The House That Lou Built: Chapters 1–3

If people were houses, Lola Celina, my grandmother, would, be a hot-pink Painted Lady—one of those fancy San Francisco Victorians tourists love, with intricate stained glass that casts rainbows onto the sidewalks.

Right now, we’re strutting around the living room in summery folk-dance dresses.

If I keep thinking and brainstorming and watching how-to videos—instead of doing—it’s never going to happen.

“Okay, scooch over,” Lola says, sitting next to us. She starts folding and piling up costumes she sewed for Barrio Fiesta.
Barrio Fiesta is a neighborhood celebration.

The festival ends in a show, and my whole family pitches in. This time Lola’s sewing, I’m making sets, and Mom’s organizing the rummage sale.

The yurt—a round, portable tent pulled in carts by yaks.

The mansion—everybody knows this one. It’s what I used to want to live in, but now I think they’re obnoxious, too big and glossy.

Then there’s the opposite: a tiny house.
These houses are garage-sized small, but they can still have a kitchen and a bathroom and a secret cranny for brainstorming ideas.

He’d pull the blanket to my chin, and I’d run my fingers down his gnarled knuckles and listen to stories about his job when he first came to America.

My new house will have a composting toilet and, right above the kitchen, a cozy sleeping loft.

My new house will have a composting toilet and, right above the kitchen, a cozy sleeping loft.

Jack Allen glances over and I’m sure he's smirking, but whatever. It’s the last day of school and I can finally start building something big.

He’s mainly bald, with a half circle of gray hair rimming his head and long white whiskers that poke out from different parts of his cheeks. He likes to pluck them while reminding us of how we're the only public middle school in San Francisco that offers woodworking (aka Industrial Arts and Technology) and how that’s good since electronic doo-zads have made the human race manually incompetent.

He’s mainly bald, with a half circle of gray hair rimming his head and long white whiskers that poke out from different parts of his cheeks. He likes to pluck them while reminding us of how we're the only public middle school in San Francisco that offers woodworking (aka Industrial Arts and Technology) and how that’s good since electronic doo-zads have made the human race manually incompetent.

He always seems genuinely curious about what I make.

Maybe I should talk them through my vision, like the floorboards I’ll fit together from reclaimed hardwood, or the twinkle lights I’ll drape over the deck in a sparkly canopy.

Maybe I should talk them through my vision, like the floorboards I’ll fit together from reclaimed hardwood, or the twinkle lights I’ll drape over the deck in a sparkly canopy.

Mystery in a Cube Guy snickers. “Who makes birdhouses?"

“Let’s see. I would probably think it was a huge undertaking, but one that I would certainly delight in seeing you accomplish. I certainly wood. Get it? Would?” he says, chortling.

“Let’s see. I would probably think it was a huge undertaking, but one that I would certainly delight in seeing you accomplish. I certainly wood. Get it? Would?” he says, chortling.

“It’s called a tiny house.”
"That’s a beguiling concept,” he says. "I’ve read about them.”

“I have some stuff I need hauled to my building site, and I’m trying to find help. It shouldn’t take too long,” I say.

Alexa gets a lot of heys in the hallway. She’s friendly and never snooty, so everyone likes her.

It makes me laugh whenever Alexa calls me Manang. Even though Alexa’s blond and blue-eyed, she’s an honorary Filipina.

Our words are different because the Philippines has so many dialects.

“And anyway, the only cute guy in shop is Jack Allen.” Alexa smiles slyly as he walks past.

I’m fascinated by how normal her life seems. It's like a science experiment to me. It has a mom and a dad who are still married and a big brother who comes home from college on weekends; a perfect nucleus enclosed in a red-and-cream Spanish Colonial Revival with a hybrid car tucked into the garage.

It's the traditional Philippine house, built on stilts, with one room where the whole family lives.

If the land floods during typhoons, villagers help their neighbors by hoisting the house onto their shoulders with wooden poles and walking it to its next spot.

If the land floods during typhoons, villagers help their neighbors by hoisting the house onto their shoulders with wooden poles and walking it to its next spot.

“Oh yeah, and inventors of the life raft, the bullet proof vest, and residential solar heating? Women,” I say.
Gracie and I high-five. I’ve memorized a long list of female inventors.

It’s not too shabby, but I can usually find things to fix.

She’s a tall, slender woman with light hair and dark roots, and she always makes me feel welcome.

I love Alexa’s place, with all its happy colors and books and weird abstract art.

“No! But don’t worry about it, Louie. Dessert will make you feel better. Mom whipped up some dairy-free wheatgrass ice cream with dehydrated kiwis. That should get your mind off things,” she says, making a face, and we
Alexa, her dad, and I sit around the table, and her mom sets down the star dish.