Journal: May 31st. Brooklyn with Sarah.

Cleaned up Sarah's apartment for her return later in the day  Re-stocked her larder, made bed with country-washed linens, took out the garbage.  Marvelled at how manageable these tasks were as opposed to the massive work I'd undertaken in New Jersey.

I drove to Park Slope--bought a pound of coffee beans  at Gorilla Coffee in Park Slope--and brought my free cup of coffee to join Alexandra and family for breakfast.   Then to Soho where I was planning to drop off the shoes that Jackie had left in the car before heading back to Newton.  As I parked on Wooster Street, Sarah called.  She'd just returned from the wedding in South Africa and she was eager to report in--and have me help her ward off jet lag until her scheduled afternoon bar-b-ques.

So....back to Brooklyn.  Another breakfast--well--it was lunch time at building on Bond--then a long afternoon of Brooklyn talking and walking--before heading to Newton for the proper beginning of my summer stay.

Journal: May 30th

On Sunday Andre went for a run while  Jackie and I went to the Lafayette Farmer's market and did some driving about, stopped at a yard sale and bought a set of purple bathroom rugs to add to the green one I'd already bought.  Bought a dust-buster--there is so very much dust to bust.  Alas, soon discovered it was made to plug into car had to return it--the roads all have what appear to be the same number 612, 659--many twists and unexpected turns--a real challenge to figure out how to get back to sale--but marvel of marvels we did it and made all necessary adjustments. 

Earlier in the week I'd brought car loads  plastic bags of old clothes to a collection box in Newton, but there were still more to get rid of.  We filled the car and managed to squeeze another five bags of clothes and bedding into one of those giant collection boxes in a parking lot just outside of Newton. 

Under Jackie's splendid leadership, sorted through the papers in the hall desk and made many piles of miscellaneous stuff.  Then, back to the kitchen--an endless and overwhelming task.    Did lots of laundry--slowly working my way through piles of sheets and towels--also washed Sarah's linens and towels.

We had a late lunch at Yetter's  Diner at Ross's corner and then drove into the city.  Terrible traffic at Holland Tunnel--have to work on alternative routes.  Dropped Jackie and Andre at home and continued to Brooklyn.  Sarah returns from her South African wedding tomorrow--and I will spend my first night alone at the house.

Journal. May 29. Big Clean up. First glasses of wine.

Picked up Jackie and Andre--who came with piles of blankets and linen and drove to Newton.  First stop (oh this always is the first stop in these kitchen-less days) is lunch.  This time we go to Greco's, the Italian Deli in the big original mall--now home to a Sears, a Staples, a Bed Bath and Beyond, Homegoods, Marshalls and a full range of fast food restaurants, most of which must have appeared in this still new century.  Greco's, however, has been there for years.  Not from my childhood, but we would buy  pizza dough and fresh mozzarella there in 1985 and I think it must be  where I purchased the pizza stone that now sits in the oven at Breeze Avenue.

We then went to the house with various eggplant sandwiches which we ate on the porch.  The first task was the kitchen.  It is an overwhelming mess.  And I am not even speaking of the pantry and the adjacent stone-walled room.

I began with the refrigerator.  I've never thought of myself as a compulsive recycler, but it did seem necessary to empty all glass containers--what to do with the contents?

I emptied  six or seven twelve year old bottles of deep brown ketchup down the drain.  They must have been bought for some grand picnics and never opened.  Many bottles of vegetable oil, jars of peanut butter, mustard, salad dressing.  Some contents got poured down the drain, but I also made many trips to the field in back of the old playhouse where I tossed oil, flour, lasagna and other once fine culinary products, all with expiration dates in the last century.

I worried a bit about attracting animals, but assume that the rains will wash much of it away, and even if deer and bears find some treats, the pleasures are transient, and as I won't be regularly tossing old grains and pastas, no bad habits will be developed.

And of course there were the drawers and cabinets.  Mice and chipmunks had lived happily amidst chewed up bits of paper and moldy plastic.  Remnants of nests filled drawers along with innumerable pieces of filthy silverware.  While I dealt with ancient foodstuffs,  Jackie emptied the cabinets, filled the sink with soapy water and washed an incredible number of dishes and glasses.  We wiped all surfaces with water and vinegar and  organized bags of plastic glass and paper to throw out.  
The sink works, as does the stove. There is a toaster oven which works. I haven't yet tried the oven or the micro-wave--but neither is essential at this point.

Elaine arrived from North Bergen in the midst of all this activity and joined in the fun.  Better yet, she'd brought wine, cheese and cherry tomatoes.    With the addition of the smoked oysters I traveled with cross-country and the breadsticks we'd bought at Greco's, we had a fine post-cleaning snack.

ruffled sheet with mark of squirrel

Well, mid-cleaning would be more accurate.  The days are long--lots of light and lots of time for sweeping, mopping, vacuuming, etc.  We did take a break from downstairs.  Jackie and Andre would be sleeping in the little bedroom.  That needed serious work.     The twin beds, unslept in by humans for many years had been left fully made, and on each of the pillows there was evidence that a chipmunk or squirrel had happily moved in.  Well-emptied nut husks were everywhere.  We stripped the beds, went through the linen closet, and began washing and drying piles of sheets and pillowcases.  Pulling out the Shop-Vac and another vacuum cleaner found in the closet, we tackled the leavings of decades in  in both bedrooms.

Many layers remain, but major inroads have been made.

Journal: May 28. Back in Brooklyn

A day of rest.  Although it has been seeming quite normal driving back and forth every day, I'm taking today off. Resuming negotiations with a potential renter for next week on Breeze Avenue.   A little shopping to replenish Sarah's shelves, more organizing of stuff, some Brooklyn walking and  dinner with Laura and Liz at a Cuban restaurant in Park Slope. 

It has indeed been non-stop for many days.

Thursday May 27th. Bathroom Ready to Go. Cleaning and Shopping with Laura T.

I'm driving Laura T. out for the day.  I was scheduled to pick her up around 10am at Liz's at Grand Army Plaza. Athough I've walked there many times, I had little idea of how to negotiate the many  one way streets at the entrance to Prospect Park.

But, thanks to my new GPS Droid Navigator, I was sure I'd easily manage it.   Wrong. Wrong. Wrong.  Somehow, buoyed by my misplaced confidence, I managed--and dear lord I have no idea how I did this--to get myself on a one-way road going into the park.  As I tried to rectify that error, I ended up going the wrong way once again (by wrong-way, I do not mean I was heading in the wrong direction--I mean I was heading directly into traffic going the other way.

It was not night, so I could see clearly, and since I've learned that a car going the wrong way is quite visible to everyone else I was remarkably calm. Also--I have decided that I am protected by my California license plates. This is perhaps illusory but I like to think that there is a bit of extra tolerance (in Brooklyn?) extended towards a little old lady from California driving her old Camry with a fading Obama sticker and  California plates trying to straighten herself out in Prospect Park.

In any case, I did get manage to figure it all out--and picked up Laura on the corner of Flatbush Avenue (I did give up trying to get right in front of Liz's building).

we drove straight down Flatbush Avenue, over the Manhattan Bridge, down Canal Street, through the Holland Tunnel--and on to Hampton Township. I have finally mastered the western route from Brooklyn--though I am still easily flustered on the eastward journey.

It was a warm and drizzly day.  We stopped briefly at the house, then I dragged Laura to some of the many stores on Route 206 in search of assorted cleaning and bathroom supplies-Bed Bath and Beyond, Rite-Aid, Lowe's and Walmart.

Well supplied, we decided that before we plunged into our cleaning efforts, we'd have lunch at the Hampton Diner (my kitchen is not yet open for service).

By now, the day was fairly well advanced.  It began to seriously rain, and we plunged into our cleaning efforts.  I'd bought shower curtains, bath mats and rugs and began scrubbing in the kitchen while Laura exercised her skill with the Shop-Vac. 

After a few hours of good work,  we decided we'd had enough cleaning fun and headed back to the city.  Another excellent diner meal--this time at the Jefferson Diner on Route 15.  I thought I'd master that tricky entrance to the Holland Tunnel--but my previous efforts had been when it was light.  In the dark, I got quite befuddled and we roamed around Jersey City a bit before heading through the Tunnel, across Canal Street, over the Brooklyn Bridge and straight down Flatbush Avenue to Grand Army Plaza.

Journal: May 26th. Running Water. Many stores.

this is the first day with proper running water. Laura Tillem, visiting from Wichita, will drive out with me tomorrow. i want to get the bathroom--gerry-built though it might be--looking a bit more presentable.  Carl, the plumber, was sorry to do such a make-shift job.  "It's just one step above camping," he lamented, but I assured him that eventually he would get to install a spiffy new facility.

In the meantime, I have to throw out old mildewed shower curtains, buy new ones, get a bath mat, set up some kind of cabinet,  and buy one of those things you hang in showers to hold shampoo, soap, etc.  With the running water, I have begun to wash the sheets in the linen closet.  

I am taking full advantage of the incredible number of stores just minutes from my house.  It is crazy that it is easier to make the rounds of Bed, Bath and Beyond, Staples, Lowe's, Home Depot, and  Sears than it is in Los Angeles.  And indeed, dear lord forgive me, but there is even a Walmart perched on the hill that used to be behind one of the Ideal Farms milking barns.

Just as I am leaving Walmart (I was looking, unsuccessfully, for a suitable shower curtain), my Laura, my sister called. She had originally said she probably wouldn't come before Thanksgiving, but wonder of wonders, she has bought a plane ticket and will be arriving for ten days on June 13th.  How excellent is that?

Journal: May 25th. Cleaning and bear sighting.

clothes in bags

Today, leaving earlier, and with no traffic,  I managed to get back to the house before noon. Willie the electrician is there. George too. I had told Carl there was no rush for the plumbing part (what was I thinking?). He'll bring it late in the day.

I get the shop-vac set up. I'm relatively adept at picking up decades of dust liberally laced with mouse and bat residue. And I have a fine collection of hundreds of chewed up hickory nuts (not in the machine, but piled neatly on the table in the new room).
The closets and dressers in the two downstairs bed-rooms are full of Arthur and Judy's clothes and shoes. I pack plastic bag after plastic bag. The shoes in the front hall closet after offering shelter and nests to mice, chipmunks and squirrels have been destroyed and are destined for the dump,  but many of the clothes are in decent if  musty condition, and can be given away.

Chatting with Willie, the electrician, we stepped outside. He pointed out a big black bear (really big) on the driveway, just a few hundred yards from where we stood. "In my day, says the old-timer (that would be me) bears were not roaming the fields of New Jersey." Now they are everywhere.

Plans for compost have to be chucked--at least for the moment. No food near the house.  Bears love all those yummy scraps.

Work has really begun. It is head-spinning.  A black bear in the morning and as the sun set behind me tonight, the rising full moon shone through the  portals of the Brooklyn Bridge.

Journal: May 24th. The work begins. (sort of)

Shop-vac with car

Plumbers trucks gathered on lawn.

Monday--back to New Jersey. It's an hour and a half drive in the best of conditions. This translates to a three hour commute daily, but I am so excited and perhaps brain cluttered that it strikes me as fairly reasonable proposition.

I had planned to head out as soon as the morning traffic abated, but I must not have been that eager to jump in. First, it was necessary to make many house-related phone calls.

My first call was to MacKenzie Hall, the New Jersey bat authority. I had initially spoken with her when I was still in Venice far from the New Jersey winter.  She'd gone to the house two weeks ago and saw almost no evidence of bats. She had been really excited when I’d told her that there might be 5000 bats summering in my house (based on reports from my brother, and also on sighting huge piles of bat guano in the attic— blasts of ammonia scented air on opening the front door). She soon had me looking at pictures of "bat condos" on the internet as alternative housing for our attic bats.

Her enthusiasm must have waned when she drove up from South Jersey at the beginning of bat season.   Equipped with a special bat sonar device and years of experience, she spotted only six bats. It's possible that their return to the house was prevented by George's efforts at bat proofing, but it is more likely they had succumbed to white nose syndrome, a disease that has been decimating the New Jersey bat population.

This is good news in the very short term.  I don't have to address the questions of bat removal.   But despite my immediate relief, I have to note this is bad news for the planet. Bats, an essential part of the ecosystem, devourers of mosquitoes and other flying pests, will no longer be doing their due diligence--keeping this lakeside property relatively bug free.

And, it does involve some mental shifts. I've been describing the house as bat infested for years, and as it turns out...there is scarcely a bat in sight. MacKenzie must have thought I was a bat imaginator--someone who had spotted a bat or two and instantly imagined thousands. I think I eventually convinced her that there had been a large bat population over the years, but it is possible she thinks I made it all up.

Also checked in with George Roof--told him I'd be there early afternoon, told Liz Mataset i was getting to work--and finally--it was already after noon, packed up the car and drove to Newton.

Lots of activity. George was at work.  He'd been closing up the collapsed roof under the bathroom.  Carl Little, the plumber was there with his crew. Huge trucks on the front lawn. No running water.

All the pipes broke this winter. Not quite sure how this happened. The pipes had been drained, and water shut off in November (before house transfer took place). According to Carl, at some point in December (before the final transfer of the property, Scott, working for Arthur, asked him to turn on the water for some kind of real-estate check. He was never asked to turn it off--so--the water froze, the pipes burst, and there is now no working plumbing in the house.

In my own macho way, I was imagining that I'd be here this summer, maybe living in a trailer, or in a rented apartment elsewhere--and would somehow manage. George Roof, much savvier than I in these matters, knew that basic plumbing was a necessity, and brought in Carl to have it up and running by my arrival.

Things are a bit behind schedule, but it looks like all wil be in order in a day or two. In the meantime, as I'm commuting to Brooklyn, I am managing without plumbing.

The plan is to have running water in the kitchen and to have one working bathroom. Carl had quoted a price of $6000 to install the new bath, but George told him that this bathroom would just be temporary (it's in a bad location--the pipes run outside, and since we're ultimately planning to move the kitchen upstairs, it doesn't make sense any way you cut it. Carl was reluctant to jerry-build a bathroom on the cheap. "People say it's temporary, but then they don't do what they planned, and I get blamed for shoddy work," said he. I promised him there would be no blame. And we waited for the missing part.

I had big cleaning plans--but no water--so I made the first of what would be many trips to my neighborhood Lowes and bought a Shop-Vac--a construction vacuum cleaner to start clearing out the layers of filth.

First lesson of completely inexperienced cleaner of huge messes: You have to put the shop-vac together. After all the driving, the shopping, the conferring, all I could manage to do before heading back to Brooklyn was to get that big plastic vacuum put together.

And that was the first day.

Journal: May 23rd. A day in Brooklyn

Slept spendidly at Sarah's. No plans to return to Newton. This Sunday will be an urban day of rest.

Began the day walking to yoga in Park Slope. My plans were pretty minimal--yoga, a quick shop at Trader Joe's--and dinner with Alexandra and Jon and children.

But, minimal days are not yet on the agenda. Walking to Trader Joe's, seeing packs of pamphlet touting walkers, I discovered that there was a house tour in Boerum Hill, Sarah's neighborhood, including several houses on her very block. As I was about to embark on a major house project, it seemed more than appropriate to check out my house's Brooklyn counterparts.

But first I had to do my TJ run. I was planing to go to stock my own larder and the depletions I'd made or would make at Sarah's and had also told Jon and Alexandra I'd pick op an appetizer for dinner while I there, but what do I -- a resident of Venice, California, know of the rituals know of trials and tribulations of shopping with the Trader in Brooklyn.

Very little indeed. I hesitate to mention that distracted by my detour to find the starting point of the house tour, I turned myself around, and forgetting about the potential usefulness of my droid google navigator, I probably walked fifteen minutes in the wrong direction before aligning myself properly with the TJ stars.

And once there....well it's not a place to dash in to pick up a couple of items. Although there are about thirty cashiers working check-out, the lines snaked round and round the store. For my minimal purchases, I lingered on line for more than an hour. I did have a fine conversation with the woman in front of me--but still....

By the time I made my purchases, unloaded them at Sarah's and returned to the ticket center for the house tour, they weren't even officially selling tickets. But the kind member of the Boerum Hill Association with whom I'd chatted earlier suggested I pay less for my ticket--maybe $15 as opposed to $25--and race about to see as many of the houses as possible before the 5:30 closing time.

Needless to say, the renovations of the brownstones of Boerum Hill had little in common with my upcoming project--but but i did meet a sustainability architectural consultant--which did get me new jersey thinking once again.

Then walked directly to Jon and Alexandra's--had a fine dinner with the entire family before returning exhausted to Sarah's.

Journal: May 22nd. Arrival.

I left the Dubois Manor in Dubois Pennsylvania around 9am. According to Google, it was just under 4 and one half hours from there to the old farmhouse on 86 acres in New Jersey that my father had bought in 1943.

In all the years of driving back and forth to the house, from Jersey City, or Manhattan, I’d always approached from the East.

This time, I was arriving from the west—the very far west. I had left my home in Venice, California, for the third time in two years, to drive across county. After decades of anticipation, disappointment, anger, mourning, loss, my sister and I were now the owners of the old house.

My parents had bought the house before any of us were born.  We lived in an apartment in Jersey City.  This was the only house the family ever owned  and throughout the fifties and sixties, we spent all of our summers there as well as driving out for weekends throughout the year.  

On into seventies, my parents continued to think of it as their primary residence.    When my husband and I moved to Los Angeles in 1976, re returned regularly to visit them there.  Soon after my father died in 1978, my mother  moved from Jersey City to Manhattan, but continued to spend  a good deal of time in New Jersey.  In 1984, when she was in poor health, my mother asked if we would be willing to stay in the country with her, and given the precarious state of all things,  I moved in with my husband and Sarah, our seven year old daughter.

While there we became embroiled in a dispute with my  brother.  We left.  My mother died a year and a half later.    At the reading of the will, we learned that my father’s will had been abrogated, and in the terms of my mother’s will—my sister, brother and  I all owned the house, but my brother had a life estate, which meant it was his to maintain and manage.  We had no rights to go there during his lifetime.

Flash forward to May of this year.  I am no longer married.   The children are grown and tending more towards the east coast than California. 
Although my brother had possession of the house for the past twenty years, he rarely used it.  It became host to thousands of bats as well as a fair number of squirrels, chipmunks and all sorts of rodents.

We had been involved in negotiations with the Green Acres program of the State of New Jersey and my brother for over five years.  (this is a long story, which I will hold for a bit).   But, thanks to the moneys set aside for preservation of wild life habitat in the state, and the fact that New Jersey had recently bought 1000 acres of adjacent land, we were able to sell 80 of our acres, including the lake, to be preserved as wilderness forever.  With our shares of the money we got from the state, my sister and I bought out our brother---and with the money I had left over, minus funds set aside for taxes, emergencies and lawyers fees,  I am about to do  as much as funds will allow to make the house livable.

I knew from my March visit that the house was in dreadful condition. The porch was collapsing (in fact, a few weeks before my arrival, the already deteriorating porch was further damaged by the collapse of half a maple tree onto the roof), we had been told there were thousands of bats in occupancy, the pipes had all been broken, there was water damage through the house which had stood almost abandoned for over twenty years. I knew the house was saturated with foul odors, was full of animal dwellings, and who knows what else.

I cannot tell a lie—the prospect of all of this—while exciting in theory—actually filled me with dread. I kept putting off my departure from Los Angeles, found myself lingering at the Webster’s farm in Iowa, in fact tried to loiter as much as possible as I made way across.

But here I was. I had never approached from the west (at least not in my memory). I crossed the Delaware into New Jersey and exited Route 80 to head north on 94. It's gorgeous country--not western spectacular--but green fields, rolling hills, late spring flowering excitement. As I entered Blairstown, the first town after the exit, , a deer crossed the road--not across fields or woods, but from one suburban driveway to another.

The house--well--what can I say? It's no longer a shock to me--but it is really a falling down building. But--now--after spending a few days there, I am feeling more optimistic.

Soon after I got there, George Roof arrived and gave me a quick tour of the work he's done (mostly patching up holes)--and commiserated with me about the huge job ahead .

"I don't know where you should start," he said...suggesting that I might begin with the garage--a dumpster load of garbage had been hauled away by Scott, my brother's handyman--but the drawers are overflowing with rusted tools, old cans of various poisons, bits and pieces of tools and who knows what else. The floor is covered with plastic bottles, old toys and all sorts of garbage that must have fallen out of the many garbage bags that had been sitting there for years.

I didn't do much more than haul in some of my stuff. I didn't want to arrive in New York with an over-flowing car--and after a short walk to the lake to remind myself that I was not ttotally insane (this is a really amazing spot), I drove into Brooklyn. Sarah had left that morning for a wedding in South Africa, and I was planning to use her apartment as a base until she returned on Labor Day. Jackie and Andre had seen their son off to his girlfriend's high school prom and were wandering around Brooklyn waiting for me. I picked them up after crossing the Brooklyn Bridge (despite the well-meaning advice of my gps navigator--getting completely lost in Jersey City and Hoboken--and sitting in huge traffic for almost an hour at the entrance to the Holland Tunnel--I was hours later than expected-).

Found a parking space right in front of Sarah's building---where we eventually whipped up a quick dinner of pasta ancd chick peas and kale. I travel across country with enough provisions to feed an army—the pasta and garbanzos were in my trunk, the kale salvaged from sarah's fridge—a fine feast and a good beginning to the east coast chapter (I hope).