20 hours past the deadline

My husband just left Jimmy a message. A clear message. A message of frustration. Why was this necessary?

Jimmy called me at work just before 5 p.m. to say he isn't bringing the plans to my office, but dropping then instead at our home.

At 7:30 p.m., the sliding glass door to the deck (one of two) decided to never open again. Not with jiggling, brute force nor with the skillful application of a screwdriver. The house continues to decompose right before our eyes.

Given we were expecting a visitor, I didn't dare get out of my stiff work clothes and into my cozy Lanz of Salzburg until 10 p.m. At midnight, two hours past my bedtime and 12 hours past deadline, we did lights off.

Up until this time, I spent the night looking out the kitchen window and up towards street level, hoping to see a shiny red pick-up truck pull in. Every time I heard a car, I looked up with the same nervous twitch that made me check my e-mail over and over again, hoping Jimmy would live up to his word. At 3 a.m., I peaked out the front door and, seeing nothing, turned off the exterior lights. At 5 a.m., my husband woke up and checked, finding exactly what I found: nothing. It was not a restful night.

So, either A) Jimmy is playing us, or B) at some point after 4:45 p.m., Jimmy was kidnapped by aliens. Now B may seem plausible to some, although this crowd tends to wear aluminum foil hats so that Homeland Security cannot read their thoughts... Trust me, you would not want to bug my brain right now...

Yes, I do feel let down, even swindled. All I was thinking about Friday—hell, all I've been thinking about since our last face-to-face meeting here at Casa de Roo on September 18—was to see a list of costs and a set of drawings for a house we can afford to build. A house much like the one we sketched in these lower-level floor plans. (By the way, here is how the previous plans looked.)