This was supposed to be a fairly light day, a rarity for me, so I could work against a deadline on an extremely complicated construction contract and tie up loose ends ahead of going on vacation.
But it was not to be.
First I needed to walk down the hill to visit a couple ATMs and collect up a wad of cash to pay the guys who are delivering Peg's new furniture even as I write this. No one up here accepts a credit card or check, or anything else that can be traced. I think if I were to 1099 one of them they'd show up after hours and set fire to the house.
At least the walk was lovely and cool. Here's a view of Second Street, taken from Canfield Park as I was huffing up the hill with a massive wad of $20 bills.
As you can see, Spring has sprung in the upstate, in all its glory. That's Tara behind the minivan toward the left. Bet you thought it was bigger than that. On the far left is the Italian Revival Mansion that's been converted into apartments for a scruffy group of tenants who seem mostly to drink and smoke weed. I'm not judging. To our immediate right is another Italian Revival home, this one restored beautifully and occupied by a nice but strangely stand-off-ish family. The mother, who has never smiled to my knowledge, has one of those odd northeastern Puritan names that riffs off the classical virtues. Hope, Temperance, Chastity--something like that.
The garish orange and blue mansion on the far right, which we call simply the "Gator House" around our place for obvious reasons, was built and occupied originally by the owner of Hawkes Glass Works, a manufacturer of fine glass over a century ago. It's been carved into apartments as well. The owner selected the horrid palette in response to the local preservation society trying to tell him what color he should paint his house to maintain its historical authenticity. The Gator orange is sort of a middle finger to the local docents.
Once back from my errand, I learned that the deposition one of my partners is covering for me because I was scheduled to have a hearing today has turned into a complete train wreck as the witness engages in what appears to be fairly brazen perjury. Why is it that pretty much every other person whose living relates to hurricane recovery is a thief or scoundrel? Or maybe more of them than that. I guess if you mix a community of broken and confused people putting their lives together with ridiculous sums of free money and an itinerant group of carpetbaggers whose sole purpose in life is to take that money, the moral hazard explains itself. The scenario just attracts bad people.
Anyway, if I don't finish this contract my Viking-descended clients are going to get in their longboats and cross the Atlantic to dispatch their counsellor at law. Back to work.
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