Working to achieve the necessary angles on the gray water drains.

Measuring, cutting, and trimming pretty lauan plywood for bulkheads.

The last couple of days have seen a lot of trailer progress, but days must have better eyes than we humans, because we have had a hard time seeing it.. Huh? In other words, Ben has been doing lots of time consuming bulkhead fitting, tweaking of cabinetry, gluing of plastic drain pipes … zzzzzz … this stuff is entirely necessary, but rates at the rock bottom of the crowd-pleaser scale. Just not a whole lot of visual payoff. I have helped a little bit but always end up having to take breaks to rub the sawdust off my nose and eyelashes. This afternoon we did a dry fit of our cool kitchen sink faucet just to liven things up (it looked pretty cool).

We have covered a lot of ground in the valley gathering materials – North Hollywood and Burbank seem to be home to the majority of the hardware/metalwork/plumbing experts and supply places so far. The sheet metal guy we visited had a picture of Brad Pitt hanging in his office! Metal worker for the stars! But all the stories we pulled out of him were about Mickey Rourke. Everyone is very nice out here in LA. We knew that going in, but are constantly amazed by the pleasant customer service interactions. We’ve also been searching online for materials related to tip out trays, 12 volt LED bulbs of various shapes and sizes, and table spiders. Hm.

Dinners have included Moroccan chicken thighs with yogurt sauce, and salmon coconut curry. Dad has become more interested in eliminating sugar from his diet, so he and I cooked eggs side by side this morning. All my time growing up, Dad never cooked, and hasn’t ever really. But he knew a lot, learned a little, and

Food photography tips courtesy of Pam!

we’ll cook some more for sure in the weeks ahead. I’ve been swimming at the Y, and taken our bikes in for some tweaks. Since our last post, Washington’s hockey and basketball teams have been thumped out of the playoffs, but the Nats continue to do well and we are listening to this west coast swing on west coast time. Not bad.

Oh, and it rained! A ton – an inch or two. Lightning, thunder, the whole nine yards. Drought restrictions imposed aren’t as tough as I expected – or as I remember when we were kids. Basically, you are restricted to watering your lawn on Tuesdays and Saturdays. Other than that, there are suggestions, eg a 3 minute shower at the gym and general sounds of alarm emitted by my mother when we let the water run while washing dishes. Good training for the 30 gallon tank in our future.