MAR-A-5

THE EVENTS OF THE WEEKEND WITH THE UNFINISHED DETAILS OF A

“PRE-PUNCH OUT WALK-THROUGH”

AT DERWOOD,

AND A RENDEZVOUS WITH THE HARKENS

IN LANSDOWNE RESORT NEAR ASHBURN VIRGINIA

March 4—7, 2004

It has been an interesting weekend, in an alternating blustering wind and rainstorm (more like the opening days of March should be expected) and beautiful summer-like days. At least other people were also tricked in the sudden changes of weather, since a water taxi flipped over in a sudden microburst of wind that left four people missing or dead and two dozen plucked out of the still-cold waters of Baltimore harbor. We have been blowing hot and cold here as well, in what might have been a rapid series of concluding moves and decisions in Derwood, which have been suspended in a number of glitches, with many more “finishing touches” recommended, a few of which we carried out personally here and a number more which will occupy this week in meeting and going over further proposals for the inside and outside of the not yet completed renovation project. All the appliances should have been in, and all plumbing and electricity up and running, with all of the furniture arriving later this week. Surprise! The appliances may have arrived, but none are installed, half are being returned for the right ones and the others are going to have to await new cabinet work in order to fit in their designated spots for which they have been designed. Meanwhile the paint interior finishing is going to be changed for Kitchen and Breakfast Room, and I noted today that all the lamps and other decorative furnishing pieces have arrived to be stacked in the living room atop the paper and plywood protecting the finished and polyurethane treated floors. The “white glove” treatment for the custom furniture delivery is pushed back to next week on the eighteenth, just before I take off.

I responded to the birthdays of the week: Judy’s on Friday, Mark’s today, and Donald’s tomorrow in a note to Milly that told of the little glitches in Derwood completion the otherwise most enjoyable weekend, in a good visit with the Harkens whom I will see again at Lake Tahoe where I will start my Far East journey in ten days. I had written to Milly:

MY EMAIL NOTE TO MILLY

REGARDING THE SMALL GLITCHES IN DERWOOD

It is hard to believe that Mark is 29 today, but harder to believe that Donald is 38 tomorrow.

I can identify with Jim getting paint samples out for re-doing bedrooms. I have just been through that having to re-do both the kitchen and Breakfast Room from their "finished" status of bright paint called "Nacho Cheese" to a "Sweet Butter" lemony kind of color for the Breakfast Room and an off-red (Like Red Oxide) for the kitchen. We got quarts of paint from Benjamin Moore Regal paints to paint on plywood scraps from the dumpster, and used that product to compare with the tiles, cabinetry wood, and granite of the kitchen. This part was a fun expedition since it could involve amateurs second guessing the original (and correct) recommendations of the interior designer who originally recommend a red for the kitchen.

Now for the other news. All the appliances were to have been delivered Thursday, and Friday I was scheduled for an appointment with the lawyers to "settle" on a mortgage for the house to cover part of the renovation expenses. The appraiser needed a completed kitchen and a functioning bathroom to certify it as a "livable house" with an occupancy permit, and I was gong to sleep in it on Thursday night to make the case, But, the Jiffy John outside is still the plumbing, despite four new bathrooms, since they are gong to now replace the water pressure tank and plumbing from the well (the last residual piece of the "old house") There is no hot water since the hot water heater is turned off. Despite that I have had FOUR oil tank fills in the past five unoccupied and balmy Spring weeks. I had never previously had the tank filled twice in a winter!

As for the kitchen--they did not deliver the dishwasher. They DID deliver the cook stove top--but the wrong one that would be four inches oversize for the granite they had cut for its insertion to hook it to a gas line not yet in.

They delivered the double oven Viking Professional set, but it is larger than the magnificent cabinetry already in place, and they cannot insert it, but must replace the cabinetry. The huge professional Viking refrigerator freezer is standing in the middle of the room, since it is now too tall for the alcove in which it is designed since they did not take into account that the Mexican tile raised the floor an inch and a half so that the cabinetry in place will have to be raised before it can be set in.

A couple of electrical outlets were misplaced, and I found out that I have to go out and buy several ceiling .light fixtures, pull knobs, shower stalls, etc, all of which I spent the day Friday doing after our "non-walk-through" which will now have to await a later "punch out."

The furniture delivery scheduled for this week is now moved back to March 18 with the window treatments, and that is all now scheduled for one hour before I depart for Tahoe and Taiwan on March 19.

So, other than these little glitches, and a dozen other items that I have just discovered are extra "not-in-contract" add-ons that will require an additional large investment, the house itself is going to be quite beautiful!

The additional items suggested for discussion tomorrow are plans for a completion of a total finishing of the basement (which now looks like a corridor of "old house" in transit through to the garage under the Great Room), and it is suggested that it remains as the last reminder of it prior state if the part of the attic not already cleaned out and renovated with a large walk-in cedar closet is omitted) and it would be a big-ticket addition. Also, a stripping of all the ivy vines and a power washing of the house, a lattice closure of the under deck, a chimney cap, and a landscape architect and stone mason husband-wife team are recommended for the grounds around the front and sides. So, the "big-ticket" single shot of the house renovation contract is just the start on what is a much larger and longer project (as, of course, anyone could have predicted) especially with an expensive Hurricane thrown in to the middle of the process!

So, I will keep on trying--now with a run around to get the Audi inspected and taxes paid to get it licensed in Maryland before I park it to be gone several weeks again. Cest la Vie!

Cheers!

GWG

>>> "Mildred Holtvluwer" <holtvlum@gvsu.edu> 03/08/04 10:57AM >>>

It is nice that you are keeping in touch with this Jo --It is also

nice that they acknowledge you!

Have not heard anything from path. report of Mary H. Life is moving

forward for Jim - He is cleaning out the house and getting some rooms

painted so he is keeping busy that way.

We had a blizzard yesterday - typical March day.

Today is Mark's 29th bday. It was Judy's on Friday - at least that is

what my calendar said so I sent her an e card.

Milly

TRANSPLANT RESPONDERS

The latter item is seen in the Mar-A-7 note marking the 28^th anniversary of the transplant I performed on a Sunday over a quarter century ago on Joe Hughes, a child’s kidney that has been supporting him ever since in relatively good health. He is the one of those of my transplant patients who is unlike the ninety and nine from whom I have not heard, but about whom I had some evidence of how well that they are doing. I could add that in addition to the good news of Joe’s twenty eight good years since I had transplanted him, I also got at least one other follow-up in contrast---the one patient who suffered a far more common fate in Washington DC than I would be happy to report. About one patient I transplanted a week later than Joe, I had seen an obituary and news notice on him, since he was the victim of a homicide in Washington DC, being in the wrong place at an unfortunate time, which a lot of Washington residents cannot afford to be in any place other than in harm’s way. And I once reported on George Franklin and Jeri Coleman who were side by side in dialysis for much of their lives before I transplanted each of them about two months apart, and I attended their wedding a decade ago—their combined transplant experience was enough to try to overcome their other differences, as in race, culture and complicated social issues—and I got a later birth notice from them.

I am now working on the Maryland inspection and registration of the Audi A-4 while running around getting the Audi dealer to run a check on a faulty O2 sensor that has detected a difference between two of them in the very heavily computerized car which has had the little “check engine” light coming on and off, with no apparent change in function of the vehicle which remains a responsive sporty device which got us and the Harkens all around MD and VA and to both Dulles and Ragan airports in good time for departure amid crowds of people going about on a sunny Sunday afternoon. After Alden had concluded his meeting with an American College of Surgeons group for aspiring NIH investigators to which he had graciously invited us, we went to the Udvar Hazy Air and Space Museum and went into the tower for the air traffic controllers to see and hear the system of the airport controls that would very shortly regulate their own takeoff on the same runway and in the same approaches we saw in the tower overlooking the Dulles airport from which they departed an hour later. In the queue for the elevator to the Air Traffic Control Tower, a fellow in front of us was wearing a windstopper Marathon in the Parks shirt a year before the one I was wearing, and we talked. He was startled to find out that I had done many more marathons than he and we seemed the same age; when we compared notes, he could not believe I was the age I had stated since he had pegged me as twenty years younger. You can fool some of the people some of the time!

I will run through this week with many different meetings on further Derwood plans and try to get back toward the schedule of completions that would have been on target if the appliances and furnishings could have been installed as planned, so that it may even be “”occupation permitable” by the time of my return in mid-April in time for my next takeoff to the Amazon—all of which trips are now ticketed and I have been tuned up for their packing and visa acquisition. So, I have had an early Spring, and now will have to find the opposite season in the Southern hemisphere on the second to next trip in Brazil, and the same latitudes but opposite side of the earth on the next trip—the first of two Far East trips in a month

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