A distraction while I wait for some pictures to come through…

This one needs some work. That sports wallpaper at the top against green and peach walls–I don’t get it. The bright blue and red kitchen would turn out a boring cream-to-lightest beige by the time I’d be done with it, but I do love those cabinets.

The two shades of cheap green carpet clash, and where there are ripples in those other pictures? That means they threw the cheap sell-this-house wall-to-wall in, nailed it down and walked away without stretching it out first. If it’s cold, you have to turn on the heat to get it to do it right; I learned that from a flooring worker in New Hampshire who was not willing to do it wrong.

And then there’s the chicken pox room. The one with the ping pong table and laundry on the other side of the room. Can you imagine how loud that washer and dryer are going to be in there?

But the house does have some pretty good bones to it.

Checking: nope, the picture still hasn’t shown up yet. But another estimate from a contractor just did. Two more are coming to give estimates tomorrow, one Monday, we make our picks and then we’re off to the races.

By the time we’re done fixing everything that needs to be fixed I want our house to be so pretty that we fall in love with it all over again and stay right here. Pass the cherries.

The follow-up appointment on the new hearing aids.

How do you like them? She noticed that I had the charger in that bag next to my purse and was clearly wondering if I was going to return them. We were within the 30-day window.

I love them and I hate them, I told her, wincing as I took the left one off and putting my old ones in so we could have a conversation. First, I said, the charger. There’s no lid on the thing. Were you here during the Loma Prieta quake? (She wasn’t.) They’ll go flying out of there in the next one, and the green lights light up the room at night and I have to cover it. They should have made it with its own.

Re the aids themselves, I explained that it was one day in, one or two days out and using the old ones, and finally I’d left them out for three days running to let my ears heal.

Let your ears heal?

And then I’d worn them to church yesterday, where the whole time there I heard one half of one sentence. Period. (She winced.) Yay for Zoom captions on my phone. Went straight home and put the old ones in and had my husband look at my ears. He could see red marks on both sides. I put the new ones in this morning so that you could see.

She got out her otoscope and took a look. I had told her three weeks earlier about the connective tissue disease making it hard for my ears to tolerate the tight fit that is required to best transmit the sound through the ear molds and that it’s long been a tradeoff with me giving up some hearing, that my ears had actually bled after one prior pair was made.

But it didn’t need to be like that at that point and that point on the molds and she could do something about it. She was a little wistful that they wouldn’t look so perfect, and I laughed and turned my head way to the side, mimicking and laughing at the idea of someone looking way in past my hair to criticize my ear molds. She laughed.

I told her that the sound was really brassy at first but was gradually starting to settle down and then when I didn’t wear them it got bright and brassy again–but when I kept wearing them it was doing better and my husband and daughter both remarked on how I was hearing more. And I was.

And then I’d go back to the old ones for the pain and have to start over.

She took them in the other room to use the right equipment/lighting/whatever and came back with them.

I put them on.

Night and day. Wow. So I *can* do this.

I asked her about–and I explained what a glissando is: when you run your fingers fast all the way down the white keys on the piano. Twice in one conversation the right one had suddenly done something like that, completely substituting for the conversation it was supposed to be transmitting to me.

She thought about that a moment and then realized what it must be: there’s a program that tries to stop feedback from happening. Because the ear hurt, I must not have had the aid in all the way and the tilted angle was trying to set off feedback and the aid was trying to warn me and stop it.

Okay, so I don’t have to do that anymore. Good.

I still have to let my ears heal from wearing them yesterday morning and today as they were, but the sound is already improving and the brassiness is already fading. I’m not at church or the like to really test them, and my daughter’s gone back to her sister’s now, but so far so good, and such a relief to have a comfortable fit on these. I don’t yet know if it’s enough. She can do more if need be.

I plugged the charger back in once I got home in a mental declaration: these stay. Mine.

A house that needs a lot of work.

A house I would definitely want to buy if we were moving this year. Shades of Fallingwater. Gorgeous. Link here so I can find it later.

At my own house: first fig of the year.

Meantime, I was emptying and organizing the baking-pan cabinet and the end result is that a friend and her eight year old daughter showed up for the cake pan of a dragon wrapped around its eggs. Who knew that it had become a collector’s item? The mom looked it up after I offered it and found them selling for $100-200, which is nuts. It still had the wrapper; I wanted it not admired but actually used, and by the happiness in that little girl’s eyes it was definitely going to be, and right away. Her mom said so.

Man, that felt good.

They were waiting. I was waiting. I’d gotten there first. They had nothing to do and were trying not to look like they were watching me knit but they were watching me knit because those needle tips and the yarn periodically jerking upwards were the only things in the room that were moving.

Finally, they said, How long have you been waiting?

I held up the nearly finished hat on my needles and took the stitches about an inch above the ribbing between left thumb and forefinger: “That’s where I was when I got here.” (While thinking, it’s not *that* bad, at least this is thick Mecha we’re talking about even if I’m knitting it on 7s.)

Almost immediately my wait was over and I shoved the stitches back away from the tips and stood to go, wishing them the best.

And of course the hair was back to its curly self the next morning, and then some, with the weight of the length gone. That’s the silly stuff.

The sliding door repair guy is coming. The termite guy came. The tree guy is coming (can’t tent the house with branches hanging over it, and they are again. There has to be a foot clearance.) I need to call the guy to do the dry-rot repairs. Just a cascade of long-delayed home improvement triggered by the termites now that we’re fully vaccinated.

There is a holly bush that was trained by the previous owners to be flat and tall and spread wide at the top as if it had been espaliered. The trunk cannot do that 12″ clearance. There are multiple bird nests in it every spring, it makes a very protective habitat for smaller species, and I cannot fathom losing it.

It’s also a potential termite highway all by itself. It will not survive the process from inside the tent and it doesn’t sound like they can keep it outside it.

Still gotta call the shed demo guy, too. Got to leave some excitement for Monday, right?

Meantime, just because, a piano graveyard with cows. Where frogs got under the keyboard of one and jumped up and down and had fun, because how often do they get to create sound like that?

I was going to joke about okay, now you’ve seen me so you’ve pretty much seen his face, too.

But the car didn’t.

My big brother whose face I compared mine to yesterday was riding a bike today on a beautiful day after work and a car came speeding without looking. Morgan shouted and the driver matched his frantic yanking of the wheels to avoid the hit.

And just just just avoided a strike from the car but not the one with the pavement from that momentum mismatch.

As he lay in the road people came to his rescue–except the driver, who hesitated and then took off.

Three broken ribs, and another one cracked, along with his shoulder.

But he’s alive and himself and will heal and yay for helmets and as he dryly noted, his bike is okay.

Praise be.

September 2019, Kimber gave me a nice haircut and we agreed on the next March for me to come back in for a trim. But March 2020 didn’t quite turn out as expected. She is fully vaccinated now and I am, too.

She combed it out and held it up for me to marvel in the mirror with her: Look how long it is!

Yeah, I told her, I pulled the two halves to the front and snipped a few times over the pandemic, otherwise there would have been about ten individual strands down to my waist. I lost a fair amount when I was sick and it got pretty sparse at the bottom.

Do you want this much? (About two inches.) Or this much? (About four, maybe even five.)

I held up my hand to motion the four/five.

My self-snipped edges fell gently away to the floor, finally, after all this time, curling into circles on impact after she’d conditioned it straight. The straggly ends by my face got evened out and morphed into done on purpose. It looks great.

I took a picture when I got home, and of course it didn’t come through, but I have to say I was dumbfounded to see my older brother’s face looking back at me from that photo. Twins.

Except with hair.

And I know exactly who would tell me, with a grin, not to complain over not being able to get a haircut.

Kimber waved me off at the end with, See you in two years!

I laughed/winced, Not that long!

Two more days and counting till the haircut appointment.

I had a six months’ trim appointment that never happened because Covid did.

It’s been a long time coming.

How about you all?

I mean, I always wanted to live in a repurposed pickle vat, didn’t you? I gotta say, though, they take the aluminum siding thing to a whole new level.

I actually like the kitchen, even if everything’s standing on its tippy toes.

(Oh, and, the cowl is cast off and almost dry.)

Today would have been my dad’s 95th and even though he was allergic to chocolate, he loved it and we love it, so it seemed a good day to celebrate, and, yeah. We got in the car to head to Mutari in Santa Cruz. Richard pulled up Waze on his phone just to be sure everything was cool road-wise.

Nope nopity nope. Bad accident. (Turned out later that friends of ours were stuck for three hours in that mess, and one can only pray for the people who were hit.)

Michelle turned and headed north. Dandelion here we come!

We even scored a jar of their dairy-free fresh chocolate/freshly roasted hazelnut spread that was sold out online. For that, she forgave my asking about Imagiknit a few blocks away, and so we came home with four unexpected skeins of Malabrigo Mecha, too. Make more art! Yay!

And then after we got home.

Richard’s glasses came in and he needed to go to Costco to pick them up; did I want to come?

Not overly, and I dragged my feet a little; Costco on a Saturday?

It turns out it wasn’t too bad, actually, but as I started in the door their guy called out after me.

“I’m with him,” pointing at Richard.

“No, you can’t come in without a mask.”

“Wha…Ohmygoodness, I’m sorry, I forgot, here let me grab mine” (fishing it out of my purse while the guy was offering one from the store.)

He was apologizing, saying they make him say that–and then added, “Some people, you know, they think it’s mostly a hoax.”

The way he said it made it clear he was one of those who thought they were probably right.

I found myself telling it with a keen sense of love for this good man I’d seen working there for years, so that it came out almost joyfully, “I had Covid. I wouldn’t wish it on anybody. There was one day there where my oxygen was so low that I knew if I moved a single muscle I’d be out–there was just none to spare. I’m so glad I survived! I had long-hauler syndrome, and after they gave me the vaccine it was gone just like that!” snapping my fingers. (It took about a week, but a week is nothing after a year of that.)

His face was a mixture of wonderment and relief as he took all this in. Somehow the incoming crowd had thinned just then so that he had that moment to have that conversation and to consider what I’d said. On a Saturday, no less.

“It’s real?”

I nodded, answering, “I am SO glad for the vaccines!”

As I walked off I was smiling and he was really smiling, like he was finally at peace. He finally knew what to do and it was clear he’d made the decision. He was going to get his, too.

A little context on yesterday’s post: years ago I asked someone for a quote on redoing our heating system. Our house was built with radiant heating under the floors that had failed before we’d bought the place, and the previous owners had put in the cheapest possible substitute system, knowing they were about to sell. It caused us much grief.

He told me $60,000. He said he would build a new ductwork system on the inside.

I was staggered.

It took me awhile to call someone else because I was afraid of having that number reinforced, so I mentioned it to the contractor who took the small job of building our then-new awning.

I got an entirely different reaction: he did a startled double take and then laughed really, really hard. YES that number was outrageous! NO, I absolutely should not pay it!

He then explained that sometimes when a contractor really doesn’t want a job he’ll bid it stratospherically high like that, sure that you’ll walk away. But if you don’t–then hey, he’ll have to do a job he dislikes but he’ll get paid really really well for it so why not.

The new ductwork across the roof along with a new top-brand HVAC unit? Thirteen grand.

P.S. On the falcons: another “I meant to do that” moment. All four San Francisco eyases have fledged successfully and the one that disappeared from camera view for a week and was feared lost showed up again yesterday as if he’d been there all along. Which surely he had.

Still, there are moments like this. The one named after Rachel Carson of “Silent Spring” fame was reported flying and fine afterwards.

Second day, second quote.

Richard told yesterday’s guy just before he left that we had someone coming to look at it today, too, and he instantly crossed out the number he had just written on the paper he was about to hand us and replaced it with one that was 10% less.

I mentioned to contractor #2 today that there were pink chalk marks on the ceiling from yesterday’s guy marking the spots.

Instantly we had a discount on the job.

Our daughter’s reaction afterwards: Oh, so they crossed out the stupidity tax. You DID know to get more than one quote.

Last time I saw him pre-pandemic he was just starting that amazing sprouting thing that boys his age do.

Today he gave a talk in church at the pulpit. (We were still on Zoom for it due to my feeling under the weather yesterday.)

I was gobsmacked: when on earth did the short kid turn into this tall young man who had to lean down to the mic? Wow.

He told us of his dad asking him and his brother to come with him on the long drive up into the mountains to Camp Lehi: there was a need of volunteer workers in the effort to restore what had been before the CZU Complex fire last summer.(Post-fire pictures in link.) Camp Lehi was a church-owned property in constant use in the summers in particular–or was.

He said he figured this was his one chance ever to be allowed to use a chainsaw so he said okay. Power tools!

He had been there with his family on ward campouts a number of times; he knew what used to be there. Trees can only grow so fast, but on the human side there was so much to do.

What he hadn’t expected, he said, was how as he put in that hard physical labor he envisioned his efforts going towards people gathering there again. Enjoying each other’s company there again, laughing together again, seeing wildlife there again.

Making memories there again.

He felt an overwhelming sense of joy that he got to be a part of helping make that happen. He had not expected that.

The problem with only focusing on what you want, she groused silently at the scrub jay, is that you cut off what you could have had.

I had chased it out of my Stella tree on seeing it yanking away in there. It got its not-yet-dark red cherry. The rest of the cluster, pale and small and far too unripe to nourish anything yet, was left on the ground.

Sing it with me, Have a piece when he is done…

Andy: Mom and Dad can do it. I flew before anybody. I can do this, too, I know I can.

The fledgling stands on the prey with both feet, gripping it hard, preparing to take off to eat breakfast someplace more interesting than home because it’s no fun when there’s no sibling around anymore to try to grab it from you. Grip, flap, lift: an initial try at getting it up to the light fixture. Nope. Go back, grab it again (how DO the folks manage talons and wings at the same time?) get it up there, did it, great!, okay this time lift it up to the ledge.

He did it!

Then, starting at about 7:30 in the video, yelling all the way as he drags it and its drag against the concrete turns him slowly around in the little wind tunnel he’s creating and suddenly Whoops!…

Every cat who ever licked its paw in a defiant show of, I meant to do that… Yeah.

—

(P.S.) If you’ve ever gotten on your own case about not getting something done, you’re in good company: this house is like our first one, which was a split-entry where the builder only finished the upstairs and left the downstairs as framing and insulation only so that first-time owners could afford a place and put in the sweat equity themselves. We did that.

Fifty years. I’m seeing the raw plumbing for maybe a bathroom, possibly a downstairs laundry room if they once intended a separate living quarters, a bedroom, closet, and family room down there at the least. It’s a nice house.

But that insulation and lumber have been waiting a long time for someone to put up with the hammering and disruption and noise. (Can we get rid of the ivy while we’re dreaming.)