Two days, two milestones

June 26, 2013:  The Supreme Court paves the way for true equality for the LGBT community, including Rebecca and me.

June 27, 2013:  Concrete is poured in our house.

I'm verklempt.

June 26, the country's looking good!

June 27, there's concrete in this photo.  Trust me.

The pouring of the concrete, I'm told, is a big deal in construction terms. Nothing can go forward without it. No sheet rock, no plumbing, no electricity, no stairs, no floors. Nothing.

However, I was under a misillusion, which isn't even a word, but you know what I mean. I thought by the end of today there would be a nice, big, flat slab of concrete that we could stand on. Or that we could stand on it when it was all dry. The dirt would be buried. The room would look room-ish.

That's another expectation that can be flushed away -- if there were a working toilet on the premises. Concrete pouring happens in stages. First the guys do a lot of carpentry.

Then some other guys pour concrete in some spaces. Then the carpentry guys do more carpentry and framing. Then more concrete gets poured. Eventually there is a slab on which we can stand. I'm told that will be in about two weeks.

I'm having a little trouble trusting the process, though, when the concrete truck bears this name:

Ahh, well. Applaud the framers of the Constitution. And the framers of our house. 

As the great legal scholar and building expert Yogi Berra put it, "The future ain't what it used to be."

Good times are coming.

Fish gotta swim, birds gotta fly, women gotta paddle.

It's Sunday morning at the ol' apartment and we're watching life outside.

Some birds gotta fly, but not this cormorant. He just likes to stretch. It's Sunday for him, too.

Meanwhile, our neighbors like to paddle the local swan to each other's place when it's time to borrow a cup of sugar.

Rebecca and I are not just bird watchers. We like looking at the girls going by on their paddle-thingies.

Of course, some people prefer more conventional means of water travel. But what if their boats are too tall to pass under the Lefty O'Doul Bridge?

No problemo.

Back in Noe Valley, the place formerly known as our home has truly become a job site.

Am I the only one who thinks this looks like a great place to bury something?  Or someone?

Going deep

Maybe you don't find this picture all that interesting. But I think it's kind of amazing that here in the midst of this city, with all its concrete and steel and roads and urban-y stuff, there is real earth beneath my home. For that matter, there's earth beneath your home, too. It comforts me to know . . .

We've all got us some dirt just below the surface.

No turning back

Okay, now it's official. Rebecca and I can no longer tell the contractor we were just kidding about this whole thing. What was once a functional, if less than gorgeous room, has been rendered nonfunctional.

And while still not gorgeous, it's kind of interesting (to us, anyway) to see what underlies the house. This week the boys will be excavating the floor.

That wall at the far end of our garage I mentioned in an earlier post?  

Buh-bye. 

The treacherous interior stairs became more treacherous. And then they were gone altogether.

Let's just say our apartment is starting to look a whole lot better to us. And to Lucy.