When I come across any sort of tricky finance -and who doesn't? - I know at the outset that I am in over my head.

To save face, I am tempted to add, "and who isn't?," but I know better. There are people who grasp the complexities of finance with no trouble whatsoever, as if it were a simple game of Johnny On The Pony.

I charm you with this introduction because I have come across in this week's news of North County a case of sell, buy, lease and so on that has me baffled, although I am willing to concede, if I must, that others understand it perfectly.

This was it: The city of San Marcos is apparently going to buy back some land it sold to a developer, then lease it to that same developer. In the end, I kid you not, a Marriott hotel will probably emerge.

Some millions of dollars are involved, but a few hundred thousand are spent every day to buy a single cup of coffee from your average extortionate coffee chain, so I think the money is beside the point.

The hotel will lie beside Las Posas Road, at the corner of Los Vallecitos Boulevard in San Marcos, although truth to tell Highway 78 is a big player in the geographic layout.

At the moment, the site harbors a ranch-stylish skeleton, a bit of forlorn framing that has sat naked for a year. Somebody ran out of money, I gather, but that's the extent of my research.

I do know that the corner is a bit on the bleak side. I go past it often on the way to have my ancient car made mobile, and I did so this week. Bleak this week, although it might have been the weather.

The corner has possibilities. Right across the street is a shopping center, no doubt "Plaza-something-vaguely-Spanish," where among other retailers there's an Elephant Bar, a Sprouts market, a Nordstrom's Rack, and a Marshall's, which is my personal Saks Fifth Avenue.

None of this fetching description has much to do with finance, for which my apology. But you were warned.

I'll try once more: San Marcos owned the land, sold it to a developer, plans to buy it back (for the same price) and rent it to the developer who will in the exchange realize some ready cash to buy wood, nails and other construction materials that Marriott may proceed.

To my mind, that is truly and vastly complicated. I am willing to bet that it would be easier to purchase nuclear rights from North Korea.

I am in awe of the minds that come up with this stuff. No wonder San Marcos is a boom town.

Go tell it of the mountain

Speaking of development, some Escondido residents remain at sixes and sevens with officials over the truer, deeper meaning and effect that a development known as Stonegate might hold for them.

The plan under discussion calls for a couple of thousand homes to be built in or on the Merriam Mountains, highest point 1,388 feet above sea level.

There goes the neighborhood, say opponents. Traffic, bucolic vistas and a certain way of life are threatened.

Everything will be fine, says the developer. We know what to do about potential traffic and other "impacts." An opponent this week sent around an anti-traffic flier, which is certainly to be preferred to hurling epithets.

Such struggles are hardly new to the world of construction. Developers through the ages have expected them. So have neighbors in proximity.

Politicians, quite naturally, have mixed feelings that depend on windage.

Frankly, I wish the developers would change the name. I worry over any title that has a "gate" at the end.