Stone Trees, Bent Bikes and Dream Playhouses.

Doesn't everyone have, or want, a stone apple tree? This is the first of  The Artistic One's series "Forest of the Giants".

The same Artistic (scatterbrain) talents ran the forklift over his bicycle. Whilst the resulting shapes are pleasing to the eye, they greatly reduce the efficacy of the bike as a mobility tool. TAO walks with a cane, if he can't completely avoid the struggle of walking. Traversing our 10,000 sqft warehouse from one end to the other, was painful to watch, so the bike search was urgent.
No point in buying a new bike, as it often gets left outside and would be stolen the first week. I had a few phone conversations with quirkily named bike shops. It seemed simple to ask for a used bike, as undesirable as possible, that no normal client would want. That quest was a non-starter. Next call was to a local thrift store. "Come on over" they said. "We have several adult bikes". Innocents that we are, we drove into town and visited the thrift store. Bikes are, of course, at the far end of the store and up a steep stairway. TAO dragged himself along up the stairs and we found only a couple of little kids bikes.
Next stop, I reconnoitered in advance of having the star of our cycling team get out of my car. There was a motorized wheelchair, without a control stick, a nice iron head-board that almost sucked me in, but no adult bikes. We went back to work, vowing to visit one more store on our way home.
A bike was found for $17.99 after senior discount. It needed a clean-up and air in one tire. TAO is, once again, mobile.

Kodie, The Forest Pup, was with us for the past couple of months. He and his brother had been abandoned in a National Forest, far from human habitation. The dogs were skinny, full of worms and had never been on a leash or in a house before. Young and vigorous, despite that, Kodie came to us for evaluation and socialization. Whilst initially worried and skittish about meeting new humans, Kodie had an inherent self-confidence with other dogs. A great asset that colored all of his play times at the dog park. He was great fun to watch, impossible to offend and could outrun any potential trouble, smiling all the way.
Mingling with other human-friendly dogs and their people, as well as coming to work every day with me, had Kodie quickly catching on that people are a good thing. He'd like to be a lap dog, if allowed. Kodie needs a knowledgeable and active home, with ongoing training, but he'll do fine. He's a very happy boy. I handed him off to our rescue group president last week, as we were, supposedly, leaving on vacation.

Pictures of the Caribbean Vacation, that wasn't, may still be forthcoming in the near future. We haven't given up (yet). Thank goodness the tickets we had to cancel were inexpensive. Life has been full of highs and lows lately. I can't put my finger on any highs to mention right now and I don't want to empower the lows, which is partially why I haven't been posting.
I have had Kodie as exercise partner ( a tired dog being the best kind of dog to have around) and I've had some creative outlets. A local newspaper recently published an article about us. I had to supply a bio and pull-quotes, which I always enjoy.
One other creative validation has come from acceptance of my concept for a Dreams Happen Playhouse. A dozen playhouses are created by builders and architects (and me), displayed at major high end shopping mall for several weeks, then auctioned at a Gala Event as fundraisers for a non-profit that helps fix up run down homes for old, sick or poor people, enabling them to stay independent in their own homes.
I have wanted to participate in this for years. It's for a great cause and a great showcase for the skills and products of the selected participating teams. Our concept is Provencal.

La Maison de mes Reves is simple, with authentic materials and finishes. We have an 8 x 10ft footprint size allowance and both height and weight limits.  The houses will be delivered by trucks and cranes and must be able to be lifted over some homes to get them in. Costly delivery subtracts from the fundraising results at the end of the day.
The houses must be kid friendly but attractive enough for the parent to want one in their back yard. As children grow up, there's the possibility of the Playhouse evolving into an office, art studio or yoga space, in the future.

The barn doors on the side can be opened to our California sunshine and also serve to make the Playhouse accessible to any child, or family member, in a wheelchair.

The rear of the house has a climbing wall to a small loft with a rope and a ladder that go down inside. The rain barrel on the side swings open as a secret door.
We plan to have soft stencilled letters naming "La Porte" and "La Fenetre" and some sort of climbing vines to soften the corners. It's always a nice surprise when TAO agrees to a project that I am promoting. No subterfuge required this time.

Do cats remember dogs visually?

I brought home a new foster dog a couple of days ago. Scout is a mature collie boy with no apparent behavioral issues. My first "normal" dog in a while. I'd forgotten how easy collies usually are. Low-key, gentle, accepting of people and other animals. He needs to lose a few pounds and his eyes are being treated with drops and ointment twice daily, but he's otherwise very low-maintenance.
Slinkie, our cat, was right by the front door when we arrived on Thursday. She was surprised to come face to face with a dog the minute the door cracked open, but the meeting was peaceful. We re-erected the customary barricade that allows Slinkie a safety zone in part of the house that includes our bedroom and access to her door out to the garden.
Slinkie has been unusually confident in seeking out nose to nose contact with Scout, through the barrier. She has slid into the common space, wound her way around Scout's legs and miaowed greetings. Scout is thrilled. Even though he's a chunky fuzz-ball version, with some shaved-off patches where his coat was heavily matted when he was picked up as a stray, Scout shares a striking likeness with Diva, our original collie girl who is no longer with us. It's very unusual for Slinkie to be so accepting of a new resident canine. I keep coming to the conclusion that Scout reminds her of her old friend Diva.
There aren't a lot of empty spaces in my life just now. I travelled south last weekend to hang out with a friend. I don't remember if we've ever had a couple of days which were just for us; neither husband in tow. We chose to see movies that we liked the sound of and not something of universal appeal, and ease of translation. To heck with the "greater good", we had a blast.
The day after my excursion, I had to return to the airport to pick up The Artistic One, who landed from France minus his suitcase. The luggage did catch up eventually, but not without several days of phone conversations with Air France, which eventually unearthed the fact that somehow TAO's pronunciation/or writing skills had misled the poor airline into spending a couple of days driving around trying to find Deep Cleefe Drive, Rather than Deep Cliff. TAO's bag was delivered to our door in dead of night, complete with his lap-top and his medications.
Re-opening our work-shop on Tuesday morning, we quickly discovered that a large number of tools had gone missing. There was no sign of a break-in and I had been there, working in my office all the prior week. Sometime between Friday and Tuesday someone, somehow, helped themselves to $10,000 worth of equipment.
We made a police report, had a locksmith change our locks and must put it behind us. There's no recourse, no insurance and no sure way of discerning what happened. We're almost more angry at our one "lead employee" who was supposedly the only key-holder. Although the key is imprinted with the words "do not duplicate", he chose to have an extra key cut and gave it to our second employee, presumably for his convenience, should he be late getting to work in the morning.
We don't pay them to be brain surgeons or rocket scientists but it's hard to imagine they didn't know this wasn't good employee behavior. If they thought we'd be O.K. with it, they could have asked us, right? My first instinct was that I'd rather fire both of them. TAO doesn't want to as it's taken a long time to train them to do the work we need them to do. It's all very distasteful.
On a lighter note, I've been helping a client with ideas to remodel her childhood home. Her father passed away a few months ago and the house, which was built in the 1940's has a labyrinthine floor-plan with bits that were added on over the years. The in-law unit above the garage has a toilet in one closet and a shower in another and there's a downstairs bedroom with a door through one end into the garage.
The garage-bedroom is a natural place to put washer and dryer (currently in the tool-shed). A sink and some cabinets turn that into a laundry/ mud-room and reducing the size by moving one wall creates a full-size guest bedroom with copious closet space on the other side.
The in-law unit will be accessed by a new straight staircase, which will pass through the toilet-closet. Changing the location of the stairs also adds space in the kitchen below, and now the kitchenette anteroom is perfect for a full bathroom. There's a deck off the bedroom that has a view over trees and a glimpse of San Francisco Bay. It's sunny, with windows on three sides. It's destined to be a fabulous suite.
I've brought the floor-plans home with me. I'm trying to work out the best layout for the kitchen. I've enlisted a designer friend who is really good at space-planning. Unfortunately she's not always reliable about deadlines, especially when it's a case of returning favors, which is why I'm trying to move forward in my own way, in case she lets me down.
"Little House" as we've been calling it, has the potential to be a sweet little home with character. It has personality and a large flat garden on a very quiet street. My client's Dad used to enjoy his garden, and feeding the birds. A Blue-Jay followed me, peering at me through different windows, from a variety of improvised perches, as I went from room to room. The garden is overgrown but I can see the magic, waiting to be brought back. It's a perfect candidate for a white picket fence and a wonderful outdoor entertaining area.
I'd be keen to help plan the rebirth of this Little House purely because I love this kind of problem-solving construction, and the client is a sweetheart, but this also has the potential to be a house we can rent and live in as part of our master-plan to reduce our overhead and our time driving back and forth every day.
Many a slip is possible before this comes to pass, so I won't jinx it by saying it's a sure thing. If it happens it will be several months away. The house has been gutted and will need to be put back together once design decisions and budgets are firmed up. Even if we don't end up living there, Little House has sparked so many dreams of decorating rooms and gardens to plant that I feel recompensed for my time. I could never resolve a Rubik's cube puzzle but I can move walls around in my head and visualize the results.