Sexist banks, house progress, weather

Even though our home loan is through The Lady's bank account, not mine, and based on her income, not mine, **I'm** the first-listed on the documentation -- and I'm the primary signer on the ''first homeowner's rebate grant'' that I signed today. (Apparently, in AU you get a few thousand bucks from the govt. if it's your first house -- instead of getting tax deductions for mortgage payments like in the U.S.)

My name being first **could** be because my surname comes before The Lady's surname, alphabetically. But I think it's just because they assume that since I'm the guy, I'm the main person.


After a few weeks of no progress, the tile-installing guys have been on-site for three days. Because of the housing boom, I think we got less-experienced guys. Not only are they young-looking, but they've screwed up a few times, now: installed the wrong off-white in one of the bathrooms -- which then meant that they were three boxes short of one color off-white, and three boxes over on the other. The inventory numbers on the boxes didn't match the list they were given, so they just took a guess -- but I'm thinkin' a more experienced tiler would have laid out all the boxes **first**, to check that the amount of supplies matched, **prior** to jumping in.

They phoned The Lady, saying they had a problem and needed her judgment call. It was either pry up the entire bathroom floor (destroying the tiles in the process), or just living with it, and ordering more tiles (but not at our expense). In the interests of not wasting tiles (and keeping the momentum going), The Lady was nice enough to say they could leave it as-is. (The colors worked o.k.)

They also tiled an area in the kitchen that wasn't supposed to be tiled -- so they're now short that number of bricks in **that** color, as well. It looks fine, though, and they'll pay for the extra tiles that get ordered. And they laying-out that they're doing looks fine.

Still: not impressed.


Two or three days ago, the weather changed for the cooler: we think we're finally sliding into Autumn. Actually been slightly cool at night, and in the morning it's not **hot** already at 8am. Verra nice.

This is The Lady's favorite time of year: when it stops being hot.


--GG