5061 Waterloo

Tuesday, May 3, 2016

The less people know, the more stubbornly they know it

 – Osho --

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I've managed to make it up to the Hudson Valley house every weekend lately.  Not that I manage to get much done every trip, bit every little bit is a step ahead.  That doesn't leave a lot of time to fool around here.

The weekend of April 29, as I was leaving on Monday, I decided not to leave my notebook (notepad?  mini laptop?  whatever the heck it is) there.  I had planned to leave it, since that's pretty much the only place I use it, but I carry an overnight bag every trip not because I need anything while there, but in case something goes wrong and I have to stay at a hotel.  I hate ending up at a hotel without my toothbrush and toothpaste, and something to sleep in.  Since my phone is useless for anything but calls, I decided maybe I should carry the notebook all the time, too.  Just in case.  I'm less likely to have an emergency if I'm prepared.  That's just the way it works.

So I packed it up and put it on the porch next to the front door so I could grab it on the way out.

Naturally, I forgot it.

I didn't notice until I was unloading the van here.  If I had realized I'd forgotten it at any point on the highway, I'd have turned around and gone back for it.  So I called the Hairless Hunk and asked him to take care of it for me and I'd collect it this past weekend.

He hid it behind some junk on the porch.  Sigh.   Oh well, it didn't get wet and was still there....

This past weekend's trip, I managed to clear out almost all of the pantry closet, producing four bags of very heavy garbage and one of containers to recycle.  It was all stuff from before Jay's illness, so everything in there was like 16 years old.  All kinds of mixes, spices, varieties of pasta, all kinds of rice, five kinds of flours, just a lot of stuff.  I was really good about dumping it all.  There was about 10 pounds of sugar, and I hesitated, thinking even though I won't use it maybe Daughter could, but then I shrugged and dumped it, too.  I suspected she'd be mad at me for not tossing it.  We had a lot of trouble with mice, so almost everything was in glass or heavy plastic containers (many of which I kept, dumping just the contents), so there was nothing wrong with it but age. I was amazed that the three kinds of brown sugar was even still soft.  Tossed it all.

I finally lost my determination, met my defeat, when I found the three unopened bottles of Pickapeppa Sauce.  I love that stuff.  It's made in Jamaica, has always been a bit difficult to find, and is impossible to find around here.  I can buy it on Amazon, but only by the case, and very expensively.

I brought them home.  I won't tell Daughter how I failed.  I'm cooking a pork chop for dinner, just for the Pickapeppa.
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4050 Up the river

Saturday, June 6, 2015

"I like pigs. Dogs look up to us. Cats look down on us. Pigs treat us as equals."

 --Sir Winston Churchill--

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Last Monday, June 1st, I drove up to the country house in the morning to meet the a/c man in the afternoon, to discuss getting central air there.   The house has a 30-year-old water-based heat pump for a/c, but the well water is so hard and so silty the coils are clogged up, and it hasn't worked in years.

It hadn't been too much of a problem when I lived there for several reasons:
- There were only a few days in July, usually, when the outdoor temp got over 90,
- I could pop the attic hatch and open the basement door, and then the attic fan pulled cool air from the basement,
- Since I was there all the time and could keep "on top of it", it never got out of hand.

But the past few summers there have been whole weeks with outdoor temps well over 90.  And if I arrive at the house and it's already super hot in there, I can't get it cooled down enough in an afternoon to be able to sleep there.  Plus, age seems to have made me much less tolerant of temperature extremes.

So, I need central air to get anything done up there.

I settled on one of the largest and oldest family-owned heating/cooling/plumbing companies in the area - they have lots of people, support a variety of systems, and their reviews are very good.  The owner himself came out to look at the place.  It's all good.  I have confidence.  He sent a chart of all my options as to size and add-ons, and I've chosen the middle one as being adequate and the best price.  So now I'm just waiting to hear when they can get started.  He said it would take one day (!) to install it and have it up and running, and then one day to remove the miserable heat pump.  And he did give me a price for the whole job, NOT an estimate.

The deck across the back of the house is rotting.  I had thought I'd have to replace the whole thing - it's over 30 years old.  I had expected it would cost a fortune.  But when we were walking under it, he said no, only the decking needs replacing.  It's not rotted, just all dried out and warped from the sun.  He said the underpinnings, posts and beams, are fine.  Wow!  That means I can just hire the Hairless Hunk to replace the deck!  I'm excited.

I'm pretty dense sometimes.  I told him how much I love the area, and how I really would like to keep the house, but it's just too much to keep up.  He asked if I'd be happy with a townhouse or condo.  I am so dense!  It was like a revelation!  Yes!  I could sell the house, and find something else, maybe something tiny, like an efficiency apartment.  Heck, I'd mainly be going up there for events and stuff, not to just sit inside, so I don't need more than a bedroom, bathroom, kitchen, and closet.  

Yeah.  I'm getting excited again.

I went online and searched for condos and such in north-western Dutchess county.  There's not much in the areas where I'd want to live.  There's new "senior housing" right in the village, that would be ideal, I've seen the place, it's nice, they have 1-bedroom apartments, balconies, pool, the usual, but they have income limits - and I'm past the limit by a bit.  (If I could invent a fake husband to share the place with me, then I'm within the limits for two.)  There's nothing like apartment buildings anywhere near the village.  I guess there are downsides to rural living.  I do want to find someplace in the Rhinebeck-to-Tivoli area, though.  I really like all the farms and orchards, historic mansions, woods and trails, the fairgrounds, all that.

And mainly, the CLEAN AIR!

Oh, well, plenty of time to work on that.

I returned to the city house on Wednesday, late.  
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3828 Slammed #2

Monday, March 3, 2014

Second slam:  Back about February 18th I got a call from the fuel oil supplier for the country house saying that they couldn't get up the (300 foot uphill) driveway to deliver to the country house.  I contacted the Hairless Hunk, and he took over.

So this morning I hear from HH.  The oil guy tried to deliver late last week, but (HH just found out) was able to pump only 9 gallons when the intake pipe "overflowed".  Their conclusion is that the tank is still full from the early December delivery.

ACK!

(HH is suspicious of that because he went up and checked, and there's no evidence of overflow.)

Anyway, the country house apparently has no heat, and may not have had heat since, oh, early December, or maybe even before that.  Great.

Lots of possibilities:
The furnace is dead.
The power is out.
The fuel line is clogged.
Who knows.

I told HH there's no panic.  With the below 0 temps they've had almost all winter, if there's any damage, it's already happened.

The thermostat had been set at 50.  I had turned the well pump off, and opened the faucets in the bathtub and the kitchen sink to allow for expansion.  I THINK I had filled all the traps and toilets with antifreeze (but I'm not sure, and even so, who knows how long before it evaporates anyway).  To tell the truth, I had been slightly worried about sewer gas from the septic tank filling the house, and the damn place exploding at the first spark.

So I guess I have to go up there later this week and sort it out.  If there's any damage from frozen pipes, it will be no more than whatever water was sitting in the pipes, and fixing can wait for spring.  I can carry water for my stays.

If there's power, I can have heat while I'm there, because the otherwise defunct old heat pump has electric backup and I can run that.  Costs a fortune, but, well, ya gotta do what ya gotta do.   If the house has already been without heat so long, it won't hurt to just turn it off when I leave.  What more could happen?

If there's no power, I'll stay overnight in a local motel and then just come home.  No way I can do anything about anything until spring if it's anything more than a tripped circuit breaker.

Bad bad bad winter.  Go away.

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Note:  More evidence of my mistrust, according to the electric bill for the country house, it used 564 kwh in December and January, and the bill claims this is an actual reading.  If the furnace was off, all that's running is a dehumidifier in the basement and a refrigerator in the kitchen, and if there's been no heat, I doubt either has been running much.  But those are the same usage numbers as last year.  So either the power was on through December and January, or the electric company is inventing numbers.
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3810 Estate sale

Saturday, December 14, 2013

Well, I have medical insurance for 2014.  I suspect I'm not going to be happy with it, but, we'll see.  The cost is low, but it's a Medicare Advantage plan, and it's an HMO.  I always swore I'd never go into an HMO, but there it is.  The only plan of any type that I was eligible for that allowed me to choose my own doctors was extremely costly.  So.  At least that's done.

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The country house is under storm alert this weekend.  10" of snow and then sleet.  Since the house is higher up, I suppose there will be at least 12" of snow.  We always got about 20% more than lower down.  Or more.  Temps in the low 20s.  I am worried about losing power there.  Sigh.  Another week I won't be going north.

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I got an email a few days ago from my old auctioneer, George, saying he was going to be on a show on the Travel Channel, so I watched it.  It was another of those stupid shows that seem to be so popular recently --- you know, where we follow some "experts" while they buy unseen storage facility contents, or race through antique centers looking for bargains, or poke around mountains looking for gold.

This time, we had three "expert bidders" at George's auction.  It was very obvious the whole thing was staged.  He had a full room of bidders, but no one else bid on any of the boxes that were obviously solely for these "experts" to battle over.

It was so stupid.  THEY were so stupid.  They were bidding on unopened boxes and bags, no idea what was in them.  Number one, George never sells unopened stuff.  Number two, these "experts" didn't do their research.  One idiot kept saying "There's lots of mansions in [this village].  Huge estates. This is an estate auction so these boxes are coming from the attics and basements of these wealthy mansions.  You KNOW it has to be good stuff!"

First of all, the statement that there are lots of mansions in [the village].  Yeah, that general wider area is full of mansions, yeah, but most of them are run as tourist destinations by the national park service, like the Vanderbilt, Astor, and Roosevelt places, and a few other piles of marble with names and history.  There are a few private mansions around, but these days almost all of them are empty, like the place where Chelsea Clinton's wedding reception was held. (It's for sale and the owner volunteered it hoping for free advertising.) So, there's no good stuff coming from mansion attics!  Do your research, you fool!

Second, the "expert" doesn't even know what an estate auction is!

"Estate" in this sense doesn't mean mansions and land, anyway.  It means somebody's Aunt Sally died and left all her worldly goods to somebody who is now selling off the excess.  "Estate" in the sense of the disposals of a legal will.  Sheesh.  And these folks are "experts"?

(Sometimes George does sell items from a mansion, but when he does, he tells you where it came from,  "Sale of the Contents of Blah Blah Mansion", and the auction is exclusively those items.  In 10 years, I've seen only two of those auctions - one being Larry (Hustler) Flynt's place.  Usually George's estate sale stuff is bits from hither and yon all over the northeast.)

Third, one of the "experts" attempted to figure out what was in a locked duffel bag by SITTING ON IT!  Well, there goes that Faberge egg, eh!  How stupid is that.  The other guy was shaking boxes violently.  Duh.

It got to where I was yelling at the TV.

I will never watch any of those things again.  Bleck.  I will not miss cable.
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3774 Wrenches and plans and all that

Friday, October 11, 2013

"To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it." 

--G. K. Chesterton--

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My back was out or in some stage of delicate for a month.  By the end of last week it felt pretty good, so I figured I'd make it up to the country house this week.

Not to be.

Last Friday, the Nugget was miserable and snobbery.  By Sunday evening I was sneezing, and by Monday I was miserable and snobbery.  'Long about Tuesday evening the miseries started to descend into my chest.  Last night, Thursday, at about 9 pm, a good six hours since I'd taken some (every four hours) Robitussin, I felt really good and thought "Wow, it's over!".  By 11 pm I was crawling to the cabinet for more Robitussin.

Sigh.

Will I ever again see that house?

Nugget is still suffering.  Although her nose is now dry, her voice sounds like a cartoon witch, so I guess the miseries are in her throat and chest, too.  She still laughs and plays, but at any moment the least tiny thing will send her sobbing into her mommy's lap.  I told Daughter if she aches all over even 1/3 as bad as I do, take pity on her.

At least I have Robitussin.
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3764 Rachel Carson lives

Monday, September 9, 2013

"There is always more misery among the lower classes than there is humanity in the higher."

--Victor Hugo--

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One of the biggest differences between the city house and the country house is the presence of paper wasps, yellow jackets, ground wasps, hornets, and the like.

At the country house, if you leave a car parked outside for a few days, every door seam, trunk lid, hood seam, wheel well, gas cap cover, will be full of yellow jacket nests.  You quickly learn to be very careful opening things.

Every high house eave corner will at some time or another acquire a huge round hornet's nest. 

At some point every summer you are guaranteed to step on a ground digger yellow jacket nest.  They love lawns.  Teleportation is a quickly learned skill.

Anything left outside that has a sheltered spot, a small hole, a covered area, like deck chairs or empty flower pots, will gather irritable inhabitants. 

It's a serious problem.

Today I was sitting on a chair on the patio at the city house, and through painfully-acquired habit I checked the chair for wasps flying around it before sitting, and I was careful not to let my fingers curl around to the underside of the armrests.  When I realized what I was doing, I realized that I haven't seen a single wasp here.

Not one.

Rather than being pleased, I'm worried.

Why no wasps? 
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3747 Water, fair, NSA

Thursday, July 4, 2013

"It is not necessary to understand things in order to argue about them."

-- Pierre Beaumarchais --

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Went to the country house last Saturday, stayed until Tuesday.  It finally occurred to me that it was safe to turn the water back on (duh!) since there will be no freezing, so now I no longer have to carry water for flushing and washing.  It takes one to two gallons of water just to flush a toilet, so that's a significant help.  I'm still carrying water for drinking, because the well water is pretty hard and silty, because it's not being run enough.

Having already had a house flood because of a leak in a pipe, I turn it off again when I leave.  No chances.

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I guess I really am an old-fashioned country girl.  In my mind, a state fair (or county fair) is about the agricultural and animal husbandry bounty of the area, and is held after the harvest.  It's a celebration at the end of a season of hard work.

So, um, a "state fair" held in early July is nothing more than a big carnival.  Harumph!  And here I thought New Jersey, the "garden state", was big on agriculture. I snort at next week's "state fair".  Blah.

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[sacasm alert]  I love the way certain groups are blaming the Obama administration for the "misbehavior" of the NSA.  Short memories must be nice.  It keeps one from confusing emotion with fact, which makes life and selectively spouting vitriol a lot easier.

This snooping of communications has been going on a long time.  It's an outcome of the "patriotic" fervor after 9/11, when the Patriot Act swept constitutional protections out the door.  I don't understand why so many people are surprised now.  Am I the only person who heard all the arguments for and against it back then?  Cheney was having wet dreams over it all.  Worst than J. Edgar Hoover.  Remember when we were told that if we had nothing to hide, we had nothing to fear?  When the government could do no wrong where our protection was concerned, and if you dared to question anything, you were accused of being unpatriotic? Do you remember when being accused of lack of patriotism could lose you your job, and get your house vandalized?  Like, shades of McCarthy?

So, Obama inherited it.  He didn't start it.  And in inheriting it, he found himself holding a tiger by the tail -- you know, where you have to hold on because it you let go, the tiger will turn and bite you?  If he stopped all that data collection and there was an attack, he'd be accused of hampering the ability to detect and stop it, if not of downright inviting it.  So, the snooping had to continue.

One thing the Obama administration could do was at least try to put the constitutional protection back in.  They required that the NSA be under judicial review.  Prior to Obama, the NSA had no oversight and no restraint where domestic snooping was concerned.
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3744 Harassing calls, robins, WWZ

Monday, June 24, 2013

It is now quite lawful for a Catholic woman to avoid pregnancy by a resort to mathematics,

though she is still forbidden to resort to physics or chemistry.

--HL Mencken--

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I was at the country house (or on the road going there or returning) Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday of last week.  I had all kinds of plans for what I was going to do there, but got completely overwhelmed and did nothing.  As usual.

What needs doing right now is sorting and deciding, something only I can do, so help won't help.

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I've been getting calls on the house phone, up to four and five a day, all from the same local number, 732-993-4397.   I was unaware until today because I never use that phone, the ringer is off, and I check for messages about once a month.  Most of the calls from that number leave no message.  Two did, and someone named "Christina" asked me to call her back at a different toll-free number.

There's lots wrong with this.

1. I'm on the do-not-call registry.
2. The outgoing message on that phone says that I never use that phone, the ringer is off, and I rarely check messages.  Apparently "Christina" never listened to my message?
3. In these days of internet, you'd think they'd know we'd look them up.  They are something called "Interface 1", which is a company that overcharges for a modelling photo shoot and claims to flog your photos to talent agencies. (Actually, they just set up a web site with photos that REAL agencies are invited to peruse.)  They go after teens and young mothers at Six Flags and malls, and get phone numbers, then they make repeated "no one there" and dropped calls to your phone.  Robo-calls.  They get around the do-not-call registry with this because you (or your kid) gave them the number.
4. I have never given out this number!  In fact, I don't even know it offhand.  And even if the previous users of this number gave it out, it's been mine and on the registry for 21 months, and by FCC regs they are required to check the registry monthly, so....

I have reported them to the feds.  I am surprised that of all the folks online who complained, not one mentioned the national registry, or reporting these guys, although a few said they complained to the BBB.  Unfortunately, the feds don't fine anyone anymore, don't do anything other than maintain a database of complaints, available to local officials who might want to prosecute.

I now have their address.  I think maybe I'll pay them a visit.  A loud visit.

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I'm starting to wonder about the robins and their nest.  The lady started sitting on it a long time ago - at least three weeks, probably four.  The two of them had been taking turns hunting bugs in my back lawn every day.  Momma was on the nest and Daddy on a nearby branch every evening.  The past few days, nobody has been on the nest, not even in the evenings.  The two adults are still on the lawn, but it's almost like they're ignoring the nest.

I've been checking the ground under the nest for discarded shell bits, or fallen babies, but ... nothing.  I hope a snake or squirrel didn't steal the eggs or chicks.

It's too high for me to look in.

I don't understand.

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If you are planning to see the World War Z zombie movie, see this:  The Oatmeal

Alternate tag: why movies are always disappointing if you've read the book.
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3737 Wasting time...

Sunday, June 2, 2013

You can give a man a fish and he will eat for a day,

or you can teach a man to fish and he

will sit in his boat all day pouting because no one gave him another fish.

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Amost all birds, no matter what they eat as adults, feed their babies meat (bugs, worms, larvae) because the babies need protein to grow muscles and bones.  Even adult seed-eating birds need real seeds.  They won't get the nutrients they need from processed stuff like bread.

So I have to (secretly) snort at my neighbors who toss out bread scraps to "feed the birds".  It's ok once in a while, to attract birds to look at them, but I wish people wouldn't make a habit of it.

If you want to feed baby birds, you should put out a chunk of rotting meat, to attract bugs.  The parent birds would appreciate that.  Or half a container of cottage cheese.  That'll be full of nice fat squirming maggots within hours.  Yummy!

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I went to the country house last Thursday, returned yesterday, first visit since last fall.  I was very worried about what I'd find.  Afraid the house would be full of yellow jackets, mice, spiders, snakes.  Afraid I'd find all the pipes and wires stolen.  I was worried enough that I reserved a hotel room for Thursday and Friday nights.

Actually, I was surprised that the house was actually fine.

Well, the mice had gone to town over the winter.  There was nothing for them to eat, but it was a warm place to hang out.  And they did nibble the buttons on the TV remote.  Finger oils on the buttons, I guess.  (Maybe potato chip flavored oil.)  They had gnawed them down flat.  I could still use the remote, by pressing the buttons into the base.

I had taken my laptop so I could keep up with the mail and feed reader, and because there was an eBay auction I wanted to snipe.  And because the country house has no internet, I took along the portable wifi pack I'd bought a few months ago to replace the (lost, accidentally left at a hotel) plug-in DSL dohickey that had served me so many years.  (I try never to use "public" wifi like in hotels and coffee shops, because I don't trust their security).  I tested the setup again just before I packed up Thursday to leave.  Worked fine.

Got to the (internet connection-less cheap place) hotel Thursday night, and although my cell phone had four bars, the wifi pack had only none or one bar.  First thing Friday morning I took it to the Verizon store, waited for a half hour for a rep to get to me, complained that it wouldn't pick up a signal, and that although I had been told that the battery would last a week if it was left on and a month if turned off, I'd never gotten more than two hours use before it needed charging.  So they kept it for the day to test the battery.

Then I went to the house but didn't get much done because I had to meet Piper for lunch.  I absolutely did not go to his office, because every time I've done that I've ended up sitting there for an hour or more waiting for him to get loose.  Damn!  If he's going to insist that we meet, he'll do it on my terms.  I called him and said I'd be at the village diner at 2 pm (that's when I eat lunch on this six-meal plan), and that I'd be there one hour.

Well, Piper being Piper, the lunch was the usual almost two hours.

Didn't get make much forward progress back at the house, had to clean up mouse poop and refill all the plumbing traps that had dried out over the winter, stuff like that, and then go back to Verizon early evening.  They said the battery was fine, that it will last a week left on but asleep and a month turned off, but if you're using it, two hours is about right.  What the hell!?  But, they noticed that even there, where it should have had 4 or 5 bars, it was picking up only 1 or 2.  So eventually they swapped out the SIM card, and it went to 4 to 5 bars.  They have such crowds in there that you have to sign in and wait.  I was there about an hour and a half.

But now it's all fixed, right?

Back at the hotel, now it would come up and connect to the laptop, but not to the internet.  "Local connection only".  Huh?

Friday morning back to Verizon.  Sign in and wait again.  This time I took the laptop, too.  The device is bad.  It worked in NJ, but the last thing it had done before I packed it up to leave was auto-install a software update.  They figure the update must have gone bad, but that doesn't really make any sense.  No idea. It's still under warranty so they will send me another, will arrive Tuesday, then I have to go to the NJ Verizon shop and get the laptop tweaked for the new device.  That's going to eat up half the day Wednesday.

I am also pissed because they no longer sell the simple little plug-in I had used for so long with no problems, so I was forced to upgrade to this thing, which is complicated enough to need software updates, and therefore has the potential to crap out again at any time, especially after the warranty is gone.  I hate being forced to upgrade to something less reliable and more complicated (and more expensive) than the old thing!  (My cell phone is a little clamshell that takes and makes calls, and that's enough for me.  I think it can text, too, but I've never tried.  It needs charging maybe once a week. I hope to hell it never breaks.)

Crap.

So, between Piper and Verizon, I got nothing done on that trip.  And a trip to the country house isn't cheap.  $40 in gas, 260 miles worth of tolls, and this time at least two nights at the (cheap) hotel.  I am royally pissed.

So, ok.  I get home, and the first thing I do is start up the laptop to check all the things I hadn't been able to check.  Here I use the house cable wifi.

"Local connection only."  Huh?  No internet again!?

Oh, my God!  Is it the laptop that's screwed up, not the little device?  What do I do now?  What about the new device that will be arriving, and my laptop is screwed up?  How much time have I already wasted on this?  Oh Good Grief!  I completely freaked.

I went over to Daughter's house and asked if I could use her laptop to check my mail and feeds.  Hercules was there, and I asked their advice about what to do with the laptop.  He said if I want to buy a new laptop (this one is six years old, and the a, e, t, and h keys are worn blank, and I don't touch type, and that's the least of its problems)  he'd transfer all my junk for me.  He suggested that I bring Herman (my laptop's name) over and try it with their house wifi.  So I did, and guess what - it worked.

My city house wifi somehow got messed up, too, and I wasn't even here!

So back to my house, and I reset the house wifi (pulled the plug and plugged it back in again) and it worked just fine.

Two separate unexplained problems.  Weird.

Someone is trying to tll me something.

--------------------------------

I'm going to have to do something about Piper.  He wants to have lunch every time I go up there.  I've explained to him over and over that I don't really have the time when I'm there.  This trip I tried to limit him to one hour, but that doesn't include that I get dirty working there, and there's no A/C so I have to wash up and change clothes and drive into town and back again and then change again, so even one hour for lunch is actually more like almost three.  And it's never just one hour anyway.  Not to mention that the house is cooler earlier in the day, before the sun hits the glass walls on the west.


New rule:  I will have lunch with him every fourth trip.  Period.  And I'm considering making it an early dinner, so I don't lose the earlier part of the day.

Wish me luck.  I must not cave in when he starts acting hurt!
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3681 Meteors tonight!

Thursday, December 13, 2012

Sunshine is the best disinfectant.

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I've discovered another thing I miss at the city house - meteors!  Too much ambient light.  At the country house there's very little light.  We'd seen some incredible meteor showers just looking out the living room windows.

There's a good meteor shower tonight and tomorrow night.  Best time is after midnight, but you should be able to see some any time after dark, anywhere in the world.

Except, of course, where city lights bleach the sky.  Like here.

Details:
http://earthsky.org/astronomy-essentials/ten-tips-for-watching-the-geminid-meteor-shower
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3596 Procrastination analysis

Tuesday, August 14, 2012

Salada Tea tag line: The price is what you pay, the value is what you receive.

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The country house.  Why am I not out of there yet?  It will be two years in October.

Reasons include:

• The first winter, 2010-2011, was very bad.  Neighbors told me that we'd got more snow here at the city house than they'd seen in decades.  The country house also got a lot of snow, trees down, power outages.  Fred, the van, is no good in snow, and with a long uphill driveway there, I just didn't hazard trips.
• In the spring my kidney attacked me.  Through the entire 2011 summer I had that stupid useless stent (they'd put it in the wrong place) that tore up my bladder if I so much as lifted more than a coffee cup, or walked, or drove, and I lost a lot of blood.  I had a lot of pain and no energy.
• The loss of time during the winter, spring, and summer of the first year hurt me badly financially.  I had sold a lot of stock to buy the new house which reduced my income significantly.  The idea was to sell the old house to the Hairless Hunk's in-laws and then reinvest the proceeds, regaining income.  Instead, that house is now costing me almost $1,500 per month in taxes and utilities, on a reduced income, so that now it becomes difficult to hire pros for moving the big stuff and for repairs without dipping into investments, reducing my income even more.
• I made some headway last fall.  Then there came a cloud.  I'm here because Daughter and Hercules live here.   The company Hercules works for made some demands on him in the fall that, with a new baby, he didn't want to fulfill.  But that company was looking iffy anyway.  They had been bought out, and the new owners were consolidating offices.  It started looking like one way or another they might have to move.  There's no way I would stay here if they moved.  I'd go back to the old house and sell this one.  So ... I stopped moving things down here.  Just in case.
• In the late spring of this year, Hercules quit the old company and took another much more secure and satisfying job.  But I still haven't been motivated to get my tail in gear.  Money is still tight, but that isn't going to get better by waiting.  So, why not?

Suspicions, what I think might be going on in my head:

• I really like the old house.  (I merely tolerate this house.) Here's a wonderful description of the three village(s) I lived near: http://www.chronogram.com/issue/2012/8/Community+Pages/Rhinebeck-Red-Hook-and-Tivol. Why would anyone want to leave that?  I had 1.35 acres surrounded by woods, on the top of a ridge.  From the back deck I could see miles of farmland and mountains.  It's beautiful countryside, and I'm so afraid if I sell it I'll never go back.  I don't want to lose it.
• Hordes of people are convinced that the end of the world (by whatever means, from monster meteor to terrorism, to ... you name it) is due this December, or the religious folks are expecting the Rapture and/or the Second Coming, also December, anyway, whatever, I am also worried.  Not about the same thing as the end-of-life-as-we-know-it people, though.  I worry that some nutty group will decide, if the world doesn't end on schedule, that they have been anointed to make it happen.  And here I sit in hailing distance of NYC. If the shit hits the fan (or the uranium hits the breeze) this is not a good place to be.  The wrong people have guns here.
• If any of the above means we can't stay here, the country house is ideal.  It has plenty of room for a real garden.  There's a well that can be tapped with a hand pump. The woods are full of rabbits and turkeys.  The right people have guns.  There's a fireplace with plenty of firewood available.  It's up a steep dead-end road so it's less attractive to marauders.  Plenty of room for Daughter, Hercules, and the Nugget.

I think the above is a large part of why I'm dragging my feet.  I just don't want to give up that house.

I never ever ever wanted to be a landlord.  I cringe at the thought of someone messing up something that is mine.  But it may be that keeping the country house and renting it out, perhaps even to the Hunk's in-laws, is the only way to go.  It gives me back the income I need, keeps the house in case I ever want or need it, and gives me a good excuse to revisit the area.  Short of burning it down, or turning it into a meth lab, there's little that renters can do that can't be repaired.

Maybe I can be convinced to do that.  Or forced to.  I've got to get going, some direction.  THIS isn't working.
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3571 Throwing out books

Thursday, July 12, 2012

Everything we ever buy is either an investment or a liability.

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Every time I go to the country house I am overwhelmed by stuff, like, oh, say, the books.  I have literally thousands of books.    It has to be close to or over 5,000 books.  I am absolutely not bringing them all down here.  Maybe a few hundred of the best - the valuable ones, the ones I want to read again, the ones I haven't read yet, and a few of the reference books (like the Black's law dictionary, oriental rug and vintage jewelry guides, the encyclopedia of needlework, etc. - ones that address stuff the internet isn't as good at).   But I was stumped as to what to do with the rest.  There's just so many, and I couldn't bear the thought of throwing them out.

Then I read this:  http://magnificentnose.com/2011/05/16/i-can%E2%80%99t-believe-you%E2%80%99re-throwing-out-books/.   She's a librarian.  She throws out books.  At the link she describes why they are no good for donation, and her criteria.

She has given me reasons and courage.  I'll pick out what I want to keep, a few sets and modern bestsellers I'll sell, then open the rest to vultures.  Anything left over after vultures have picked through I think I can throw out without too much pain.  Hey, vultures didn't even want them.
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3533 Old house, wagon, motherhood

Sunday, May 20, 2012

The best helping hand that you will ever receive is the one at the end of your own arm.

-- Fred Dehner --

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Back on 5/7 I said I had several days to catch up on, and then I didn't.  Let's test my memory.

Aborted trips

Week before last, 5/9, I went upriver to the old house with plans to bring some boxes and smaller furniture down.  Traffic was heavy because of roadwork and the trip took three hours.  I got there at 11 pm, desperate for the bathroom, and that's when I discovered I had forgotten to bring the house key.  It's countryside and small village.  Everything is closed by 9 PM.  The nearest public bathroom is 10 miles away across the river.

I shrugged and piddled on the driveway in the light of the van door.  I always wanted to do that....

Then I drove to the Wal-Mart and bought a toothbrush, toothpaste, and a nightgown, and got a room at a little motel near the Throughway.  It's the cheapest motel in the area, at $67 a night, but I had read very good reviews a few months ago.  It turned out to be simple, basic, in good repair, very clean, and remarkably quiet considering its proximity to the Throughway.  The next morning I drove back home.

That was depressing.  I now have a note on my front door listing all the things NOT to forget when I head upriver.

Last week, 5/15, I planned to try again.  Tuesday afternoon I took a load of cardboard and paper to the recycle center (yeah, we have twice a month pickup, but I'm rarely home on those days).  It began raining while I was unloading the van, and I noticed what looked like oil floating on the water running from under Fred.  He's now 10 years old, and he does sometimes spring leaks.  I planned to drive him upriver that evening.  It didn't seem like a good idea until I found out what was leaking, but ... I couldn't put the trip off because I had arranged to have the old house furnace serviced the next day, Wednesday.  Rescheduling (again!) is difficult.

So I drove the BMW north.  Hal, the one with the tiny leather back seat and the tiny trunk.   I wasn't able to bring back anything but one armload of clothes and two small boxes.

Another disappointing trip.

Since then I've had an amazing amount of energy.  I've assembled the Nugget's birthday wagon (steel Radio Flyer with all-terrain wheels and wood guard rails, whoop whoop!).  She loves riding in it, but it requires two adults, one to pull and one to walk alongside to make sure she doesn't try to climb out.   We've gone for a few walks with it.  I assembled a bunch of Ikea bookcases (they had a sale).  I cleaned, washed dishes (the dishwasher in the new house died on its 18-month birthday), sorted shoes, changed sheets, did some laundry, and pulled together a bunch of stuff to donate.  Today, when her mother wasn't looking, I taught the Nugget how to drink from a hose.

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More cheap books!

Amazon has a "Kindle Daily Deal", providing one heavily discounted book on a daily basis.  It's at http://www.amazon.com/gp/feature.html/ref=kin_post_os_08242011_DailyDeal?&docId=1000677541.  You can subscribe to daily notices on the right of that screen.  You may have to change your Amazon account email notices to accept Kindle subscriptions.

I seems to take about two days to kick in, but then you get an email every morning with the day's bargain. I've got only two notices so far, and neither were books I was interested in, so I can't comment on the quality of the offerings.

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Why polls are bullpoopy

This one was on the radio during my drive upriver last week.  Somebody polled random people in the Albany area about fracking.
Approve = 37%
Oppose = 36%
No opinion = 27%
Have heard about fracking = 66%

Do the math.  7% of the people had an opinion on a topic they admit they'd never heard of.  (I was surprised that the news reader didn't remark on the discrepancy.)

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Major dose of tender adoration

Orangutan mother with six-week-old infant.  Kisses and coochey-coos.

[http://youtu.be/nastRZIPRKM]
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3497 Shock

Monday, March 26, 2012

Denis Johnson, "The Small Boy's Unit", Harper's, Oct. 2000, on the meaning of "everything is arranged" in Africa: Everything is arranged doesn't mean you should expect to get anywhere or accomplish anything. In fact for sanity's sake these two ideas have to be banished. Everything is arranged means that all is complete, the great plan of the universe is unfolding before our eyes.
So eat, drink, sleep. Everything is arranged.

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I have widgets on my laptop desktop that show the outside temperature at both houses, and although all winter it's been 8-15 degrees warmer at the new NJ house, for the past two weeks it's been 5-10 degrees warmer at the old NY house, 140 miles north. In fact, Thursday of last week it was in the 70s. Weird.

I'm now at the old house upriver.

When I left NJ this afternoon to drive up, I was wearing a pink sweatshirt-like hoody over a silk/cotton turtleneck, and I forgot to grab a jacket to take along for just in case. I remembered it when I was on the road, but shrugged and figured I wouldn't need it.

Yeah, sure.

They are predicting 22 degrees F here overnight tonight, and it won't be much warmer tomorrow. Luckily there are a few ratty old coats and jackets in the hall closet. If they're not too full of moths and mice, I guess I'll have to find one for tomorrow.
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1004 Nuttin' Much

Wednesday, December 6, 2006

Last evening it was 22 F outside. Today it was a little warmer, but the weather man says that a cold front is coming through, and the high will be in the low 20s for the rest of the week. Hibernation time, I think.

I was reading someone else's blog, an entry about home improvement. I've been living in this house for 12 years now, and I'm a little surprised that, except for getting the woods cleared of undergrowth, we/I have made almost no improvements.

Things we did do:

1. Jay cut a hole in the laundry room wall for a dog flap, and built an 8'x8' deck with a ramp outside the flap, for the dogs. We had talked about a dog-house kind of foyer arrangement on the deck outside the flap to keep the wind from coming in the hole, but it never happened. Now I have no dogs, but I have a big hole in the wall that the wind comes in. I taped a cover over it.
2. This spring I had the woods cleared of undergrowth.
3. About eight years ago we replaced the heating part of the heat pump with an oil furnace.
4. I had the roof reshingled this year.
   

And that's about it.

Things we talked about, but never did:

1. Finish part of the basement for a fourth bedroom, workroom, and family room with woodstove.
2. Put in a huge fancy whirlpool spa bathroom in the basement.
3. Replace the deck (20' x 10', no access to ground) with a wider deck with an octagonal piece that wraps around the corner, and "pull up" stairs (to keep wildlife off the deck).
4. Pop the attic roof and put in windows to recapture the view.
5. A stone wall at the end of the driveway, to fill in the bank that's so hard to mow.
6. Fence the backyard so the dogs can run.
7. Organize the garage.
   
8. Paint.

The painting is a real sore point. Every wall in the house is a dull off-white. When I first moved in, I remarked to Jay that it was next to impossible to wash the walls - the paint seemed "soft" somehow. I would love to paint it all in pink/rose/orange/yellow pastel shades of beige, sort of desert-adobe colors. The house was built to Jay and his ex-wife's specifications, and one day when I was going through the files, I found the builder's spec sheets. Under interior walls, it says "primer only - owner will paint". That's just primer on the walls! No wonder it won't wash!

But then I look around at all the furniture, all the things on and against the walls, all the bookcases full of books, the 12' ceilings, the open stairwell to the basement, and the thought of painting is overwhelming.

The carpeting is original, too. (Brown, throughout the house, except in the foyer, kitchen, and bathrooms.) It's 23 years old now. But it must be good carpet - it still looks ok. It would look better if I vacuumed more often.

Things I'd still like to do:

1. I'd still like to put in the family room with woodstove and fancy spa bathroom downstairs.
2. I'd like to paint all the walls.
3. I'd like to put in a patio outside the basement doors, and replace the sliding glass door with french doors.
4. I'd like to replace all the carpeting with hardwood flooring (if it's done at the same time as the painting, I'd have to move furniture only once).
5. I'd like to replace all the chandeliers and ceiling lights.
6. I'd like to put motion-detecting lights outside, on the porch and garage.

I doubt that much of it will actually happen. Not as long as I'm living here alone, anyway.

Things I'm going to have to do soon, like it or not:

1. Replace the heat pump air conditioning.
2. Resurface the driveway, and maybe add a loop.
3. Replace the deck, but I won't get fancy.
4. Have the siding washed and treated with anti-fungal stuff.
5. Put in water softener/filtering system.
6. Replace stove and dishwasher.
7. Replace/clean out all the plumbing fixtures clogged and corroded by hard water deposits.
8. Replace washing machine.
   

Not exactly improvement, more like just maintenance. But the cost of the above sort of eliminates anything fancier.

Why do I feel tired all of a sudden? Maybe Daughter and Hercules should rethink this home-buying idea of theirs. Don't buy your way into slavery! Rent!
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