The foundations for the new house have been pumped. While this was going on, my husband went over and talked with the builder. He's apparently doing it on spec rather than as a custom for a specific owner.

Jim, the builder, said the house will be 6000 sq. ft. rather than the 4,500 originally planned. The rockery called for in the plans is, as yet, undecided. If it goes in, it'll take the place of our concrete retaining wall. Our property is, at times, about 6' higher than the abutting lot.

Why? Because sometime ago a natural spring's outflow followed the topography and dug a gulley between the two properties. Our neighbors planted a laurel hedge inside their property line. When we wanted to smooth out the various contours of our property, we had to build the retaining wall.

We bought a small cement mixer and poured the whole thing by hand, which is when we discovered that Yarrow Point was a town in its own right, rather than a 'neighborhood' within the larger city of B. And, that's when we discovered how wide the town's right of way is.

We'd poured all along the north boundary from where our neighbors had ended their rockery and started their laural hedge. We'd gone down toward the street to where our neighbors did a 45 degree turn fronting the road. We'd measured from the center-line of the road and sighted a line to the nearest mail-box pagoda. Everything we did confirmed that the RoW matched those in the neighborhoods within the City of B.

So we made our 45 degree turn to the south, dug our trench, set up our forms and poured about 35'-40' of our front retaining wall. We were pounding out air-holes behind the forms and smoothing out the top of the wall, when a white Cadillac 'boat' stopped on the other side of the street in front of where we were working. An older woman rolled down her window and said,

"I'm sorry, but I'm going to have to put a 'stop-work' order on your project."

Lorraine pulled her car over, got out and came across the street to talk with us. She had, apparently, been watching our progress and had judged everything to be fine--until we started pouring on Town RoW. But, she said, she could understand our mistake and she was sure that, if we came to the next council meeting, we'd be able to get a waiver rather than an order to tear a portion of our retaining wall down--as long as we stopped working on it.

We made our first trip to the Town Hall for the next Council meeting--the first of what became many, made simply because we wanted to know about the tiny Town we'd found ourselves in.

Lorraine, it turned out, was a neighbor and the Town Clerk. She and her husband, Chris, lived in an old water-front home and had a rental cottage to one side of their property. The Town Hall was the attic of the cottage, with an outside wooden staircase to the door (so as not to disturb the renters.) There was no room for any chairs or tables other than what the Council, Clerk and Mayor used so we all sat on the floor. If you were lucky, you got a place along the outer wall against which you could rest your back.

Minor Lyle was our mayor at the time. His father, Minor, Sr., was a doctor who was part of a group of doctors that founded what is now a medical/research complex. As a matter of fact, my brain surgery was done there.

Our Minor owned a printing and engraving business and, small world that it then was, my husband and I had had our wedding invitations engraved at his shop. He was also one of the more laid-back people I've ever met.

He very solemnly examined our drawings and reviewed our reasoning (Lorraine had, of course, filled him in, previously.) He then had the Council members question us. After taking a vote, which was in our favor, Minor said that, on the advice of the Town attorney, the Town would grant us the waiver, with a stipulation. We were to sign a legal agreement with the Town. In the event that the Town were ever to take its full right of way by widening the street, we would, at our own expense, tear down our retaining wall.

In making his decision, Minor said, "I don't think that's going to happen."

Since then, both the Town and my husband have lost the paper work and our wall (which tapers down to about three inches, both north and south of the driveway) has remained. The road has remained un-widened. Minor was right. There is no need to widen the road. Our horse chestnut still stands.

But both Minor and Lorraine are gone.

Today was the Town's 32nd Fouth of July celebration. Len and I have been here for all of them, although we weren't aware of them until one morning we were wakened by the sound of sirens and yelling.

In 1975, a small group of people from Hunt's Point and Yarrow Point decided to celebrate the Bi-Centennial Fourth with a true small town celebration. There was a parade--with a pick-up band of former high school musicians trying not to break their lips while remaining in formation. There was a precision drill team of the 'Weed Whacking Men.' And there were antique cars--at least a mile of them.

We had the Navy band to entertain us at our picnic on Carkeek's pasture and one year a bald eagle flew in to join the fun. Later on, we had Al and his honkey-tonk piano down next to the town hall--for a sing along. We had skateboard races, wind-surf races and kids and dogs all over the place.

Since then, things have changed. Our resident Admiral has died and the Navy band is no longer "rented out" to the public. So we hire a band. Insurance laws have made liability insurance prohibitive for the Towns to sponsor possible injury-causing events, so we have a pet parade and a fishing contest for kids. We still have our street dance at the fountain.

And we still have some antique cars. We used to have so many more. Al was a member of the Antique Car Club and would invite every antique car owner in the club to join our parade. So many of them came.

But, Al is divorced now. His former wife realized that she is lesbian and, the last time I saw, was very happy in her relationship with a former renter of the cottage that housed our Town Hall for so many tears.

I don't know if Al got a portion of their home in the settlement--It was his former wife's home and had been her parent's home before that. But Al put a lot of money into its remodel many years ago, so I'm sure he did.

When we followed the parade down to the fountain--our horse trough--to get our yearly hot dogs and beer--we saw that the house Al had been living in--a cottage--had been torn down and was being replaced with a new house. We didn't see Al, so we weren't able to ascertain if the new house is his.

In the meantime, Minor Lyle's legacy lives on. Minor loved fire-works and he was the reason for fire-works in Yarrow Point for the last 32 years.

Minor and his wife, Sue, had lake-side property. They built a pier for fire-works on a portion of their land. When they sold that portion of that land, they did so with the priviso that the new owner would continue the fire-works tradition.

One year, the pier (or firing box) burned down because of the fire-works. so the Towns hired a barge for the fire-works, which was fine, except the pyrotechnical operator didn't know how to swim.

I'm still thinking about our July 4th celebration. People are now coming from all over the area, because of its small town feel. We talked with a couple from Redmond about the economy and the price of gas, while standing next to a hybrid developed by a man who lives in Medina--we had two hybrid cars in the parade. There was also an antique tractor with a man distributing ads about the upcoming antique tractor show. Rob M. was there--the State Attorney General and one of our favorite Republicans. We worked with him during the transportation meetings and he always comes over to shake hands. (We sit in lawn chairs at the end of the driveway to watch the parade.) Even my Ob-Gyn came by and introduced himself to my husband.

The parade, depite the above, is mostly kids on every kind of wheeled toy possible, and leashed dogs, some in costume. The color guard is the local Scout troop--one of the little guys almost dropped his troop flag because it was too heavy for him. Fortunately, his troop leader saw it and brought up a replacement before the little one's arms gave out. Deano, the clown, was there on his ten foot stilts and his extender arms that end in those claws used to take cans off of high shelves or to pick up trash. I kept seeing one baby whose face I never saw. She was in her Dad's front baby sling and her head was entirely covered by a huge, white baby bonnet. The police led the parade, as usual, but the fire department wasn't there for the first time ever. I'm sure they had to themselves on alert if there were any fire-works caused fires.

And we had a spectacular one a few years ago down on the water across from us. That must have been about 28 or so years ago. Someone tossed a 'dud' firecracker on the roof of the garage. It burned through the roof and ignited some flammable materials stored there. The explosion nearly took out our front windows. Fortunately, no one was home at the time, so no one was hurt. But I'll never forget a very pregnant Jeanne B. standing in the middle of the road keeping a path clear for the fire engines.

Down around the fountain, the hot dog crew was lined up grill to grill, cooking like crazy while the women manned the condiment tables and served the dogs. You have to buy tickets for the food and drinks: Dogs are one ticket, as are soft drinks and water; beer is three tickets; strawberry short cake costs four. Tickets cost 50 cents a piece.

Former State senator, Dan M., lives in a restored oldie. across the street from the fountain. He's always supplied the electricity for any speakers we've had, whether or not his family has been home. He'd leave a basement window unlocked so an extension cord could be snaked in. I don't think he does that any more. People lock everything now. And to think that for years after we moved here, we kept our front door open all night on hot nights!

Another 4th has come and gone, with all of the necessary changes made over the years and all of the memories.

The new house foundations were back-filled this morning and it looks more and more as if--simply by eye-balling, which is of course inaccurate to say the least,--that the permeable surface requirement hasn't been met. One of the problems is that the Town Counsel changed the requirement in June of last year, but it has yet to be codified. Another problem is that we hire our planner and our building department to companies who may look at our Town as a very minor source of income.

If the calcutions on lot coverage are in error, what can be done?

Not much has happened next door, but we did get pictures of the 4th of July, the fountain and Big Grey, a new house going up a couple of blocks south of us. Every time I see it, I'm reminded of the alledged eco-terrorist group, the Earth Liberation Front, that Law and I 'discussed' some time ago. It looks like a 'regular' large house from the front but, when viewed from the side, it's enormous. Why do people need such large homes?

Whatever. When we designed our house, we found that we had an entire section of the second floor that, if enclosed, would have raised the square footage far beyond anything we could have used, if we'd been able to think how to use it. We couldn't, so we cut it out and created a gallery that opens the kitchen/greatroom area up to the ceiling. Add a rail and some sky-lights and, voila, we not only got rid of the extra space; we also created a kitchen that gets natural light even during our grey winters. See Aint, we're problem solvers, too!

It makes me wonder about the B. house across the street and down one from us. J.B. is a former mayor of the Town and, from many accounts, not the best we've had--but at least the police weren't called on domestic violence complaints the way one of our mayors was.

J.B.'s husband was the VP in charge of new product development in a family company that started, basically, as a bakery. For years, the family resisted take-over offers from companies such as Pillsbury and Betty Crocker. I don't think it went public for years, if it ever did, and, if it was acquired, the name was maintained and still competes with Pillsbury and Betty Crocker.

C.B. and J.B. were the first couple we met when we first moved here. My husband later told me that J. and her sisters (she was the oldest of three girls) had, some years before, stopped traffic along one of the freeways that cross Lake Washington when they decided to go tanning on Foster Island sans bikini tops. It apparently made the newspapers and the local TV news.

J. and C.B. lived in a 1,000 sq. ft. bungalow built on a pie-shaped lot. When their daughter was a toddler, they tore down most of the structure, leaving the south wall. This was not only so they could call the work a remodel, but also because the original builder had had a variance grand-fathered when the Town incorporated in 1958. J.B. didn't want any more children and the new house was designed specifically for them and with that in mind. C. is a PhD in Agriculture and loved to work in the yard and start plants from seed and cuttings.

The downstairs of the house comprises the open kitchen/breakfast/great-room area, a small plant room for C., the laundry room, the daughter's bedroom and bath, an open 'formal' dining room and a sunken living room.

The second floor is the total master suite. When C.B. found water running down around the living room fireplace, they opted to tear out the west wall of the bedroom and replace it with a glass dome for more of C.B.'s plants. I always saw it as something like Nero Wolfe's roof-top orchid-growing rooms.

The remodel more than doubled the original square footage, but it was custom-built to suit their needs. In the meantime, they'd purchased a house and property down in Oregon that they used for week-ends and vacations.

C.B. retired early. Their daughter graduated from UW, having successfully evaded, thanks to her parents, the threats of a former high-school boyfriend who was finally convicted of the murder of a couple and their daughter in a neighboring town, an apparent 'thrill-kill.' The boyfriend would climb the house in the middle of the night and sit on the roof making threats against both the B.s and their daughter (C.B. had nailed all the windows closed by then.) A complete sociopath, the boyfriend was finally found fit to stand trial and recieved a life sentence without the possibility of parole. The second boy, his accomplice, got 25 yrs. to life.

With all of this past them, with their responsibilities to their daughter completed, with C.B. retired--they disappeared! Poof!

There were no moving vans, no trucks, nothing. When I asked, noone knew anything other than that they did own the vacation property in Oregon. This was the early middle of December, last year.

I remembered the 3-4 years when I'd walk down to their house so C. could sign the letters from Santa (after making changes so they wouldn't sound as if they'd come from me) that went into Ellie's stocking. Things like explaining why he wouldn't leave her a car--even a toy one--because she was only eight years old and so on.

Then, Poof! The For-Sale sign went up. It's still there.

Seven months and the house has had very little activity. A renter lives there, but he never shows himself. There's never been an open house sign, as far as I've seen.

It's a 20 yr. old custom house with a lovely Western view across Lake Washington. By current standards in this part of the Town, it's small--probably 3,000 sq. ft., it's on an oddly shaped lot and it was built with the specific uses of one family in mind.

We don't know if it'll be torn down and replaced. We hope not, because of what it would mean to our house, tax assessment-wise. What will the el-huge-o house going up next to us do to ours, tax assessment-wise?

We got our tax assessment today. Oh, Lordy, Lordy, Lordy!

Anyone here ready to buy a 2.5M home with 5 bathrooms and 2 dishwashers?

Sure, I'm ready.

I'm keen on the idea of two dishwashers! Imagine that luxury... Load up one, dirty another batch, load up the second dishwasher, use dishes out of the first dishwasher... Begin again.

Does the same hold true for 5 bathrooms? Dirty the toilet in one and go on to the next and so on? I don't know, but I think it's rather excessive. Besides, the house is in KCWD#1, which is like no other water district that I know of. We actually get paid for not using water.

I suppose, if you can afford a $2.5M house, you can afford the water. It's kind of like, if you can afford a luxury car, you don't care what the price of gasoline is.

If either of you were to buy the house, I'd love to have you as neighbors!