3995 Life is ... well, it just is.

Monday, December 1, 2014

"Most people would rather be certain they're miserable than risk being happy."

 --Robert Anthony--

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I went up to the old house Saturday morning, November 15, just for the day, just to make sure the furnace was on and that it was running well.  It was 40 degrees in the house when I arrived and turned the furnace on.  I spent the next five hours sorting papers in the big filing cabinets, while the house warmed up.

I found a lot of neat stuff.  Once upon a time, in the old days, people wrote letters - actual penmanship, on real paper.  I had always kept personal letters and cards.  I found letters from my mother, letters from my youngest sister, copies of letters I had written to Jay's family when he was sick, and a few old love letters from suitors, including a love letter from Jay from before we were married.  

I set most of those aside to bring down here. I read the one from Jay several times up there before adding it to the "keep" pile; I'll read the others some day. I brought back with me a large box of paper for recycling, thinking I'd bring the "keep" letters back on the next trip, which was supposed to be later that next week.  

I stayed only until evening.  By 5 pm the house was up to 65 degrees, but I'd had enough.  I was freezing!  Shivering.  My hands were shaking so badly I was having difficulty handling papers.  We forget that it's not just the air in the house that's cold and needs to be warmed, but everything in the house. Walls, floors, furniture, appliances - they all suck heat out of the air (and out of me) until they get up to air temp.  That takes a long time.  So I set the thermostat back to 60 degrees, went to the diner in the village for dinner, and came on home.  I intended to return the next Thursday, the 20th, then stay until Saturday, and sort and pack up some more.

That Thursday morning I woke up and couldn't bend my left knee without a lot of pain, and it wouldn't support any weight bent.  It was fine straight, I just couldn't bend it.  There was no swelling, no heat or redness, no lumps, no tender spots, nothing.  I suspect I'd slept on it funny and sprained or strained something.  The main problem was the knee, but my hip was complaining, too.  (I notice stuff like this happening more as I get older. Side effect of increased wisdom, I guess.)  I was walking like a pirate swinging a wooden leg.  Stairs were interesting, and I couldn't drive because I couldn't use the clutch, so I wasn't going north.

By Sunday it seemed a bit better, but I didn't really trust it until like Tuesday, but with Thanksgiving on Thursday, there was no way I'd be on the highways until ... well ... today at the earliest.  Sigh.

So much for my determination to get moving on that house.  I hadn't been up there since early summer, for various reasons that now sound like excuses, but were really valid at the time - like Hal being in the shop and waiting for parts several times, and a very bad cold followed by a sinus infection, and commitments made to Daughter and to Nugget, and so on.  Not to mention that IRS thing and some other businessy garbage that took time and attention.

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Speaking of the IRS thing, I am going to have to have a serious talk with Piper.  He is in charge of my investments, and he moves money around too much in my estimation.  He's always buying this and selling that.  I can't complain that he has lost money for me, but he seems to consider it a game to "beat the market".  He's starting to look like a damn day-trader, with MY MONEY!  Having no particular expertise in that area, it's difficult for me to rein him in.  Well, he was proud that he had increased my holdings by something like 22% in 2013.  Then I got the annual statements from my 401K and my IRAs, which I control, not him.  My strategy is to find the best place to put the money, put it there, and LEAVE it there.  

My 401K and three IRAs all had gains over 33% in 2013.  That's 33%.  If 22% is pretty damn good, then 33% is fantastic!

So next time I see him, I'm going to tell him to find the best place to put the money, put it there, and LEAVE it there. I don't want to see more than three trades a year.  Period.  I'll spoil his fun, and he's going to have fits, but that's it.  I've had it.  Every trade he makes costs me money in processing fees, and I see no advantage in "playing" the market.  My IRAs are in no-load low-fee index-based mutual funds, and they are growing just fine, thank you.  They dipped a little in 2007-8ish, but they more than recovered just fine.  

Actually, I know what's going on.  He dearly loves everything Wall Street.  I don't think he has any other hobbies.  The Market IS his hobby.  His daughter has joined him in his business, and over the past five years she has gradually taken over most of his accounts, the largest of which are large union and business retirement funds.  He has retained his private accounts.  Like mine.  We are all he has left to indulge his passion.  

The other problem is that his buddies are all gloom-and-doom Wall Street Republicans who can't see anything ahead but recession and depression from Democrats (especially when led by a brown one), so he takes their advice and panics and sells off everything before every election.  I could strangle him for that.  Is anyone aware that the economy is just fine?  33% growth in index accounts in 2013?  Yeah, the middle class isn't recovering very quickly, but that fabled 1% is doing just fine.  The rich are getting richer.  Corporations are doing just fine.  

I hope I can convince him to settle down.  I hope I don't have to fire him.  I will if I have to, but it would cost a small fortune to pull out, and I don't know where I'd put it then.  I've met a few investment counselors in the past decade (remember The Ditz, for example?  That's what she does) and I don't trust any of them.  At least I can trust Piper - trust is not the problem with him.  He really thinks he's doing the best for me.  I just don't agree with his political philosophy and management methods. 

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Oh, almost forgot.  There was a big storm at the old house the day before Thanksgiving, and a huge tree fell across the top of the driveway.  One of those that pulled the root ball out of the ground.  The Hairless Hunk sent me a text msg plus photo this morning. His wife's mother had died last week, too, so he apologized that today was the first time he'd checked the house since the storm. (Sheesh.  Yeah, take care of your family first, Hunk.  Don't apologize for that.)  He has been rotating his excess vehicles at the top of my drive so it looks like there's activity at the house, and from the tiny photo it looks like maybe his car got hit by the tree.  His note didn't say anything about that.  So, anyway, until he clears the tree out, I don't think I'll be going up there.  I hope It doesn't snow before then, or it will be a real mess!

Why are things so complicated?
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3969 Bits

Sunday, July 27, 2014

I drove upriver Friday evening and returned today.  The Hairless Hunk had said I'd lost four trees in a recent windstorm.  You know, when he said "lost", I was thinking like previous tree losses, when the trees broke someway up the trunk.  Most of the trees at the country house are black locust, and they tend to be brittle.  I was not expecting major uprooting!  The kind with the roots in the air and a huge hole in the lawn.  Sigh.  I wish I had taken my camera (no, my phone isn't that smart, or maybe it is but I'm not).

The Hunk has a watchmacallit, you know, with a front loader scoop on one end, and a steam shovel-looking thingy on the other.  That, a chain saw, and a few hundred dollars will take care of it I guess.

I'm getting tired of losing trees up there.  In 18 years we've lost more than 35 trees to wind.  I guess that's a disadvantage of living on a ridge with a wonderful view.  The hunk has been transplanting young maples and oaks he finds hither and yon, and most of them have been doing well, so there's that.

Heh heh, another topic, the Hunk likes to trim tree branches high enough that people can walk under them without meeting branches. (I had a husband that used to do that, too.  Him, I divorced.)  I noticed yesterday that he'd trimmed my huge old mulberry tree so high that I'll never be able to pick berries. 

The Hunk also trims tree branches near the house that drop too low, too close to the house roof.  I laughed at him one time for that, pointing out that the branches above the ones he cut would simply drop down as they grow, because now without competition from lower branches they can go lower to get more sun.  It's a no-win situation.  You either have to remove almost all the branches on that side of the tree, or remove the tree.  He looked confused.  "They drop down?"

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I was listening to Sirius Classic radio on the drive up.  One show was The Great Gildersleeve.  Gildersleeve and a neighbor were shoveling coal into a basement when another neighbor came along and told Gildersleeve his face was dirty and he needed to wash it, adding, "I didn't know you could get that dirty on radio!"

I cracked up.

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It's usually a 2.5 hour drive between the two houses, about 135 miles, plus any potty breaks.  I left at about 11:30 this morning, figuring I'd avoid most of the "returning to the city" traffic and be home about 2-ish.  I got home at a little after 4.  Multiple multi-mile sections of 0-20 mph, with no apparent explanation.  So I guess I have reaffirmed that Sunday travel at any time of day is no good.

I don't understand.

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Coming home today, I got the "something horribly wrong" check engine light on Hal, the BMW.   Poor old Fred, the van, is having battery troubles.  And I'm supposed to meet the furnace man at the country house next Thursday, and I was going to call some A/C people for quotes Thursday and Friday.  Another sigh.  I hope BMW can take Hal tomorrow, I hope it's a quick fix, I hope I don't have to put 275 miles on a rental car.

Sometimes I hate the world.

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You know something?  No matter how many pieces of track you have for a train set, unless all you want to make is a plain circle or oval, you won't have enough of the right shapes and sizes to do what you want.  There will always be one critical piece missing.

Must be some kind of natural law.

Thomas and Friends' wooden track pieces are even reversible, track on both sides so the curved pieces can go either way, and it still doesn't help.

Sigh.

I'll probably go to bed early tonight.
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3749 Trees

Friday, July 5, 2013

It ain't the parts of the Bible that I can't understand that bother me,

it is the parts that I do understand. 

--Mark Twain--

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My neighbors must be smarter and more organized than they seem.  Last night's back yard fireworks started at precisely 9:30, and except for a few small sputters they ended at 10:00.  The purpose of the coordination appears to be to overwhelm the police.  They can't arrest everyone all at once.

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The dominant volunteer tree around here seems to be the sweetgum.  At the country house, in the Mid-Hudson Valley, it's the locust, some black locust and some honey locust.

Any smart homeowner around here will immediately kill any gum tree found on their property.  The damn things produce copious pollen that thickly covers everything, and then in fall they drop thousands of hard spiny gumballs that threaten bare feet, destroy lawn mowers, and grab the grass so that they are serious work to rake up.  No insects or birds eat the seeds or balls (some people claim goldfinches eat them, others argue with that), and the balls take forever to rot into humus. 

I inherited a huge gum tree at the end of the back yard, and my neighbor has two that overhang my driveway in front.

I hate the damn things.  They have no redeeming features (if you're not a furniture manufacturer).

In the Hudson Valley, you'll find locust trees in places where old pastures and orchards have gone wild, and in straight well-spaced lines bordering current fields and along old farm roads.

Crowded locusts are rather ugly, especially the black locusts.  They don't like crowding, and grow spindly and strangely angled.  The woods around the country house are black locust, in what was once colonial apple orchards.  I joined Jay there in January, 1994, when the locusts were bare and starkly black.  They looked exactly like what you would expect to see behind a movie haunted house.  Spooky.  Ugly.  They disturbed me, especially in moonlight.

Locusts have long very sharp spines on the trunks, branches, and twigs.  Touching a locust tree can be painful - so just don't touch them - and the spines make them look even more evil in the winter.  In spring they have long clusters of blossoms that look like white wisteria, and smell wonderful.  My first spring in that house I forgave the locusts their evil appearance.  I looked forward every spring to that scent.


Given room to grow they become full, straight, spreading, and rather attractive.  The well-spaced straight lines of locusts around old farms are due to an interesting feature of locusts.   The wood is hard, strong, and resistant to rotting, so early farmers cut sections of locust branches for fence posts.  But that's not the interesting feature.  A chunk of locust branch stuck into the ground, will, after a year or two or three or even five or seven, grow roots and branch out, and become a tree, and that's why you so often see huge old locusts in lines along farm roads and between fields.  They were once fence lines.

Compared to the nasty useless gum balls, the long flat bean pods of locust are beneficial.  Mowed, they make a nourishing mulch for the lawn.  The sweet pulp in the honey locust pods is a delicious treat, if you can get to them before the animals.

I never expected to say I miss locust trees, but having met gums, now I do miss and appreciate them.
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3382 News Flash

Saturday, October 29, 2011

I guess I'm glad I didn't go upriver to the old house as I had tentatively planned before the tax crap hit the fan. This just in:

Dutchess County Executive William R. Steinhaus, in consultation with the Dutchess County Sheriff’s Office, New York State Police, Central Hudson and New York State Gas & Electric, has declared a countywide State of Emergency for the County of Dutchess effective 7pm this evening (Saturday, October 29th).

County Executive Steinhaus said, “Law enforcement, public works and utility crews are all reporting treacherous weather conditions with downed limbs and power lines. To ensure public safety and allow crews to address hazards and restore power, a State of Emergency will be in effect from 7pm this evening (Saturday, 10/29).”

The State of Emergency declaration states: “all roadways in Dutchess are closed and traffic is prohibited except for: medical and health facility personnel, law enforcement and public safety personnel, first responders, utility, maintenance and public works personnel, snow removal sanding, salting and clearing operations personnel, facility operations persons deemed necessary for plant operations by their employers and public and government personnel involved in the emergency operations.”

The state of emergency is issued pursuant to Section 24 of New York State Executive Law. It is enforceable by local, county and state law enforcement agencies.

Leaves are still on the trees. Unfortunately, the trees are no longer standing. The last time this happened was about 1995ish, snow while the trees still had leaves. Jay and I lost 23 !!!! trees on our property - the old house. I guess I'll hear tomorrow (or whenever the power comes back up) from the Hairless Hunk how many trees I've lost this time. And how much cleanup will cost.

I hope none hit the house.

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