Flower (my Russian co-pilot) just reminded me that a few years back when I tried to make the transition from MAC to PC and encountered perhaps the worst computer gris gris ever – that perhaps my gris gris has yearly themes. Leaving the MAC after three cubes gone bad, I bought an Alienware laptop and the motherboard blew out. Then they sent another one and lo and behold the motherboard blew out. Then I got an IBM laptop, and it was corrupted. Of course, each one of these incidents was fraught with myriad phone calls to unresponsive IT support (and I use that term loosely) and finally with a letter to the president and marketing director of IBM. And guess what? I went back to the MAC. What a year of hell that was.
Flower said my dealings with carpenters is similar to my computer gris gris. When K returned from Michigan I gave him a list of things to do and asked if he could do it in 120 hours. If so and everything got done, I would excuse the cypress door cost. Today one of the entries – which was to install the screens in the house – seems to have been completely misinterpreted by him. He said he thought I meant only in the shower. I said we went through the house I pointed out each thing – the screens being a part of most parts of the house – the porch, the doors, the transoms – he said “I’m shutting down. No. No. No. I’m shutting down.” And as he slumped against the back of the house I looked at him and said, “you know what, I’m going to leave now and you can think about this.”
Then I walked out the door. Flower thinks the smudging that I did (twice) might need to be done as a weekly ritual until I am in the house. I think she is right.