Monday, March 3

A regular, uneventful day. That can't be said for Sunday morning, which I forgot to write about yesterday. Mid-morning, I was puttering around the kitchen when the doorbell rang. When I saw a young-ish male stranger through the window, I put on the aggrieved but polite face I wear for solicitors and, corralling a freaking-out Farrah, said "Yes?" without opening the storm door.

He said he was our backyard neighbor. Important note: our "backyard neighbor" is actually very far below us, as our street is at the top of a hill; the houses on the street below ours are separated from and protected by a series of retaining walls on each property on our street. (Note: this was news to me; I'd never peeked over the wooden fence at the back of our yard to see this wall.) 

I should have given a spoiler alert. Obviously the neighbor was there to announce that our retaining wall had collapsed into his yard. "Usually I park the car there," he said. "Good thing I didn't last night."

Good thing indeed. Andrew went with him to see the damage. It's vast. Like most things in this house--a beautiful, magical house that deserves the utmost care--that retaining wall was likely never maintained. And now it has collapsed in a dramatic tumble of giant, unmoveable boulders into the neighbor's yard.

Andrew's meeting with a mason tomorrow to assess the damage and plan repairs, the sort of job that could cost anywhere from $5,000 to $100,000. (Well, probably not $100,000. But still a lot. "how much does it cost to fix retaining wall" is the unfortunate Google search of the day.) 

This is what owning an old (beautiful! magical!) home entails. Really wish we could just call a landlord right now.