"Believe it or not, Jonathan, Susan G. from the city just called me and said the permit is ready to be picked up." came the message from Doug Murray, my project manager for this home.
I... am not sure what to say.
An honest and large flood of emotions will wash over me, I'm sure of it, any moment. By golly they can't take that away from me, can they? Lessee... they've taken 9 months. They've taken the ability to do site work in the dry season. They've taken r-values here and there throughout the house as they've forced unneeded structure where good insulation should go in too many wall cavities. And tomorrow, when Doug and Maxine go to city hall to pick up this piece of paper they'll take 26 grand or so in fees. I definitely won't let them take away my well-deserved and thoroughly predictable shouts.
But there are no emotional yells just this minute, and, after an expectant pause, I'm deciding that I'm not going to worry about not being washed over with joy or something related. Just as I have the right to an emotional minute or more, I will also admit that I'm not even totally believing it and likely won't until Maxine (I'm in NY this week, and can appreciate even THAT bit of irony,) sees it. Tomorrow.
I also will admit that this also rings up the be-careful-what-you-wish-for syndrome, and now it's time to git 'er done. Now THAT has an exciting ring to it.
Hopefully, I'll also stop whining about the city. It could turn me into a Libertarian or something, like friend David Hughes with whom I skiied Bristol tonight, and for whom we designed and timberframed this killer boat house on Seneca Lake this summer.
But JUST in case you're interested... you can go to portlandonline.com/bds, click on "permit search in the lower left corner, pick "permit number," put in 08-131489 (for the main house) or 08-131502 (for the studio) and YOU can see what I've been staring at for months of high-tech online capable fancy reporting good communicating and NONETHELESS huge amount of bureacracy. Have at 'er. Tell me what you think.
I had assumed this was going to be difficult. I figured that I would be exhausted. I thought that there would be a fair share of simple hard work. I’m not sure I knew how exhausting.