The Destruction Begins

Hi, Family!

This morning promptly at 8am, two dimiinutive Chinese men appeared at my front door. They were to take away all the old kitchen cabinets, strip off the tiles from the floor, and remove all the built-in appliances. One was Tony. He was the foreman and spoke English very haltingly. I took them over to the kitchen and told them all I wanted to keep was the light fixture over the dining table and the garbage disposal. Everything else is fair game. They proceeded to work and work they did. I stayed only for a few minutes before I left for work. I gave Joey my work phone number just in case there was a problem. I did not receive any calls. I guess "No news is good news." Arriving at home after work, I expected a dumpster filled with the old stuff from our kitchen. Instead I saw Tony's Honda sedan parked in our driveway. No big hunking American truck. Just a regular sedan. Going into the house the two men were still working to strip the old wallpaper from the dining area walls. The kitchen was already stripped bare. They had piled the debris neatly in the back yard in front of my brick barbeque grill. They were basically done. I couldn't believe it.

I knew going in that the floor under the dishwasher and kitchen sink needs major work. The dishwaher was broken and had leaked. The garbage disposal that I had installed to replace the original one had also leaked. My fears were realized. Five planks need to be replaced. Tony wasn't too worried about it. He said that they will order the wood and hopefully get the planks replaced before putting on the floors tiles. He was more interested in the overhead lighting. He asked if I had done the lighting in the kitchen. I said that the previous owner had put them in. Tony just shook his head and said that it was not good. The previous owner had cut through the 2X4's to mount the lighting fixture panel. Now he has to replace all those 2X4's in the ceiling. Hopefully he will be able to do that tomorrow.

These two Chinese workers reminded me of the industrious workers that laid the railroad tracks for the Union Pacific Railroad back in the 1850's. They even had to tunnel through the mountains to make way for these tracks. Their Americans counterparts doubted that these tiny Chinese cannot do the task. They will fail. But they proved them wrong. Sometimes we need to be reminded how our tireless and hardworking pioneers pathed the way for us. And it was because of them that we enjoy the life that we have now.

Until tomorrow,

Dad

p.s. our first dinner without the kitchen is Mimi's Cafe...buy one get one free.