I can't take it anymore. Not another day. I'll go mad if I have to go back. And it's not even started yet.

The Fair, of course. Went on Wednesday for the first video. It actually took me more time to design the opening credits and music than edit the video; that was the easy part. It's not as if I don't know what to do. That's the problem; I do. I've done it all before. Every square inch of the place. Yet I found something different today, something new - and a hilarious mistake. Well, if you dial back your expectations of hilarity. Way back.

I was glad to go to the Fair today, because the workmen probably like it better when the owner of the house isn't hanging around. Of course, are any of us really owners of the house? I have a mortgage. Even if I paid it off like my dad paid off our house, there's the matter of taxes. If you don't pay what the state levies, they take your house away. They also own the boulevard except I have to mow it, and they fine me if I don't, but it's my house! <gasdenflag.gif> But -

What's that, you say? Workmen? What project are we doing now? Why, the bathroom. What's that, you say? Inspired by the total makeover of the main bath, you decided to tackle another one? Nope!

Same bathroom!

Month # 5! Five fargin' months!

It just happened. There was the plumbing situation, which added a month, because they had to find the stack, and the plumber - who is some GOD booked up years in advance - couldn't come right away, and they had to rip apart the walls of the downstairs bathroom and remove the light fixture and the grill of the ventilator and so forth and so on, but that's another issue. SO ANYWAY that was fixed, eventually, and then there was a delay for reasons I can't quite recall, except we went to Europe and the contractor went on a long-planned family vacation for which I cannot blame him - really, I don't blame him for any of this, because he's meticulous and conscientious and responds with prairie-dog alacrity to any texts or questions. I did alter the tile situation, for which I take complete responsibility, but once the first batch was in I knew it was wrong. That added 1.5 fortnights, I guess. This week the tile guys are putting in the tile, just as last week the tile guys were putting in the tile, and it's possible that NEXT WEEK THE TILE GUYS WILL BE PUTTING IN THE TILE, and even then the shower won't be finished because the glass can't be ordered until the tile work is done, and it'll take two weeks to get the glass.

So we're looking at October, to be honest, for something that began with a phone call in February. Today we had a long discussion about the proper height of the small ledge for placing one's leg for shaving. Thirteen inches? Fifteen? I DON'T KNOW BUT THIS CAN POSSIBLY AFFECT THE RESALE VALUES

I like the new floor tile. I like the way things are shaping up. But. Tuesday I took daughter to Dinkytown to write while I went to the office, because she loves Dinkytown and I want her to go to the U instead of where she wants to go for college, which is another nightmare for another Bleat. I picked her up at the old Southwest Library, a sad relic of the concrete-and-brick school. Oh - here's the view of Dinkytown these days, thronged with dense apartments:

We threaded our way through downtown to go home, and passed the massive KA project - something I've noted in the Friday construction, the next big thing we'll be tracking - and I noted that they demolished the building on the lot, excavated down four stories, poured a gazillion gallons of concrete, and half the project is at ground level now, and they did that in the time it's taken them to almost sorta get close to finishing the bathroom.

"But they have a whole massive crew," she said.

I KNOW

I KNOW

BUT STILL

When we got home there was a truck in the driveway because of course there's a truck in the driveway and there were canvas sheets on the stairs because of course there were. So it has always been.

Just please finish it before Pumpkin Spice is marked down 30%, that's all I ask.

		The “personalized Identification bracelet” were handy in case you forgot your name, I suppose. When you stopped wearing it, it went in a drawer. It stayed there all through college, and was probably moved to a box at some point, and went in the basement or attic. You’d find it 25 years later, and perhaps recall how you waited for it to arrive. Six to eight weeks, that was the usual time. You probably threw it away. You can’t keep everything.

The second largest city in the Panhandle! Fifteen thousand souls. Home of the West Nebraska Community College.

Let's start with some bygone names:

Said the local paper when it was renovated:

The building was designed to fit onto an oddly shaped lot, giving it a “flatiron” (triangular) shape. It was constructed in two stages, with the basement and first story constructed in 1926 and the second story completed in 1927.

Doesn't look like it from this angle. One of the original tenants was the "Milwaukee Thirst Parlor."

My, that's a tall hotel:

I mean, it's like it was made for tall people. Or I was sloppy when I corrected the perspective. Finished in 1918, it was of course a Source of Pride, and went the usual route: bankruptcy, decreptitude, renewal, and now . . .

. . . all together now . . .

Senior housing.

Lots going on here, and none of it's good:

It looks as it's been a "boutique" for some time, starting with the Cat's Meow. Has a hippie vibe. Fargo had one of those types of places - an embassy for the counter-culture.

Okay, Googling . . . Criminey, it has its own page.

The Cat’s Meow, a store that would have been at home in uptown New York in the '60s, was opened in downtown Scottsbluff, Nebraska in September 10th, 1968, by Bunni Slater and Linda Grantham, selling items never before seen in Nebraska.

Oh, man, this was just like Vanity in Fargo:

There was a black light room, with hundreds of posters--the favorite after school stop. When waterbeds were invented, Bunni was the first to sell them in town.

It's WOW now. Wonders of the World.

I can't tell if this was new construction or renovation, but I suspect the latter.

Let's go around the corner.

Scottbluff is modernizing! A city on the . . . grow.

Oh, for heaven's sake.

They knew enough to save the top, but didn't know enough to know how stpid it would look. It's like the city was buried under lava, and you see the tunnel the first explorers dug through the rock.

The Eyebrow always gave a post-war downtown a jaunty appeal:

But it seems to be staring at nothing now, and there's no one behind the lid.

Technically, it's classical:

It grows on me, the more I look at it. It could have been less, which would have been worse - the commitment to the stone and the meaninless pillars somehow makes it work as a period piece.

Some buildings soar; others just squat on their haunches.

Look. I understand. You want to be up-to-date. But this is like . . . like wearing one high-heeled shoe and one sandal.

The lighting inside is interesting - what the devil was this redesigned to accomodate?

Well, looks like those are the only interesting HOLY CROW

Hello, 1946: things are looking rather optimistic. More on the history, with some interior shots. here.

It's like a Music-Man style flim-flam artist came to down, but was selling stone facades instead of band instruments:

The empty storefront and unoccupied chairs just complete the generla mood, don't they.

Severe but handsome; pitty that the flutes in the columns seem unable to extend below the traffic light arm.

But of course that's an illusion. Ornate cornice in a style I've not seen very much - no overhang. There's something odd about the building, as though it was a 19th structure that got an early 20th century overhaul.

Those things didn't happen.

That will do - enjoy some Motels, and maybe I'll see you at the Fair!

Because I will be there.