

hardi backer down, (thanks eric) the tile babes (barb, laura, fran, francie, juliet, steph and rachel) ruled and layed the floor on down……it is………….a thing of beauty, which of course as we all know, is a joy forever. 

lunch today was provided by shirley…..mississippi style gumbo and rice….yummmmmmmmmmmmmmm!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (it seems as though shirley is happy with the floor)

eric and greg continued jamming on the jambs and started trimming the windows.

it was, as you weather watchers may know, record heat today, 95 but it felt like 110!

we bid adieu to jeannie and mike, steph, jeff and rachel and welcomed into our midst ned and rose, ruben, beth, abby, emilio, avi and colton.

ned and rose shopped but didn’t drop and are fixing us a fabulous dinner.

we are plum tuckered out!

yesterday somebody had a birthday….she’s now 30!

the event was celebrated at world famous commander’s palace where a good time was had by all.

fran propositioned a guy (lorenzo our waiter) but he didn’t jump to the bait.

we ate shrimps bbq’d louisiana style, a great salad and pecan pie with caramel sauce and chocolate ganache…..and serenaded by a dixieland trio……

the kitchen floor was tiled today by 8 tile babes and mac in 98 degree heat (but it felt like 104)

greg and eric jammed on the window jambs without peanut butter….

and jeff cut tiles like he was being paid for it…..

lunch was served under the house and a vast quantity of gatorade was consumed by all.

coming back home we walked a quarter mile out into the gulf of mexico (got all the way up to our knees) and watched two crabs and several flying fish do their thing.

the boys played golf, the boys bbq’d, the girls cooked all the vegetables and jeff did the dishes.

games were played (hearts and bananagrams), wine and margaritas were consumed, bracelets were made by rachel and gifted to all.

shirley is happy with her new floor and promises to make gumbo on monday.

life is good on the gulf…….

Its almost two am, Fran just turned 50, and we all feel younger! Now we are all going to bed. Good night.

visited two projects under construction today in biloxi: shirley’s house, pictured to the right and mary pat and tony’s house, designed by the visiting architectural students. both houses are interesting and creative, shirley’s is high up in the air, just like patty’s. apparently that is the code now, houses must be a certain height above flood level.

shirley’s job is being run by seth who is on a rose fellowship in biloxi for three years.  he’s a graduate from new orleans, originally from indiana. he and eric should have some hoosier items to discuss.  shirley seems to be up for a tile mosaic on her kitchen floor so this afternoon was spent searching for tile. you know it is bleak when home depot has the best tiles available. the challenge here is doing interesting design with very limited resources!

we are happy to report that cvs pharmacy is selling canvas shopping bags……of course they are not up front at the register but still….it’s a start.

we made it to biloxi….gulfport that is. actually, the two are joined into one big long city that runs parallel to the gulf coast.

all very uneventful….we were pretty bleary from waking up at 4 am to take a 6 am flight.  the plane from houston to gulfport is tiny. you would feel rather claustrophobic if you were much taller than 6′.

our house is fabulous, one block from the beach and we have been serenaded all evening by the marriott hotel rock band! a major step up from the shrimp shack!

it’s definitely not marin. the grocery clerk at rouses supermarket decimated a forest of plastic trees just to bag our cart of groceries. there was no stopping her, she was on autopilot. not a consumer provided bag in site………….and the beach…….litter strewn along the gorgeous sugar sands. hard to believe people leave trash behind at a spot they obviously enjoy.  evening at the beach was still really lovely, long expanses of sand, very shallow water and a balmy evening breeze. the day on the other hand was hot! 90 plus degrees!  we’ll definitely be working early.

driving through gulfport it is once again shocking to notice what is not there: concrete slabs with no houses sitting on them, big gaps between homes in what used to be a dense suburban setting, crumbled downtown buildings, bits and pieces of what once must have been a lovely town.

we’re looking forward to meeeting up once again with our friends from the Gulf Coast Community Design Center to see what they have in store for us. we’ll keep you posted.

we are in the midst of preparing our fourth travels with hank camarones al mojo de ajo dinner. we are a one trick pony we admit, but if it works why mess with it? beware all you bay area friends, mojo de ajo is coming your way.

another relaxing day of golf (is golf ever relaxing?) for the boys, hanging around, cooking and hiking for the girls. we are still working on the gentle reentry. emphasis on gentle.

we had a partial tour of the burn areas of the 2007 san diego fires. amazing what money will buy. many houses are practically rebuilt a mere 5 months after the disaster. all unbuilt sites are tidy and clean, the disaster relief area has been completely disbanded (probably due to no longer being needed) and of course the hills are green and covered with wildflowers.  not to compare one disaster to another but it is shocking to see how quickly the disaster response is in direct proportion to the wealth of the area. the destruction was of course much greater and wide spread in the gulf coast than in san diego but in the 2.5 years since katrina it seems as if much less has been done than in the 5 months since the san diego fires. we didnt’ see too much going on with green building but were glad to hear that several of steph’s friends were downsizing from the homes they had lost.

we were sad to leave our friends jeff and steph, who not only showed us a real good time, but also nursed us both through some reentry malaise of unknown origin, but definite affect. thanks for everything, and i’m gettin my 10 bucks back when you come to nor cali, jeff.

on to lala land.

we have been held here under fraudulent claims of lambification! the truth is that our dear friend coleen has twisted our arms (ouch, that’s enough) into eating yet another one of her fabulous meals, sleeping in her comfy guest bedroom and hanging out with her one more night…..we were putty in her hands.

we dropped off ruben and beth at the airport yesterday after two wonderful days in cabo pulmo. cabo pulmo is a tiny solar powered town on the east cape accessible after about 10 miles of washboard, dirt road, max Hank speed 6.5 mph.  the main highway suddenly ends, no signs, no town, no nothing.  the road will be paved within the next five years (everything will be finished within 5 yrs.) .there is a national marine park on the coast which boasts the only living coral reef in baja california. ruben and beth took a scuba trip and were able to see the underwater park but the wind was so rough we weren’t able to snorkel. we did enjoy our comfortable bungalow with a palapa roof and stone walls and caught up on reading and work. (yes we are doing some work!)

cabo pulmo is tiny. there are two small shops, a tortilleria, 4 restaurants, two dive shops, one gift store and quite a few houses to rent.  there were many europeans there,  and the dive shop is run by a spanish woman and a dutch man who could not have been more gracious and friendly.

the east cape is much less touristed than cabo and has lovely empty beaches strung together by tiny villages often consisting of only a few houses or palapas. because cabo pulmo is so remote and has no electricity or paved road it gets only the more adventurous and less touristy crowd. at night the sky is awash in stars.  we ate dinner on friday evening in an open air palapa, not more than 20′ from  the sea. the whole town is very casual. there were two tables worth of people at the restaurant well past the posted opening hour. the only woman in the kitchen could not tell us when they were actually going to open because the cook had not yet arrived. juan, a local who runs one of the snorkling ecotours and is also the brother of the restaurant owner, had come to eat dinner but ended up waiting on tables as the waiter never showed up. welcome to baja.  nevertheless we had a lovely dinner with the sounds of waves lapping the shore, as the sun set behind the glowing hills. pretty nice!

must run now, our chef/hostess, coleen has prepared a fabulous meal that needs our attention. this is the best b and b we have stayed at, though somewhat exclusive.