Saturday 13 June 2009

Demolition Week


Demolition is dirty, disgusting, back-breaking, not to mention painful work. And we loved every minute of it. Maybe its because we are used to days with comparatively little physical activity or maybe because it went far better than either of us had ever thought to hope, but we were positively floating with pride that whole week. Oh, we were in pain, and there were some nights that our arms were so heavy that we couldn't even muster the strength to lift them. Not to mention the black goop that would come dripping out of our noses and that had certainly invaded our lungs. But we were doing it! We were finally (WE! US!) working on the house. Amazingly the majority of the work was done in the first two days. Within that time we had managed to knock down all the walls save for the bathroom as well as uncover the ceiling in the front room. The part that we weren't so sure about was how to get all the debris out of the house and into the large waste container that was parked in the yard. Manu rented some scaffolding so that we could build a bridge from the window to the container. But to move the more than two feet worth of debris would take the two of us days.

Then on the 3rd day the cavalry arrived, quite literally through our back window, in the shape of our most colorful of colorful neighbors, a loud-mouthed, gold-hearted, old school mannered legend on the street if there ever was one named Maradona. Now be it either out of pity for Manu "You're working with
YOUR WIFE???!!", as a marketing ploy (Maradona is in construction), or simply out of the kindness of his heart, Maradona volunteered not only his services but also those of two of his hangers on. Within four hours they had cleared all the debris out of the house and into the soon brimming 40 yard bin out back. After a few slices of pizza and a beer on our front stoop off they went onto the next job reentering our house again in order to leave as they had arrived, super-hero style, through back window.

The other angel of note that day was no less a personage than The Don himself. The Don's legendary status spreads much wider than The Small Street, The Don being a person of renown among the famous, the not so famous as well as the infamous of The Big City. The Don is also Manu's second cousin and our Little Superhero's godfather. A prince among men capable of endearing himself to even the most cold hearted of beings, The Don loves the good life and everything that goes with it. He is the only person we know who will bring a homemade picnic lunch to friends "on the inside" one weekend and be off to the Hamptons the next. He is also the last person you would expect to see on a construction site. He arrived that 3rd morning in his "work attire" designer jeans (Zegna Sport!), a lime green polo (Lacoste!) and a black baseball cap (Mercedes!). But despite appearances The Don worked his designer clad ass off beside Manu as they stripped the remaining two ceilings and started in on the bathroom.
Day 4 and 5 were perhaps the most difficult as the compounded movements had our muscles begging for mercy. But we kept at it, albeit at a much slower pace. And eventually, as the last walls came down we started to see that The Tall House was living up to its promise, that it would indeed be as beautiful as we had hoped. Funnily enough though, when the end drew near that Friday afternoon and we turned our newly purchased ShopVac off for the final time, we found ourselves searching those bare walls for pieces that we had forgotten in the strange hope of somehow prolonging the experience. But then we realized that this was just the beginning.

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