Russ and Sue

Russ was a Realtor that Stephanie befriended and used to look at her share of the fifty houses that we were determined to see before buying. We'd seen houses go from an average of $17,000 to 80,000 in six short years and wanted to make sure that we knew what a good deal was when we saw it. Our second Mobile Home had come up from the $15,000 we'd paid for it to 35,000 in two years and we needed all of it to count. Stephanie, with her Irish good looks, auburn hair, Sioux tan and gift for gab managed to charm Russ into taking her to lunch every time they went out looking. The fact that, with heels, she was taller than he was didn't seem to faze him in the least. The one time that I went with them Russ went on about how the place we were looking at on Rowland would be worth so much more when the new shopping center got built. Knowing how long it took to build things here sort of negated that wonderful line of bull. I really wasn't interested in hearing all the extraneous nonsense so I just went on my own or with Stephanie for those I looked at.

I was interested in Point Richmond at the time since I'd worked there for Santa Fe for a while and the guy that taught me Gung Fu on a three level terraced back yard there showed me what unique places there could be. So, for a while, Stephanie looked her way and I looked mine. Besides, I had discovered a very cute Realtor that was dying to show me some places. I was beginning to develop some very interesting fantasies about her. Not that Stephanie would have dampened that though. Hell, usually she said something to women that made them all that much more interested. At that point I really wasn't sure why women were becoming attracted to me but I had a few basic ideas.

First, it didn't hurt to be tall, in shape, a nice bulge and, from the right angle, halfway decent looking. At least that's the impressions I was getting from all of Stephanie's sisters and cousins. I knew the bulge was important because they kept sitting on it and wiggling around obviously. You had to beat me on the head (one of them) with things at that point. One of the most important things that Stephanie taught me was to listen for the silences in conversations. Now, I know that having learned to enjoy someone and how to openly admire and compliment them on things that genuinely appeal to you without managing to insult them is important but the most important is the twinkle in your eye that says you really really do enjoy them. I still lamely don't question females about their interests. It's still mostly about me. Well, I wouldn't want to be perfect.

It turned out that my Realtor was mostly interested in selling property and other than insisting on buckling me into her car and managing to push into my upper thigh in the process, we just looked at houses. She must have been a Mom. Everything seemed about ten thousand too high and I didn't see anything appealing or unique enough to be worth paying a premium or even making a lowball offer. She specialized in Point Richmond so that was the end of that.

Meanwhile, I had bought an airless sprayer for my Property Maintenance business since paint jobs seemed on the rise. Stephanie had told Russ about it and he decided that he needed their house painted before putting it on the Market. Later, Sue's brother had me paint their house and Peter Jo was a next door neighbor. The business was humming along nicely.

Monday I started prepping Russ and Sue's house by pressure spraying it then scraping and sanding which took about three days. By Thursday I was spraying the soffit and fascia, Friday the body of the house. Later I learned that the body came first.

Russ had come and gone from the office, working at home at least part of the time so he was around a lot. I didn't quite know what to think about Russ. Something was a little off but I just didn't know what. I didn't know whether he was nervous about how I felt about all the time he spent with Stephanie or what. Russ was around a lot but Sue was at work every day so I rarely saw her.

I had lots of energy, some natural and some by better living with chemistry, so I started in on brushing the trim on Saturday. I'd been taught the finer points of brushing by a guy I worked with at the first Rental yard in San Rafael that worked there part time in retirement. He'd managed a painting crew for a couple of years but the most interesting thing was that he'd done all the dioramas in all the National Parks. One of the many characters that I seemed to always attract.

I'd come home and tell Stephanie about the people I'd met and befriended and she always thought they were bullshitting me. Reg the artist/painter invited us to dinner because a friend had just sent him a 16mm movie. He and the guy had a shared hobby taking 16 mm movies of all the places they'd been. Reg's friend had gained access to Petra in, I think Jordan, and was the first westerner to have ever seen it since the area had been closed to outsiders sometime in the first part of the century until recently. So Reg had the first film ever taken of Petra and we were among the first to see it. Stephanie never questioned anything I told her after that.

There was another guy who rented a trailer hitch from me early every Saturday that somehow took me an hour to put on each time because we enjoyed talking to each other so much. He took his son out fishing every Saturday. He was a sax player and one day he gave me some tickets to come see him because he'd given me so much advice about playing my flute which I've since given up. We went to his show and he was very very good except for all the experiments where he was trying to create new notes for the sax with odd fingerings and half covered holes as he had explained to me. It wasn't until years later that I learned what a genius Clarence Clemons was, I just enjoy the people I meet.

Anyhow, I had listened well to Reg and was doing a masterful job of painting the trim. I set up a couple of ladders and a walk plank in front of the living room window and started in on the framing for all the sections of glass. Out of the blue, since it was Saturday, Sue set up a ladder on the other side of the window and started painting the inside at the same time.