You know our recent weeks have been very boring and quiet. Nothing exciting happening, really. So the girls and I were sitting around sipping Mai Tais and eating bon-bons and Catie mentions that her head itches. Yeah, okay. Bug bites from Q’Roo, yes? I’m not real concerned.
She complains again a little while later so I ask her where it itches and take a look, and look some more… and then… hmmmm… loooookk some moooorreee and gee, um, I think she has HEAD LICE !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! AUUGGGGHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!! (more…)
Well, as Slim Pickens said in Blazing Saddles, “I am depressed.” We met with the city on Tues to get the first round of feedback on the variance application. I have no idea what will happen with the variance, but if they approve it, it will come at a heavy price – they’ll make us pay for a curb and sidewalk for 150′ of our side yard and they’ll also take 5-10′ (x 150′) of our property for city right-of-way because it turns out that our side street is below current width specifications. All that for an $850 fee – or maybe more!
It turns out that being told to submit the historic paperwork WITH the variance was not an error. The city prefers that property owners show them what they plan to do with the property before assessing it for historic value. This makes their job easier it seems, but it screws the property owners out of the money spent on architectural plans. In our case, we invested thousands of dollars in architectural consultation fees for a plan that they are now saying doesn’t have a prayer of passing the historic review. So why didn’t they say, let’s hold on here and do the historical review and after that you can apply for the variance. Thank goodness we applied for the variance before we went forward with the structural engineering work – we’d have been out tens of thousands of dollars had we proceeded.
Our case has been passed up to the next level of historic review and in a couple of weeks, I’ll have the opportunity to cut the city a check for around $3K so that a consultant can do the historic assessment on the property. Gee, I can’t wait. Maybe I can spend ALL of the kids’ tuition money on this and still not get anywhere.
From what I can figure out at this point, we may be allowed to do an addition if we can prove that the house cannot accommodate our needs. There are ways of handling additions to “potential historic resources” that meet the Dept of Interior guidelines. None of them pretty. We may have to pay a historic preservation architect to create or approve the plans. Right now I doubt we’ll be able to break ground this year on anything.
The thing that kills me is that this ordinance just passed five months ago. Had we moved ahead before then we’d be building by now.
So, we’ll hope for good things and try to avoid more bad advice. Or as the good people of Rock Ridge sang, link.
Beck awoke at midnight. I got her back to sleep, but was left awake for 3 hrs with worries and insomnia. I finally got back to sleep and Ch.t awoke me at 4:30. We got ready and were waiting for the taxi that arrived at 5am. The taxi was a luxury SUV – very comfy. No troubles at the airport.
The flight from Cancun to Denver was a long 4 hours. The girls watched the free TV and complained about the commercials – they’ve never seen commercials and thought I could control the little TV to return to the cartoon it was showing. They fought and wiggled and jumped around and complained and got up 47,652 times to go pee. I wonder if doctors can enlarge or transplant bladders. It might be worth it. Fortunately the man next to Ch,t was traveling with his wife and two (older) daughters and was patient. The man next to me just suffered. We passed the girls back and forth over the seat to avoid irritating the man next to me by walking past him constantly. (more…)
We’re home. We’re safe. We appear to be fairly healthy. Beck is sleeping. C&c are in bed and I am soon to join them. Most of the laundry is done, but we are still unbathed. We had a long and tiresome journey home and I almost got arrested on the airplane from Dnever to SFO, but that is another story, indeed.
HUGE LOVE & KISSES to Kit & Jaime & Pike & Jess & Sissy & Elleny. We loved visiting your beautiful home. Thank you, thank you, thank you for your patience and kindness and generosity and hospitality. (more…)
We awoke to another calm day. Catie and I took a walk over to the tide pools along the Paa Mul bay – they were really interesting – lots of teeny fish. Ch’t and Beck joined us and we poked around for a bit. Then Ellen showed up asking about the pan dulce we’d bought the night before. We all headed back to the palapa (Ellen just disappeared – she went so fast!) and had a nice breakfast of pan dulce and yogurt. The bay had been quite calm during our tide pool tour and we decided to go for a snorkel. Kitty came along too and we ended up going all the way out to the pole at the reef. We had a terrific snorkel. The water was much clearer and we really enjoyed seeing so many fish. It was clear that the reef had sustained a great deal of damage, but there were still many beautiful fish and coral formations. We got to experience the “dog fish” who are fed dog food by the tour operators to get them to swarm the tourists. It was kind of weird and fun at the same time. After two weeks of constant sun, I finally managed to get a good, solid sunburn.
After our morning snorkel, we decided to attempt a visit to Yal Ku in Akumal. We knew it was Semana Santa (Easter) week but we’d kind of not noticed that we’d left Yal Ku for one of the busiest days of the year. A day when any reasonable soul would stay right at home and avoid all roads, pueblos, beaches, and stores. But when did any of us qualify as reasonable?? (more…)
After we unpacked the van (that had been packed during the fire), and put everything away, and kind of settled down, and Kit did 64,231 loads of laundry, we noticed that it was a fairly calm-after-the-storm sort of day so kit & ch’t went into the Paa Mul bay for a snorkel. They had a great time and convinced me to give it another try. Of course, by the time I got down to the water, the wind and waves had picked up. But in we went and it was a bit hard to see, but we did see many fish and I felt I’d redeemed myself by taking a swim without freaking out. (more…)
So, okay. We’re all safe. The palapa is fine. Van is working. We just had a little MORE excitement last night. About 3am, Kitty came to the RV door and said that a palapa about 8 doors down was on fire and we might want to think about what we wanted to do. Kitty had been physically awakened by Natalie who came into the recambra and told her there was a fire. Chet went down right away with Jaime and I didn’t see him for about an hour. Thought about him a bit, I must say. (more…)
So… the PLAN was to get up early, drive 75 min or so down to Coba, tour the ruinas, drive 30 min or so back to Tulum, view THOSE ruins while the Hopcias hung out at the nearby beach, then go to their favorite beach near Tulum. A rather big plan for us, but seemingly doable.We were out by 9:45am or so and made good time to Coba. The area became more and more rural as we drove along. We enjoyed a fabulous book on tape, Bud not Buddy on the way. I sat in front with Kitty & the girls moved up to the middle seats – poor Ch.t got stuck next to the food cooler and had to play short order cook the whole way. I think we only had to stop for Catie Pee Breaks about 3 times. (more…)
I’m losing all sense of time here. I thought it was 9am this morning and it was really noon. I might be adapting to tropical time and that is a little scary because sometimes I think it is only the stress that holds me together.
Are you getting tired of hearing about our leisurely mornings? Well, buckle up, because here comes another one. The schedule around here is decidedly laid back. My kids are up between 6-7 am. The cousins arise (more…)
We had a quiet day today at home, doing laundry and cooking (okay, Kitty did the laundry and cooking… I don’t quite know what I did). The girls wanted to visit the pool & we did so – very pretty and blue with a lovely breeze and view of the ocean. Then Kitty arrived with snorkeling gear and tried to kill me (again). She’ll have to work on plan D because death-by-sea-water-drinking didn’t work. I guess I need a lesson on swimming in the ocean. I did warn her that I hyperventilate when I first attempt snorkeling.
We’re hoping for a cenote snorkeling adventure today. You’ll be the first to know how it goes!
You know our recent weeks have been very boring and quiet. Nothing exciting happening, really. So the girls and I were sitting around sipping Mai Tais and eating bon-bons and Catie mentions that her head itches. Yeah, okay. Bug bites from Q’Roo, yes? I’m not real concerned.
