APR-B-3

RE-ENTRY DAY, WITH A HEAVY RAIN FOR THE WEEK,

AS I OPEN MAIL, CATCH UP WITH CALLS,

AND TRY TO ORGANIZE PHOTOS,

PLANNING TO MOVE THE TROPHIES UP TO GAME ROOM,

AN “ALL-NIGHTER” IN THE OFFICE,

AND ASSIST DALE KRAMER IN INSTALLATION

OF THE TROPHY EXHIBITS OF THE GAME ROOM;

A VISIT FROM AN ASPIRING DIPLOMAT,

AND A GOOD MEDICAL STUDENT PROGRAM

ON THE HORN OF AFRICA

April 13—14, 2004

I had a cold rainy re-entry into Washington, all the cherry blossoms and other spring flowers having been buffeted away in the harsh weather. The daffodils are in full bloom along the Derwood drive, and the leaves are all in bud, about to burst into a leafy cover over the house, now all sparkling from its power washing of the bricks and stripping of the ivy vines. All the windows are now stripped of their tags, and several have head their “window treatments”—Roman Shades and a color coordination. Sandy Shelor left me a message of alarm, since she came by on Saturday just before my arrival. She had seen the professional cleaning job that had been done by the cleaning crew that D G Liu had brought in to tidy up before the “white glove” delivery of all the custom furniture she had at that point, with all the custom fabrics put over the upholstery and the special pieces for each room. They were delivered and then she had spotted them all precisely where they wore supposed to go and had them all ready for my first inspection and an overwhelming view of a color coordinated and designer imaged house—Voila! Then came the painters and a number of others who had further work to do, speckling holes, touching up, and scattering plaster dust around, and moving everything after she had so carefully placed it where it was supposed to be. She also noted two electric outlets she wanted drilled through the hardwood floors, since the floor lamps that she has coming, ten in number, could not be fed through the wall, since there was a flush wall to floor seal with brick. So, she was hoping I would have a better first impression. But, now, I just wish I could be there when she gets her first impression of the awesome display of the trophy heads in the game room, artfully coordinated by Dale Kramer who had said “I have been looking forward to this for a long time!”

It is almost a bust at the start, since I arrived in a downpour on Monday morning, only a couple of hours after my return, but not because I was not up and ready to go at four AM because of a twelve hour jet lag out of phase with the far side of the world being my adrenal pituitary axis accommodated time zones. It turned out that Dale was planning for Tuesday, a crowded day on my calendar, but I stopped to see the hose, and its new features in time to get the Suburban Propane Gas tank situated for a fuel fill the following day, and a test run on the multiple burners of the new Viking cook stovetop. It comes on with a snap and fires up well. And, no one will ever stand inside the kitchen and turn the Viking hood exhaust fan up to frill power without being whisked outside in a tornado of exhaust! All the faucets are running full speed, all the toilets flush and completely, all the heaters work and the A/C does too with the heat pumps kicking on automatically. The new ceiling fans in the Game Room were making noise on their rheostat controls so that was changed. There is one faucet that is plugged with debris at the spray nozzle in the kitchen sink, and that will be blown clear. The surprise continues that the new hot water heater seems to keep cutting out and the plumbers and oil heat folk have looked at it and are puzzled. Woodson will be called to come and check it to see that it is working. I had worked long and hard and tired to do the one first inaugural event—taking a shower in the master bathroom—it was very quick since it was very cold. A whole list of the things I should be doing to get the “punch out “list ready for Mike and I to go over the morning I leave for South America was gone over. I then went to pick up all my mail and immediately started into the bills and checks and tried to get them all cleared immediately, a long project given the volume of the mail. I went out to get the Audi remote control key and the framed M Phil degree from the Human Sciences diploma, and tried to work as late as I could but wound up very drowsy in early evening, and bolt awake at midnight. So, I made plans to use the time that I could not use sleeping anyway. I went to Derwood at five o’clock on Monday evening in a downpour and tried to get the trophies out of the sewing room and upstairs to the Game Room for their wall mounting on Tuesday morning.

What I saw under the plaster and dust of the sewing room where I had compactly crammed in everything before the departure last July was not a pretty sight. There was white mold and mildew over everything, and all the trophies looked trashed. The worst of all was the turkey which had been chewed up by mice and mites. It was a large loss if none of this came clean.

Fortunately it did clean up, although the wide fan of the big gobbler will now be trimmed into a “butch” haircut! The Kudu Bull was the worst since it was adjacent to the basement wall on the floor, and it was closed all day for the past nine months. So, it was completely covered with mold. But paper towels and Windex made improvements. I could not move the heavy snow sheep ram and I could only start on the heavy elk and stag mounts, awaiting Dale’s arrival to two-team them back up.

When I realized I could not go much further than what I had been able to do, I packed off to GW in the rain arriving at the office before midnight, and puling off an office all-nighter. I Xeroxed bills, and printed out the Photo Works pictures which are already returning from the Taiwan trip, I assembled a number of packages that I would be mailing, and got them all ready, then took off for the Derwood manse again, in time to see Dale arrive, after I had been scouring the re-moved storage stuff to try to find my binoculars and mosquito repellant—two items that would be nice to have among my Amazon accoutrements, despite a number of other items I could not find either, but tried to substitute. I assisted as Dale went about working up his masterpiece—the artful arrangement of the groupings of the trophies at just the right heights and the angle of their heads turned to various views. One stroke of genius was to positioning the Dally Sheep ram in the library at the perfect spot, and all others were arrayed in the right places along each of the walls of the Game Room. There are FOUR deer mounts outstanding, two at parker’s Taxidermy in Eastern Shore and one in Princess Anne which Bill Webster had turned in for me. The fourth is the Phantom of the Derwood Deer Woods, and is being held hostage by crazy Charlie at North American Taxidermy who wants to charge me again as much as the others combined for my re-mounting of his failed first mounting. I will retrieve him through my lawyer Dan Kennedy. I have a full mount fox ready at parker’s Taxidermy, and a full mount wolverine as soon as a similar hostage situation is resolved in which the fellow in Alaska who got his hands on the wolverine insisted that he had to do a “wet mount” of it, despite explicit instructions to deliver it frozen to Marcus Zimmerman intact. If Marcus had it, it would already be done and ready to put in the place reserved for it, bu it has not been started yet as an interloper is playing games to get an extra second set of taxidermy charges out of it. So, I have four deer heads and two smaller game full mounts still to come, and a repair on the Snow Sheep ram from last summer’s slip in which we split his lip as Dale and I triad to carry the heavy mount downstairs to be stored away under plastic wrap during the renovations.

Even the brown bear skull approved in time to join the other skull mounts, and the bearskin rug was rolled out on the new rug that Sandy had ordered and put out on the floor with four big signs saying do not walk here. She was alarmed to find that it was covered with tracks and plaster dust and was hoping that the rug might be able to be cleaned with just vacuuming, but how anyone could target the rug despite the numerous signs baffled here. I hope that the signs are enough warning to stay off the bear skin as well

I left after my “cold shower” to meet Keith Carr downtown, where I risked (and collected ) a parking ticket to avoid walking that far in the rain. Keith told me about two others who might be interested in Derwood, one is Barbara Castle who is editor of Design Magazine—a good contact, and one we will definitely want to have around at or before the open house party for the house warming in summer. A professional photographer will be coming by as soon as all the rest of the furnishing s are brought in , but Sandy learned from this last time to postpone this delivery until all the dust-rasing work is done. So, that will happen next week, after the final inspections are done with whatever corrections to code that will be assigned from the inspectors.

I met with Mark Naylor, who is a wonderful guy at University of Richmond and happens to be Virginia’s stepson. He is going to get a job here in DC this summer, and will be looking for a place to live as well as the right connections. I set up a couple of those with Saad Noor and with Jeff Krilla of the International Republican Institute where he is chief of the Africa division. I hope things work well for Mark, and I suspect we will get to know each other more as I introduce him to the Wilson Center, DACOR, the Eliot School and the Fulbright Foundation.

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