House Update - On The Dry

Yet another house update, you may think, but actually, this is a rant. I am fed up and tired to be sent in a circle by people who are incompetent, unwilling, or simply not interested. We are exhausted, and approaching the end of our patience and nerves. It could be so easy, if people were willing to take just a step off their own standpoint and focus on reaching a solution. Today, I've spent my morning talking on the phone to the person, who's managing the internal development, the town representative, and the person responsible for providing water. Here are the standpoints:

Water guy: Everything's ready, I'm just waiting for the promised common hook-up room to be built and I'll install the common meter. This is a homeowner's association, not 10 individual home owners, except that one guy who paid me 10k and got his private hook-ups.

Town representative: The water development is not under our responsibility. If you want to buy something at Target you don't call WalMart either to find out if Target has it on stock, right? And the person who's knee-deep into the entire matter is on leave until Monday to begin with, you I can't tell you anything.

Internal developer: There is no homeowners association, that would require a whole legal procedure managing who will be responsible what, and building this "common room" will cost about 2 - 3k each, and then they can't just treat one "unit" differently than everyone else by providing them with their own hook-ups. It's either all units or all individual homes.

And here we are dead-locked and we don't have water. Since the water isn't in yet, we're not getting gas, and thus no running heater, which means we cannot continue on the house.

I have now managed to get a round-table appointment for all parties scheduled, as it happens it will be on my birthday. I hope for a decision, a decision in our sense. I hope for everyone's willingness to talk and find a solution, and I hope to finally be able to call our building site manager and tell him water will be provided on *insert date*. Keep your fingers crossed for the present of water for my birthday!

One Of These Days...

Today was one of these days I wish I would have spent entirely in bed, but I'm glad I didn't (nice oxymoron right here). It started with Violet peeing through her outfit. Even though it was already after 7am, I was completely in sleepwalker-mode (luckily I have mastered sleep-diaperchanging by now). The only thing that could help at that point was a nice cup of coffee. I didn't feel like making coffee, but luckily there was just enough left from yesterday for my wake-up cup. By then, Richard had returned to bed, since he wasn't doing any better than me. After chasing Lily away from her usual naughty-place (say: computer chair), Violet decided it was time for some more food, while Lily took the opportunity of me being nailed to the couch and focusing on her little sister to get into the only kitchen drawer she could reach over the baby gate and arrange a piece of modern art on the dining room floor, consisting of an interesting arrangement of birthday candles and super-glue. Upon finishing feeding Violet, I came across her carefully prepared arrangement and play once again the role of the party-pooper. While I was busy clearing away her artwork, she decided to seek revenge by seizing my coffee, which I had left on the counter JUST close enough for her to reach (those toddlers have a much, MUCH further reach than anyone may think; I am sure that they are the only small species in the D&D realm with reach 3!!). With pure horror in my eyes I had to watch her pouring my half-full mug over herself. In the meantime, Violet had noticed that there was no-one to pay attention to her on the couch and raised her mighty voice to demand her dues. Thus, Richard found me amidst an attention-seeking Violet, a crying Lily, and a pool of coffee on the floor, ready to run my head into the wall (or at least have a good nervous break-down). After some recovery (as much as it was possible without coffee) we managed to pack everyone up into the car and head out to visit my friend ThuyVan and her family for some home-made Pho (yumm-EE!!). We had a very good afternoon watching Lily play with ThienMy and being generally a very good girl while Violet slept on Yi's arm for most of the time. After arriving back home (I finally got my coffee fix at 4pm in form of a large iced coffee from McDonalds), my spirits were further lifted by finding two cards among the other stuff in the mail (who does not love to get mail other than bills and EOBs??). After some time at home, I decided that I just had to roam around a little bit and took Violet shopping while Lily and Daddy had dinner and watched Star Wars. Five VS bras (I finally got them, Mama!) and a few odds and ends later, we were back home around 8pm, time for Violet's bath. While our Little Lady was happily splashing in her tub, Miss Lily decided that it was fun to sneak up behind me and re-enact the biblical flood by pouring the little water bucket I use to rinse off Violet over the floor. Alarmed by my cries for help, Richard removed our little goddess from the scene while I cleaned up her mess for the second time this day, just to find upon completing the task that Miss Violet had pooped in the tub. One more clean-up later, there was one exhausted Mami with two happy little girls ready for bed left.

A brand-new episode of Doctor Who and some chocolate cake for dinner later, said Mami is quite ready for bed and about to head that way, after realizing a few very important things: Even though they might drive me crazy at times, I love my family beyond words. Life would not be nearly as interesting if it wasn't spiced with an occasional minor nervous breakdown or crying fit. And even though I might threaten bodily harm at one point or the other, hearing a tiny voice saying "sorry", or looking in my girl's big, blue eyes, makes me forget even why I was ever angry with her, despite still standing in a puddle of water...