Meanwhile, back at the wranch…

I drove up to the wranch from Houston today. Normally Paula will load me up with some meals which I enjoy over the following week, usually for lunch because I am often invited to Katita and Scott’s place, on the other side of the fence line we share, for dinner. Scott is a grill master as well as a very good chef so I always eat very well at their place. And Katita is quite the sour dough bread baker.

Paula is in California and Scott and Katita are on their way to Cleveland to visit Isabel and Brandon and their little grandchild Layton. But an SOS must have gone out: Karen, our neighbor, brought over a meal and after eating dinner with Mary and Randy, our long time Houston friends, Mary packed me up another meal. So I am unlikely to starve this week.

My first stop was the dentist. I have never had healthy teeth, whether due to genes, poor dental hygiene or drinking desalinized water while growing up on the desert coast of Perú, I do not know. I was not quite four years old when my dad landed a job with Richfield and we left the house he built in Evanston for the little village of Negritos, Perú. He would be drilling gas wells with the Rincón, one of the first mobile offshore drilling vessels ever used. After drilling the first producing oil well from a floating vessel offshore California, the barge was towed to Perú and drilled several exploration wells. Later, when I started working offshore, barges like the Rincon and CUSS 1 were the legendary rigs that paved the way to the massive offshore drilling machines in use today. I actually got to work on the CUSS 1 early in my career.

I remember during those first couple of years in Negritos we had quite a collection of animals, including rabbits, foxes, parrots, monkeys, and even a donkey. After a few years, a nearby house was converted to a schoolhouse where I attended grades 1 and 2. A few other kids whose parents were with Richfield or the drilling crew also attended. We all sat in the same classroom and were taught by Carmen Wong. I was, of course, her prize student.

Let’s hop back into our Time Machine and come back to today. We did not get started on the forms; TKO’s crews are getting ready for a big concrete pour tomorrow. However, I met with the plumber and we went through all the stubs, vent requirements and other through-concrete plumbing details. We verified the inlet elevation of the septic tank allowed for proper slope of drain lines. We discussed my plan for installing a rainwater collection system sometime after the house is built to ensure we build a proper manifold so I can pull water from the well or from the rainwater tank.

Okay, now for tonight’s most important decision: Karen’s pozole, Mary’s sausage and peppers, or some of the white beans I cooked up?