ASCOB

/ janpriddyoregon

Hardly anyone will recognize the letters I used to title my thoughts today. “Any Solid Color Other than Black” is a class in AKC shows for American Cocker Spaniels (ASCOB is pronounced ass’ cob). For the record, I have never owned or shown American Cocker Spaniels of any color, though I do have a scar on my upper lip from being bitten by one when I was a small child.

This is not a post about bites or even dogs. There are no assignments or exercises. A few crows. Trees. Our condo news.

We like crows. Above is a tree with over a hundred crows, but there might have been a thousand nearby when I took this photo. (HINT: this was not the only tree, and most of the birds were flying.) There are “local” birds, but they gather as a massive flock (“murder” seems unkind), usually in late afternoon but on their own schedule.

The acronym came to me while I was scrolling through Eileen Fisher reconditioned clothing online. (Well, obviously online.) EF has been buying back all their clothing for a few years. They recondition what they can and sell it used, repurpose some items into felted pillows and purses, and the rest is recycled. That last bit is tricky since Americans produce many, many-times many tons of wasted clothing. The only item of clothing we wear till it has holes is jeans even though some of us bought those jeans with holes to begin with. (Jeans with manufactured holes remains one of the ugliest and most stupid fashion trends in modern history, right after four-inch heels and shoes with pointy toes. Just sayin’.)

Just to bring you up to date, virtually everything the selling agent told us about our condo was inaccurate. The management company rep was (WAS) “great” a few years ago, the current one when we bought the unit was not. The plumbing project was not abandoned; the bid for the work was $6.1million, four times the original estimate. Our share of the necessary repipe would be over $90k, except owners voted it down, despite the absolute necessity of doing the work. There are a LOT of other issues, notably finding insurance for a condo of a certain age and on the National Register and with galvanized pipe. 

I joined the Board of the HOA last month. 

Oh, and a professional working for the Board, hired after his business partner utterly failed to do his job, has no sense of humor, little discretion, and is entirely incapable of admitting an error. Or perhaps this is because I am an old women. I’ll warn you now, women start to become invisible after a certain age. No joke. 

Had I mentioned that the repipe of our condo building did not pass? Perhaps some people do not care that the plumbing is a wreck? Some people were just so horrified by the cost, they voted no. Some wanted competitive bidding. I understand the desire for competitive bidding. What the Board did was a lot of research to find a company that had actually done the work we needed:

  • Replace galvanized pipe
  • in a 1920s building on the National Historic Register,
  • with no basement to give access to drains and supply lines,
  • while allowing full use of the building during construction,
  • and then putting everything all back the way it was in every single unit
  • but with perfect plumbing top to bottom.

So they hired the best and most experienced team, a project manager who is paid the same regardless of cost (so has no interest in raising the cost), and developed a solid plan. They did not “put it out for bid.” Having worked for architects and contractors since 1983, experience informs me that competitive bidding doesn’t always work out well. Competitive bidding sounds good, but it isn’t what we often do when we have the choice. Old buildings always require specific knowledge. It’s a little like the difference between buying a sofa at a good furniture store and getting a markdown sofa at Costco. Cheaper isn’t always what you are after.

In real life, sometimes, a contractor fails to appreciate the scope of the work, bids too low, and comes back with bills so the job ends up costing a lot more before it’s done. Or, the contractor knows pretty much how difficult the job will be, lies in the bid, and the job ends up costing more. Or, the contractor has absolutely no understanding of what the job will require, runs away without completing it… and it ends up costing a whole lot more. All of these are typical, not rare inconveniences. That is, not expecting them is naive. That is, when someone who should know better gets caught up by accepting unqualified and unrealistic bids, they are allowed to both laugh at and kick themselves. Because they really should have known better. (Been there, done that.) A bad bid also means the job takes much (MUCH!) longer and causes much greater frustration and inconvenience than expected. And it always costs. Experience suggests we should see this coming, but we keep hoping for the best (and to pay less), despite all evidence to the contrary.

So the owners voted it down, and now the condo Board will start the planned repipe process all over again. Gary figures we’ll die before they figure it out and pass it, but I want to outlive the darned plumbing project. (And we haven’t even talked about replacing the natural gas-fired water heaters, repointing the brick, resealing the exterior walls and repainting the windows, the interior hallway updates and replacing carpets, the elevator… I am reading the recommendations of the Reserve Report on ordinary future maintenance, repairs, and replacement. Sobering.)

We bought the condo with the plan that we would have a place to stay that would not add to our current concerns over our family beach home. (Yes, I have my own reserve fund for repairs, which always end by costing far more than I’d planned.) We wanted to experience worry-free housing. Just goes to show.

I should know better. I do know better, but I keep hoping for the best.

In the mean time, I find I can wear just about anything now that my weight is where it should be (though not if it means I have to shave my legs), that I will likely not wear most of what is left in my closet, and that black is no longer my favorite color for clothing. Most of the Eileen Fisher new and used clothing is black—remember EF? I started writing about her way up at the top—, and for many years I wore mostly black because I thought it made me look thinner. To heck with that. Sometimes I want to wear ASCOB, any solid color other than black. Maybe a wild print now and again. I will be 70 this year and I look it, but that doesn’t mean I can’t wear whatever I want while feeling good about my looks. I can wear any color at all… maybe purple.

This Douglas fir (probably) trunk came ashore a few weeks ago and hasn’t moved much since a high tide pushed it into the rocks. That is Gary at right, about the same height as the surviving root ball. This is not an entire tree, mind you, just the lower hundred feet or more. A fir has roots going down only about four feet. Douglas firs, like most evergreens, grow up en masse, collectively surviving the wind, and do not thrive alone. The very old local spruce trees are all suffering as they lose neighbor trees. You can see in the background of this photo how they thin and slowly die when isolated in the wind. There is a telephone pole beached and stinking of creosote about a mile further north. (The tree above would be worth many hundreds of dollars as timber assuming I am right about the species.)

In the mean time, I am not writing, but running and walking and weaving and knitting. Reading. Worrying, of course. That should go without saying. We found quite a bit of sea glass in the past few days.

I barely got the little tree decorated in time for Valentine’s Day.

20 thoughts on “ASCOB”

  1. I’m going to assume that the HOA does not have a large money account invested for major improvements. Can something be done to change that and beef up that account? Perhaps people will sell their units and the new owners will be more willing to make the repairs? Because of its historical importance, is there an agency in Portland or Oregon that will lend money for such reconstruction of historical buildings?

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

    • Yes, there is a Reserve fund, but it will never have $6 million stashed. So it will have to be a special assessment. Despite concern for preserving historical buildings, there are no grants for and no interest in preserving the plumbing of the building. The Board members have worked so very hard, spent hundreds (thousands?) of hours on the repipe project. It is disheartening, but that condo that collapsed in Florida? According to an expert, they were warned that they needed make structure repairs and owners voted against the funds. Twice. Then the building collapsed and now insurance companies and lenders are shy of condos all over the country. When we were looking for our mortgage, a lender abruptly dropped us (very apologetically) because he said his parent company “has decided they have no interest in lending for condos.” Fortunately we had an alternative. It is a sweet old building and I’m sure it will work out eventually before I die, but it is a painful process.

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply

  3. Oh and I used to love the look of Eileen Fisher clothes. Great fabrics. Boxy shapes don’t look good on my short curvy body. So I have given most of my EF away over the years. I do have a lime green silk wool cardigan that I wear regularly. You look good in EF. Embrace the colors! Maroons, oranges purples!

    Like

    Reply

  4. In pigeon showing there is a designation called a.o.c.—any other colour
    About 505—that’s just the good news—ha ha—no
    the root ball isn’t shrinking
    daylight slavings is coming up
    so is St. Patrick’s
    it gets worse, if you get older
    close your eyes, make a wish count to Dracula
    the end

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

  6. I do not have the capacity to understand Gary’s comments but that is ok, I still find them interesting. Sorry to hear about your condo, you seem to be taking it well. Experts state that the Sitkas in our area are already in trouble due to climate change and will be gone by the next generation. (Also IMO due to neighbors who do not want their ocean view to be interrupted.) I read that coastal and alpine areas will experience the most change in the next 50 years. But I am still planting Sitkas and I can hope.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

    • I recall being told by a couple that they wanted all the trees down so that their view would be completely cleared. They only lived here for a few years before moving on. So sad to me. Nothing is prettier than looking at or through trees imo.

      Like

      Reply

  7. EF–of course…! Though I found it a bit too conservative for my tastes if very good clothing. I love color and pattern, and go for it! even more as I age. I still love my many jeans (colored ones, too) and am unwilling to give up the snug fit –as they were made to fit. I can’t abide loose jeans that want to fall down a bit and flap in the wind. I just note that becasue Ir ead recertnyl that itis a big faux pas for women our age to wear snug jeans. I don’t care, they feel good (with Spandex added over past years)!

    I’m sorry to hear abut your historic building. What a fiasco and how difficult a thing to address. I know you love being in the city; I miss being close-in, at times. I hope that in the final analysis it will have been worth it, anyway.

    Enjoyed your post, Jan.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

Leave a comment