A lousy $25 million and there's no flippin' aviary??

July 31st and fireworks fill the sky.  Fabulous!  I suppose fireworks aren't just for that 'special' day anymore.
Not just July 4th.  
Desecration of the national holiday (horrors!) started years ago with fireworks/concerts on the 3rd.
This year, the rumore (that's noise in Italian.  If anyone can think of a noisier country lemme know) started officially on the 2nd.
Bastille day isn't on July 14th in certain parts of France (more on that particular story a different time).
I missed World Sauntering Day--June 19, and totally blew through Anti-Boredom Month--July 1-31


What, WHAT, WHAT is happening?
London is holding the summer Olympics??  Israel is running amok due to cottage cheese prices?  My children are about to get a step-mother, step-siblings, my ex wants me to relieve him of his 3 cats AND I'm supposed to care about Spotify.com and Google +?  
It's all too much.


Too,Too much.


But not quite as too-too as the house down the road that is selling for $25 Million.  Now that may not really raise an eyebrow to anyone who knows about home prices in the San Francisco Bay Area. For instance $45 Mil. for one of the most coveted Gold Coast Pacific Heights Mansions - the usual 7 bedrooms, 4 stories, 2 grand ballrooms, tennis courts, indoor pool, view of the entire Bay and Pacific.
Okay, so probably more than a family of four could afford.
They could always look around Palo Alto where the average price for a house within walking distance of downtown is a mere $4.3 Mil. with 4 bedrooms and, according to the listing, has 'unrivaled style & elegance'.
It's also within spitting distance of Mr. FaceBook himself, whose house has, like, TOTALLY displeased all humans far and wide as evidenced by this headline in the Wall Street Journal, 'MZ modest new home disappoints at $7 million'.
For sale, closer to home, on over 12 acres of land, a house of 11,000 sq.ft. with an unassuming 6,500 sq.ft. guest house.  A steal at $59.5 Mil.
So, if I do my math correctly (and I don't) it seems to me that the price per acre here is anywhere from $3 mil. to $14 mil.


So what you may ask?  
I can't afford to buy cat litter or fill up my gas tank.  And with a generation of You Tube/FB/Yelp/Twitter/Shutterfly/Google etc. ad nauseum billionaires beating down the doors, why should I even care about their massive waste of money?  And don't lecture me about people doing what they want with their own money.  We know who they are.  But I wander off point. 
So ANYHOO, there is a house just a few doors away, that we call the marshmallow house. 

 Not only does it look as though it's a polystyrene 'smore, but it took about 10 years to build (egad! it might be a 'wired' house, how totally embarrassingly 5 years ago that is).  Building would start, then suddenly stop.  Then 2 years would pass and a window would go in.  Then a palm tree.  Then nothing.  Then a chimney.  Either the owner was riding the market like a crazy person or had a massive case of the ADHD's. Or just came to the realization that the house was ugly as sin and the only thing to do was get massively drunk  and blackout.
Maybe they were a family of pirates.  I don't know.


Then, all of a sudden, with no sign of life and no signs of sale readiness, I saw in our local rag (it's glossy. don't ask) that the marshmallow house was on the market.


Look what it's got!


Operational glass panels  (well that's good news)
Central vacuum with kick-vacs in the kitchen (what's a kick-vac or am I just hopelessly behind the times?)
Rocky Mountain hardware throughout  (?)
A grand receiving area introduces textured limestone slab floors (Floor, I'd like you to meet Area.  Area - Floor)
Three sets of French doors to the front are featured  (you're going out a chorus girl but you're coming back a star!) 
Commode  (HELLOOOOOO! It's 2011!)
Floating limestone counter  (sometimes it's in the 3rd floor master suite, other times coyly hiding behind the dryer)

Dramatic circular floating staircase (very Harry Pottter)

A driveway of paver stones winds past the front entrance culminating at the underground garage (and then what do the paver stones do? Protest?)

A separate closet room is outlined with concealed hanging and drawer space (I don't even know what that means) 

Oh alright, to be fair, the house does have a pool and a cinema. And an elevator.  And a garage for six cars. And a sauna and wine cellar.  And a Miele espresso machine with cup warming drawer. So why am I obsessively annoyed and horrified by this manse?
Because it cost twenty-five Million dollars (the price on Osama Bin Laden's head by the way)?  I should be thrilled that property values seem to be spiraling upward again.  Maybe some lunatic will offer $40 Mil. for our house (as some lunatic did during the previous boom.  But he was Australian so was probably just a stickybeak Strine out for the arvo and off his face come to give us Pines an earbash, what).
$25 Mil. and no helipad? No topiary? No diving board? Because it's hella ugly?  Nope.
Because it's on less than an acre? YES. That is my friggin' problem.
For some reason, unless the interior is actually coated with gold and the appliances are made of rhodium, I truly don't get it and it makes me very very very cross.
The house is not set back from the street. THERE ISN"T ROOM.  Driving by, one can see the neighbour's fence, yes a fence, not even a wall.
Does Oprah hide out there?  Is it actually the Library of Congress?  The final resting place for the Shuttle?  The Temple of Artemis moved from Ephesus?  Maybe Christo does the linens?

Oh.


Never mind