House update: Gah.

[electricland]

My aunt writes:

Today, we had shrimp fettuccine in a cream sauce--with garnish. Dan was off at the dentist. Dennis, who's in town for physiotherapy, came.

Duct guy came to the House. Advised that the best thing to do would be as little as possible with the existing duct work, so that we could claim pre-existing condition. Or go to hot water. Otherwise, with new duct work, the city might ask for two furnaces with completely separate ducts. God, bureaucracy run rampant makes me wild!. But should be OK.

J, gave John your most recent 'to do' printout.

Cheers, Helen

Have been calling the City Hall guy. Suspect he screens his calls. Wish he would call me back, if only to give me bad news... How many messages a day is acceptable, do you think?

Comments

squeaky wheel, meet the grease....

[raithen.livejournal.com]

How many messages a day is acceptable, do you think?
a fair number- you've been chasing this guy a while, and he clearly needs a bit of a wake up call to get back to you. That said, you don't want to piss him off, so probably no more than 3 in a day. I'd ramp it up slowly, if you've called him daily for a few days with no reply, then call twice today. No reply? twice tomorrow. THen Thursday move to 3X. Etc etc. Unless his voicemail says "on holidays" there comes a point at which you need to get slightly obnoxious.... IMHO.

[archaica.livejournal.com]

OK I have to ask, not to be weird or having missed something, but -

What's the deal with the daily lunch report? And is your aunt like, a gourmet chef or something?

[raithen.livejournal.com]

das daily lunch report is the food that ELL is NOT eating, but that her long-suffering house reno crew is enjoying courtesy of her Aunt Helen. It has become a standard by which the day's progress is measured. ;).

And me? I want Helent to come cook *MY* lunches!!

Re: squeaky wheel, meet the grease....

[electricland.livejournal.com]

Hmmm. You are right. I'll keep calling, but only leave 2 messages tomorrow (this morning's wasn't a 100% success anyway because another call came in for me while I was leaving it).

thanks!

[electricland.livejournal.com]

Pretty much what raithen said. The hooligans eat much better than I do.

My aunt is an amazing cook, but she also knows the joys of 30 days on the rock pile.

[raithen.livejournal.com]

but she also knows the joys of 30 days on the rock pile.
das beinkt a colloquialism me no understand....

[electricland.livejournal.com]

our family has a couple of copies of Peg Bracken's "I Hate to Cook Book." Whose central premise is, basically: "So you have this family, and they demand to be fed EVERY NIGHT, yet they complain if you give them the same meal 5 nights running. What's up with that, anyway?" Chapter 1, '30 Days on the Rock Pile,' contains 30 dead simple yet tasty recipes requiring no more than 4 ingredients and 20 minutes each. It was published in the 60s or thereabouts, so it's heavy on the canned soup. But it's a great concept, and the chapter title has stayed with us.

[electricland.livejournal.com]

the first report, which may enlighten you although I wouldn't swear to it, is here (http://www.livejournal.com/users/electricland/359687.html).