The Art of the Possible

Back when I graduated from college, my friend Sheri gave me a book of good quotations.  One of those quotations was from Otto von Bismarck, but I always attribute it to Antonio Banderas because, importantly, he sang it in Evita.  "Politics: the Art of the Possible."

"Besides Che and Puss, name another role of mine you enjoyed."

I usually write in this blog about the stuff we're doing to the house, or trying to do.  Today, I write about stuff we're doing to the neighborhood-- or trying to do, at least.  You see, the U.S. Congress has turned politics from Antonio Banderas's "Art of the Possible" into En Vogue's "Never Gonna Get It."  And that's how my neighborhood has seemed for the past month or so.  Yes, folks, we have re-entered THE H.O.A. ZONE!

(And let me say that, unlike most of my writing/speaking/living, I'm going to try to be fair, even-handed, and respectful of "the other side" in this one... not the least of which because many people with whom I am otherwise perfectly friendly are very much on "the other side.")

Something you may have picked up over the course of this blog is that our neighborhood is populated mostly by older people-- many of whom are older women.  Abby likes to say nothing bad will ever happen to our kids because we have a neighborhood of displaced grandmothers all around us.  But if you look closely, lurking in the shadows, you will find them.  And by "them," I mean "families with kids."  A few months back, Abby and I were approached to see if we could be informal census takers, to find out how many kids were in the community, how old they were, and what they do for fun.  Part yenta, part sentry, we set out over the Interwebs to count our compadres con familias when, amazingly, we discovered there were at least sixty-some kids here.  Craziness!  

But why the census?  And what does this have to do with Antonio Banderas?  Well, you see, there's nowhere to play here.  There's a playground about a half-mile down a steep and winding path through Rock Creek Park, and there's a playground a bit more than a half-mile across a train bridge.  But there's nothing kids can actually do without supervision, apart from going in the Glen.  And that means there's nowhere for them to congregate, which is how come we've lived here for over a year and the kids know no neighbor under sixty.  There's one group of families who live over on Hume Drive, which is around the corner and through the tunnel, who all congregate in the street behind their garages.  But that makeshift play spot is about it.  In a neighborhood surrounded by parkland, there's no play space.

The neighborhood had the opportunity to designate such missing play space, which is why the issue came up now, since a builder had agreed to finance all or part of it if certain concessions were made on the zoning for his project.  (For those of you who know, it's the building with the columns right out our kitchen window, and it'd be fantastic if it were finally developed.)  For a community with a homeowners' association, getting a five-digit check offered to you is not something that comes around every day, but this is where things get murky.

All of a sudden, our little utopian Pleasantville turned-- and quick-- into Wisteria Lane.  People were sending nasty emails and nastier letters, all the while smiling and continuing a perfectly charming outward appearance.  The NIMBYism was actually pretty amazing, seeing it from inside, and we were half-asked and half-offered to give our opinion-- as a cohort of families-- to the situation.  So I asked those grown-ups who belonged to the sixty-some kids to get together for a playdate, to meet each other, to show our progeny the potential in the neighborhood, and to talk about the issue at hand.  Wisteria Lane?  Now we're talking CSI: Miami.

Because as we met, someone (it was a bearded fellow, which made it all the more mysterious) began taking our pictures.  And afterwards some of our conversation was related back to the homeowners' association.  Sorry, not conversation: PLOTTING!  Turns out, the spot where we met was not the Ireland Trail, but the second coming of the Rosslyn parking garage, and I was Deep Throat himself.  (Or was I William Wallace?  I'm mixing way too many movies here...)  Either way: BEARDY GUY!

Now time for an aside.  I don't particularly want a playground in the neighborhood.  I think playgrounds can be a bit ugly, and I know that all it takes is one evening with some dumbass high schoolers and the whole thing will get tagged and/or broken.  Heck, my brother-in-law peed down a slide in North Carolina when he was in high school (Hi Nathan!) and I think of that pretty much every time I go to a park with the kids.  That said, we were up against a group of our own neighbors who didn't just want to vote against a play space, but wanted the very discussion of it to be a non-starter.  In a neighborhood that I'm pretty sure is about 90% very lefty Democrat, we had a loud cohort of what ten miles further south would be veritable Tea Partiers.  And that ain't cool.

So a meeting was called, and I was ready to lead the way.  Only problem is I had plans I couldn't get out of: it was Election Day and I had volunteered to work the polls for 15 hours.  So I enlisted my trusty sidekick.  Um, MY TRUSTY SIDEKICK.  Ah, there she is: Abby.  Abby allowed me to call together our descomisados, have a pizza play date right outside the meeting, and encourage as many of those parents as possible to attend, when otherwise they might never have thought or known to come, given it was a Tuesday evening-- a time most amenable to most working suburban parents of small children.  And I say she "allowed" me because while I arranged, she led.  I made it to the tail end of the meeting, with "our side" smiling and shaking hands, and Hillary-- er-- Abby talking up a bunch of the neighborhood leadership.  She did an awesome job, bunches of parents showed up, our point was made, CIVILITY HAPPENED.

And now we can DISCUSS having a play area.  It doesn't have to be a playground, and in fact, like I said, I hope it's not.  I personally am in favor of a flat, open, grassy area surrounded by trees and bushes where kids can know to congregate, and their parents can send them without fear of having to chase balls into the street or fall off a cliff or get hit by a bus.  But I'm willing to listen to what others have to say too, because I learned from Antonio Banderas that Politics is the Art of the Possible.  Sorry, Otto.

"Für mich Weine nicht, Argentinien." 

Living in a Fish Bowl

Not much has happened with the house since last I wrote, although a lot has happened in it.  My parents spent the weekend-- our first guests! --and helped us put a whole bunch of stuff away, emptying a lot of boxes and creating actual open space in the great room, rather than the huge pile anchored by our two enormous armoires and covered with plastic sheeting.  We put Lola's bed together, and decided to buy a new version from IKEA rather than putting together the identical one we bought from a couple off of Craigslist what seems like ages ago; it worked out, too, because my parents took the used one back to their place so the kids can use it when they sleep over.  Slowly but surely, the place is becoming livable.

Living in the house is definitely going to be interesting.  We have chosen to be in a fish bowl by buying the house that's pretty much at the center of the community-- and don't forget the 49 windows-- but at the same time, it'd be nice to, oh, I don't know, be able to change my pants in my own bedroom!  For the first four workdays this week, I would go downstairs to take a shower in the morning (the upstairs shower is still doorless), then come back up and grab clothes from my closet, then head to the upstairs bathroom to change.  One day I picked a shirt that was too wrinkled, so I came back into my bedroom only wearing pants, and a neighbor walked right by.  I'm sure all she saw was me standing there with no shirt on, but I'm also pretty sure by the look on her face that she was pretty sure I was naked.  Oh well-- that's what they get for letting exhibitionists into their fishbowl, right?  (Um, right?)  However, as of the weekend, all of that has changed, as we have had our cellular shades installed.  We got the kind that can be pulled up or down, so we can still have daylight in, say, the top two windows without putting on a show for the neighborhood.  The shades are in the three bedrooms, and should assuage my sister's fears of people watching the kids while they sleep.

The kids, by the way, are sleeping just fine.  The first night they slept with each other in Isaac's room, but ever since they've used their own bed. Lola's tickled pink about her new bed, and I'm sure she'll be even more so once Abby gets her built-in completed.  Isaac's still in his old bed, which will eventually be given over to the guest room once we get a new mattress and give him our current one, but his room's all decked out with the solar system on the ceiling, his toys already strewn all over the place, and his aquarium humming in the corner.  Ah yes, the aquarium.  Abby tried her darnedest to get that thing to stay in DC, but it's made its way over, which I'm happy about.  Having had one all through growing up, I really liked staring at mine as I was falling asleep, and I know I was much healthier for having had a giant humidifier in the room.  That said, we'll take much better care of it in the new place than we did in the basement; when I emptied the water there, it looked more like iced tea than something fish would want to live in.  Driving the six miles with the aquarium in my passenger seat was a lesson in how smoothly I don't drive; even when I tried the most babyish of rolling stops and starts, the couple inches of water I had left in there (with all 30-some fish wondering what the heck was going on) sloshed in a great example of what a tsunami might look like if the earth was placed in a car and driven up 16th Street...

The commute's not nearly as bad as I feared, although it's much better in the morning than in the evening.  In the morning, I'm getting up at 6 instead of 6:10, and I'm not making the kids' lunches-- at least not yet.  If I get out the door before 6:45, I can catch a Montgomery County Ride On bus right outside, take that to Silver Spring Metro station, and I get to work in Rosslyn by 7:40.  If I miss the bus, it's a one-mile walk to Forest Glen Metro station, which takes about 17 minutes.  Of the seven morning commutes I've had so far, I've missed the bus twice, but only once have I gotten to work late, and even then by only about ten minutes.  On the walk to Forest Glen, I see practically no one, which is weird.  That's not the same on the way home, though. Twice I've been timing myself to see which way walking from Forest Glen is the fastest, and each time I've been thwarted by pesky neighbors wanting to --gasp!-- talk to me!  Actually, it's great, because I'm making an effort to learn people's names, and there's no better way to do that than to actually meet them on a regular basis.  I'll admit that after living in our house in DC, there was one household on our block that knew everything about us, but we knew the names of exactly two people in their large family.  Yeah, after nearly a decade on the block.  Now you can imagine how embarrassing this was for me, since I grew up as the paperboy who at least knew the name of the head of every household on my block.  So this time around, I mean business, and started by going to the Homeowners' Association meeting on Thursday, and taking detailed notes not on the issues at hand (which are mostly about money), but about people's names and where they live.

So Susan and Ron, who moved here from Pennsylvania, I was very happy to talk to you two on the way home from work the other day.  And Amy, who just had a baby with her husband Tony, I'm sorry if I freaked you out by knowing your name (and saying it) twice as I walked by over the last couple of days.  And Bobby, who works as a wine specialist at Dean + Deluca, I hope you did well on your test, and will refer you to the winos that are my mother-in-law and her husband when they come by this weekend; and I'm definitely intrigued by your wife, because I can honestly say I've never met a woman named Lady Stacey. And Paula and Richard and Peg with the Easter egg tree and Minh and Janice from Australia and Miss Sally and her daughter Shelly and Jim and Susan and Carol and Lou (whose dogs are Diva and Pierre) and Brian and Laura (hey! I know two Brian-and-Lauras now!) and... well... you get the picture.  We may live in a fishbowl, but those things are made of glass and the fish can see out just as well as we see inside.  Abby and I want to live here for a long time, so it makes no sense not to know our neighbors.  So, neighbors?  Please don't get freaked out when I call you by name, because if I don't do it now, it'll be 2023 and I'll be asking my kids to find out the names of the people we've known since before we moved in.

So moving back inside the house, I guess there have been some small things going on.  All four new windows are supposedly in now.  One has been installed-- in the kitchen-- which is good, since any time the wind blew, the insulation that was there made a crinkly sound that reverberated throughout the whole level. I see one other one ready to go in up on the balcony, but have no idea where the others are.  The cabinets are not complete yet, but the last one has finally been delivered, so we are in the process of scheduling the final install.  Once that's done, they'll take back all the mistake cabinets, which will free up another huge corner of the great room.  The countertop is done, except we realized we needed them to drill four holes instead of two, based on our choice of faucets.  So I emailed them last night and am still waiting for a response.  As a result, the kitchen sink is still out of commission, so tonight I had to wash the dishes in the bathroom. It's gross to wash the dishes in the bathroom, but it's also very nerve-wracking to have to do it on a brand-new porcelain sink that is ridiculously shallow.  I was treating each dish as if it were bone china, not because of the preciousness of the dish, but because I didn't want the sink to get another chip.  Yeah, I said "another;" no idea how/when/why, but there's a tiny chip right on the inside corner of our upstairs vanity.  Already.  I guess it just follows us, since there's one in our upstairs sink from DC that's been there ever since I mistakenly dropped one of Abby's mysterious glass bottles from the medicine cabinet way back when. (Who'd'a thunk that the porcelain would break and the glass bottle would come out the victor in that contest?)

Tomorrow we're having the measure for the upstairs shower door.  If you'll recall, we turned down the $3000 custom door our contractor suggested, but Abby also turned down the perfectly good $700 one I found online because it had an edge on the side, and she wanted a perfectly frameless one.  So we're going to inch up a bit, and go for the Home Depot custom ones that are about $1500, after which we can take a shower in our own bathroom instead of running up and down the stairs to do it.  After that, hopefully the cabinets will be installed within the next few days, which will include the hookup of the dishwasher and range, and the ability of our contractors to install the range hood.  Next Monday we're scheduled for a Comcast install for Internet, cable, and a security system, although we're pretty sure none of it is going to work.  You see, we've been going back and forth with both Comcast and Verizon for weeks, trying to see if they actually provide service to us.  At first neither recognized our addresses, but then they did.  Now they want to just come out and do an appointment, even though Lee told us the windmill next-door was told they can't get service because no wires have been pulled for our side of the street.  If you can imagine, I'm trying to get Comcast to put my house on the same work order as theirs, to save us time as well as to save the Comcast guy from having to come out for no reason.  Comcast refuses to give me any information on an account that's not mine, even when I assure them I in fact want absolutely no information.  "Just look at their account, don't say a word, and see if they can physically get cable; if they can, great! Schedule the appointment for us; but if they can't, wouldn't it save us all the trouble?"  "I'm sorry, sir, but I can't give information out on anyone else's account."  AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA.   So Comcast is coming out on Monday, but the smart money's on us not having cable on Tuesday.

So that's the update for now.  Again, due to that whole not-having-cable thing, I can't upload pictures.  So I promise a buttload of pictures once everything's hooked up.  In the meantime, I've gotta run home and pack for my three-day Buffalo adventure that starts tomorrow and will hopefully include Duff's chicken wings, Anderson's lemon ice, and Alex Trebek. :)

The Look

The six miles between points A & Bungalow.

When we were driving to the house on Saturday morning, we took our usual route: Illinois to Georgia to Missouri to Sixteenth to Second to Linden.  Halfway through the drive, you're still pretty much in Petworth, where we have lived for the last nine-or-so years.  But when you turn right onto Sixteenth, you enter a new world; that of Shepherd Park.  If you're unfamiliar with that neighborhood, I can only describe it as one of the most attractive you can have while still being on a major street in a major city.  The homes are large and expensive, although not all grand.  Most are from the 1920s I'd guess, although there are a few conspicuous 1970s modern specimens that look like they'd be more comfortable on a cliff somewhere along the Pacific.  A few have turrets, a few have ivy-covered walls, and a most are brick of one color or another.  Dotted amongst these stately homes are at least two synagogues and an atheist gathering spot, as well as the back side of the old Walter Reed complex.  At one end is the side entrance to Rock Creek Park, and at the other is a traffic circle on the Maryland border with one of the District of Columbia boundary stones in the middle.  This is the top of the diamond, geographically and economically, where all of the east-west streets are named after plants, in alphabetic order of course, rather than after the obscure statesmen you'll find in the rest of the city.

Our former neighbor Angie's gorgeous Craftsman in
Shepherd Park.  I wonder if she knows her house
is now featured in at least two local blogs?

When I drive the six miles from one house to the other, I'm often taken to dreaming about living in one of those houses.  Maybe the one with the huge magnolia out front and the bay windows over looking the park.  Or maybe the one with the amazing slate roof and the arched doorways and the understated cars in the back that cost well into the six figures.  Or even one on a sidestreet near, say, the corner of Geranium and Alaska, where our former neighbors have a gorgeous Craftsman Bungalow.  I know I'd never be able to live in this area, because it's out of my tax bracket, but who doesn't like to dream a bit?  Well, I was dreaming out loud on Saturday morning, and I think I hurt Abby's feelings.  I probably went a bit overboard by mentioning all the imperfections of the house I did own: the fact there was no basement or attic; that we'd have little privacy; that we'll be a mile from a Metro station; that we won't have a garage; that we will forever have to deal with a homeowners' association and an historical society; that we have terribly inefficient windows and a loud HVAC system and a huge water heater and a tiny bedroom and will forever be shooing people out of our parking spots.  And we live too close to that tiny industrial area off Linden, and the Beltway can be really loud at times.  And suddenly, Abby was giving me the look.  You know the one: "Are you serious? Are we not a week away from finishing into a project we've spent two years on? And you're dreaming about these houses that are easily three times the price ours will be when it's all finished?"  Well, if you don't know the look, I know the look.  After all, I have experienced it many, many times in the nine-plus years we've been married.

I had to explain to Abby that, sure, things aren't perfect in the house, but they wouldn't be in one of these either.  She asked whether I'd take any one of these as an even trade with the Bungalow if someone offered. Of course they'd have to be ridiculous to offer.  I mean, the houses at the top of the street have all that, and are walking distance to the Metro to boot, for Pete's sake!  It would make no economic sense for me not to do that trade.  But the thing is, that's not an option, because I know the entire zip code came up goose eggs for us when we were searching for homes in our price range, or even a bit above it, back in 2011 when we were house hunting.  And the market has only gotten stronger since.  Plus, no matter how perfect the house, we'd still have to do tons of stuff to it to make it "ours," and who wants to go through that again?  My sister asked us Saturday night whether we'd do a project like this again, considering all we'd gone through.  We shrugged and looked at each other, and pretty much in sync said we would, but only once the kids had moved out.  My sister was incredulous.  We were unfazed.

No, the Bungalow is not my perfect house by any means.  But it's a heck of a lot better than this place.  No, it's not fair to compare a medium-sized single-family home in the leafy suburbs with an English Basement in the District, especially when there are four of you, but these four months have made me wistful for the days we had a dishwasher, when we could use the laundry facilities without having to knock or grovel, when we didn't have to duck to get into our own door, when our kids had separate rooms and ours was not a hallway between theirs and the bathroom, when one of us could go to sleep early and wouldn't be kept awake by the sound of the TV or the computer keyboard ten feet away, when we had a family-sized fridge and an microwave that didn't have to be plugged in with a retractable extension cord.  When we had a dining room table, and the kids didn't have to sit on the floor to eat dinner.  When the toilet wasn't on the wall behind the stove.

The Embassy of the Republic of Congo:
Who would not want to live in this place?

I'm going to love the Bungalow.  In just the past ten days, I've gotten really, genuinely excited about the place at least three times, and I'm itching to go back up there, since it's been over 100 hours now since I last visited.  I'm going to love the new space we'll have-- and not compared to the basement, but to the house we were last in at Thanksgiving.  I'm going to love being able once again to host friends and family when they trek up, down, or over to see us and/or our city.  I'm going to love the view of the glen when I'm making dinner, or the sound of my kids playing on my grandma's piano downstairs, or being able to let the kids play outside all on their own as a regular habit.  But it's like being married: I made my choice, but I'm not dead.  There's no reason I shouldn't be able to wonder what it'd be like to live in that building that houses the Congolese Embassy on Sixteenth and Colorado.  And just because I will fantasize about living in walking distance to the kids' elementary school or staying within the five blocks we currently are from a Metro station, it doesn't mean I won't completely get a kick out of seeing deer stand on their hind legs to eat from the century-old yews in my yard, or enjoy the moment when I realize I know the names of more than three of my neighbors.

So please, even if I complain, be it about any of the things above, or any number of other things I haven't mentioned this time around --cost and schedule overruns, anyone?-- know that I'm really, truly, honestly excited to live in this place, and to get this part of my life started already.  And the only thing I'm resigned to is the fact that I'll never stop giving Abby reason to give me that look.  You know the one.

Home.  Almost.

On the Right Track

Rep. Van Hollen

A while back I mentioned that I had called my new Congressman's office to ask if there was anything they could do about the train tracks that ran across the northeast corner of the National Park Seminary Property. The tracks carry Amtrak trains between DC and the midwest, as well as MARC trains, which are Maryland commuter trains connecting DC with Montgomery County and going out as far as West Virginia.  But the tracks are owned by CSX, the freight company, and a good number of freight trains buzz through on a pretty regular basis.  It's actually not bad at all: if you're standing outside, without trees around you, you can definitely hear the trains from across the glen, but once you're in the trees it really gets muted, and you can hardly hear anything from inside, even with our current state of holey-ness.  I guess the trains used to sound their horns every time they approached the crossing at Forest Glen Road, which is just across the glen, so the train traffic was much more in-your-face -- in-your-ears, actually -- until recent months, when they reconfigured the crossing and put up signs warning cars and pedestrians that no horn was sounded.  I understand some people were not so happy about the horns, and others are not so happy that people moved so close to a horned crossing and groused about it-- either way, there are no horns now, so that's no longer an issue.

But what is an issue, and the reason I called the Congressman's office, is that when the tracks cross the glen and run by the property, they do so without any kind of barrier or separation.  And knowing my kids, and especially my son's love of everything trains (a love that is quickly being supplanted by outer space, actually), I can definitely see them traipsing across the glen to see how close they could get, or how tracks feel.  Heck, I can see Isaac trying to see what they taste like, but that's a different blog now, isn't it?  Anyhow, even though I trust that, even at 5, Isaac would listen to us when we told him to stay a certain distance away, it's nice to have that backup, y'know?  Congressman Van Hollen's office got in touch with CSX, and one of their public affairs reps actually called me back today, which was pretty impressive.  (Took only four weeks, too.)  She was definitely guarded, and started right off by wondering why I was so interested, since my property was so far (maybe an eighth of a mile?) from the railroad.  She also noted that CSX owned 23,000 miles of rail, and it wasn't exactly their policy to fence it all in.  I understood where she was coming from, but I also understood that she thought I was a townsperson with a pitchfork and a torch, so I quickly told her my side of things, and explained that what I was out for wasn't blood, but rather some sort of help or advice.  I think I may have caught her off guard, and I'm guessing most people she speaks with are not the flexible kind...

So what happened is she told me that while they don't put up fences, they have several different options they're usually willing to work with.  One would be allowing us, as a homeowners' association, to pay to put up a fence of our own on their land.  But she noted that fencing along a railroad track hardly keeps people out, and attracts things like vandalism and kids sneaking over/under/around/through; not the best option.  She also mentioned that CSX would be willing to donate money to the homeowners' association to buy and plant vegetation that would separate the tracks from the land-- she specifically mentioned "really thorny plants," which was funny-- and that CSX even had a specific type (she didn't mention which) of trees that they could donate to the cause.  Seriously, I didn't think I would get as much help as this, so I was really impressed.  (Not to mention, she finished by telling me she had a whole bunch of coloring books and other materials for kids explaining train-track safety that she could send to us.  Lady, you had me at coloring books...)

So where it stands right now is that I'm going to try to write a note to the homeowners' association explaining my busybody-ness and asking if there is any interest.  I would say that I can't imagine there would be a lot of blowback to a potential partnership with a neighboring utility to plant trees, but you never know; after all, we live in a country where people today are saying they want to move to Canada to get away from our "socialized healthcare system," so anything could happen.  I, for one, am just impressed that communication lines are open between a lowly property owner, a Congressman, and a corporation with $9 billion in annual revenue.  Who'd'a thunk it?

A Great Room It Is

Thanks to the sweltering heat, we spent a good deal of this weekend indoors (in the car or the house) planning out the floorplan for our main floor.  If we didn't draw up a dozen different takes on the plan (and use up half of Becky & Larry's pad of graph paper) then we did nothing at all.  Turns out, we think we'll be going with the "Courtney Plan" -- namely, the one with the large Great Room and the teeny tiny bedroom.  By moving the fridge from one theoretical wall to another, we opened up a big part of the kitchen to cabinets (and a pantry!) we hadn't previously considered possible.  We should be able to keep the radiators, which is a bonus.  We think it's gonna be the best of both worlds, but we'll hold our breath until Mohammed takes a look and says it's doable.  (Fingers crossed)

Other news?  Abby met with Bonnie Rosenthal this morning.  Bonnie is the woman who spearheaded the whole movement to save the Seminary site.  I haven't met her yet, but Abby says she's super nice.  (And who knows: with that last name, maybe she's a relative?)  She handed over the code to get into the main Seminary building, where we will find the various gyms and common areas (pool tables, foosball, computer terminals and, most importantly for the next few months, bathrooms!).  Some annoying stuff: apparently we don't get access to the ballroom, and we don't have a key to the front door-- which is directly across the street from the bungalow-- and instead have to circle the complex to enter from the other side.  I remember meeting some of my neighbors a few months back and hearing complaints about who gets access to the ballroom and who doesn't.  All I know is I'm paying a homeowner's association fee, and I am now extremely interested to find out what that required $112.50 a month gets me-- and what it gets other people.  More to come on this issue, I'm sure.

Finally, I knew it wouldn't take long: a big ol' thumbs down to Home Depot.  With all the crap we took from them doing our current house, it shouldn't be a surprise that they're ready to screw us again!  This time, Abby was at the Home Depot in Columbia, MD, and someone there asked her if she would like to have a closet professional come out and talk to her about organizational needs for the house.  Abby explained to the person that there was nothing in the house, and all the closets were aspirational at best at this point, and the person said that wouldn't be an issue.  So Abby packed up the kids early this morning and took them to meet the closet person.  She showed up late, and annoyed that it was hard to find the place.  (My guess is she didn't use Google Maps!)  Then, without even going into the house, she said she only works with existing closets.  The best part: she turned around and left, and didn't even say goodbye!  Good thing Abby had arranged the meeting with Bonnie, or schlepping the kids up to Forest Glen the morning after getting back from a road trip would've been for naught.