in case you've ever wondered, plaster does not taste good.

Well, it's been an interesting week. It feels way longer; there's been so much happening. First I want to thank everyone for your kind words, support, and understanding!

Two days after our building went up in flames, there was a four alarm fire in Grandview that laid waste to a block of businesses. So in the grand scheme of things, I don't really feel I'm entitled to much sympathy. While the rest of my building is in ruins, my little concrete block protected everything inside. We haven't really lost anything; we've just been severely inconvenienced....

So we returned a few days later to survey the fun. It smells. Really bad. Like burned rubber and wet rot. There are angry holes in the walls. The gas company turned off the gas for obvious reasons, the pipes froze and burst, and there's a leak in the gas line. The rest of the building is apparently a candidate for demolition and rebuild. In short...we're not going back. I love wedding season. It makes me giddy and happy and the last thing I want crinkling my brow is dealing with the fiasco that would accompany making the place usable again. Especially since I was going to have to be out in August anyway! (The new owners bought the building so they could have the whole space when my lease expires...) I think the universe has plans for me that don't involve that building.

SO...the plan!

1. move our day-to-day operation home immediately so we can resume our normal workflow
2. monopolize a couple of tables at the local coffee shop to use for meetings (their coffee is better than mine anyway...)
3. look for a new studio...at our leisure so we can find the "right" space and not the "oh, crap, I guess it will have to do" space.

step one: in progress

We are moving. Which requires a bit a construction. We have a three bedroom house which is nearly 100 years old. Since we've had it, we've only had the time to make one of the bedrooms inhabitable. We now have to get to work on the other two so we can have workable offices and storage. So far, we've managed to get the electric work done (this house was stuck in the dark ages...quite literally, with only 25% of the electric working) and as of yesterday, one of the rooms is halfway done. Holes in ceiling, check. Working outlets, check. Still to do: scraping off moldy peeling 70s vinyl wallpaper and fixing the crumbling plaster behind it, resurface and prepare for paint (which we will do later in the year...right now we just need four clean walls and working outlets!) Everything in the house is coated in a fine layer of plaster and saw dust, including me. And while I was denied permission to swing the fire axe (still bitter about that) I was permitted to bust out my own ceiling with a piece of discarded pipe. I did so with utter glee. Anyway, the messy stuff should be done soon and then the computers can come out of their protective plastic cocoons and work can begin again.

Oh, and yesterday was a fine day indeed: our security system was installed. Complete with fire detectors that immediately dispatch the FD. I've never been so pleased to write a check.

Today I woke up a bit panicked and frustrated worried about the move and all the production days lost. But then I realized it's only been a week and we've accomplished quite a bit in the direction of fixing this mess. All we can do is move forward as quickly as possible.