Last week was the time for fall foliage to strut it’s stuff. Crimson, red, yellow, gold, and green. Colors leapt out, each according to the species of plant, in combinations that surprised and delighted the observer. It was a great time to ride Columbia’s wooded trails.

We often go to concerts in the weekend. This weekend we doubled down. Saturday we enjoyed a delightful performance of Brahms and Mendelssohn at UMBC. Today’s concert tempted us with a performance by a steelpan and piano. It was an intriguing concert. The guy is a genius on the steelpan. They paid jazz pieces. Unfortunately, after a while the songs were all sounding pretty much the same. Still, how many people have attended a piano and steelpan concert?

Danita and I decided to place a sun screen on the front door side panel window. The window is 15 inches wide and 7 feet high (more or less). I found a company, located somewhere in Southeast Asia, through Amazon that would make a custom blind. I put in the measurements. In a few hours, I got notice of a message from Amazon. It was the blind company, making sure the measurements were OK. I returned the message. I think it’s pretty amazing. Somebody half way around the world making a custom blind, checking with me to make sure it will be OK, making the blind, and shipping it to me in a couple of weeks. But there was one minor glitch. When they messaged that they will start making the blind immediately, they signed off “Have a nice life!” Amazing service. Decent English. No clue about American idioms.

That’s it for us. I hope all are well.

The big news is construction. We asked the contractor to:

fix cracks in the ceiling,
replace the kitchen cabinets,
renovate the main bathroom, and
paint everything on the first two floors, from the toe boards to the ceiling.

We got off on a rocky start when the construction company said that fixing the ceiling cracks was not in the contract and we had to pay the extra immediately. We disagreed. Resolution comes from the big boss, who was too busy talk to us. Ultimately, after a lot of spirited discussion, the big boss made himself available. He talked with us, the site boss, and the sales person. He agreed this was an oversite on their side and said we would not pay extra for the cracks. The day after the cracks were fixed, we had a small earthquake. The epicenter was just a couple of miles from us. The cracks remained fixed. That’s a good omen.

After that, things were totally amazing, in the very best way. They brought in a large crew of 8 or so and did all the demolition in one day. They decided to do the painting next (except for the kitchen and bath, of course). After four days, the only room not finished is the large bedroom upstairs. The painters are fastidious. A separate person follows along behind the painters making sure the job is prefect. I say with total assurance that the ceilings and walls never looked this good, even when the house was brand new.

It’s been a time of continuously moving our stuff around as they paint different rooms. Most of our appliances are in the garage. We have access only to our microwave and the refrigerator. Before they went home for the week, they put a folding table in the living room. This is a great improvement because our meals, the food, and the laundry are all on the same floor. We have access to one bathroom upstairs and one in the basement. The only water available on the main floor is a pitcher we chill in the refrigerator. Filling the pitcher upstairs and taking it to the refrigerator reminds me of a Lenten exercise we did many years ago, taking all our water from an outdoor outlet. (It was to help us remember that many people on this planet still live in primitive conditions.)

The crew is pleasant and hard working. Almost everything went well so far. The first day of work, one of the crew intentionally jumped over the landing railing and landed on the living room floor some 15 feet below. He claimed he didn’t hurt himself, but he never jumped the railing again. The more serious accident was when the scaffolding collapsed. Fortunately, nobody was hurt. They had finished painting the ceiling, so they just packed up the pieces and took it away. They will finish painting this week.

Electricians are already at work. We used to have an outlet on the side of the kitchen island. The code has changed a lot lately. The construction crew told us we would have to move that to a pop-up outlet on the island surface. Then the electrician said the pop-up outlet is also disallowed. But there’s a trick. There’s no rule against having a junction box inside the island. After the inspector is done, the electricians will install an outlet — right on the side of the island where it used to be. As the electrician was leaving, he said “I know what I want to put in the permit”. This is just one example of why you want pros doing the work.

In unrelated news, I was able to finally declare the shirts I ordered were lost. One of the options I had was to immediately refund the money. After I clicked the box, a message said the order is refunded. (Yea!) I would receive the funds in 7 to 10 days. (What?????) We received the funds the yesterday. (It’ about time!)

I hope this finds everybody doing well.

Its was a week of puzzling surprise, crushed expectations, and recovery.

I got my new hearing aids Friday. The left hearing aid buzzed when I use the Waterpik. I got a replacement left hearing aid, came home, and — surprise! — it buzzes when I use the Waterpik. The old hearing aids never buzzed. Nobody can explain this mystery.

I ordered two shirts from the Docker online store on October 15. Delivery was just 5 days away. October 24 comes and goes, and the shirts are still in a truck somewhere in the mid-Atlantic area. Finally, the shirts were delivered on Saturday, the 25th. Except that there was no package on my porch, or under the bushes, or on either neighbor’s porches, or in the mailbox, or anywhere else. Now I have to wait 48 hours before I request a refund. Pooy on them. So much for retail therapy.

This afternoon, we went to hear the Navy band give a concert. When we got there, we found the concert is cancelled. I was crushed. We immediately went home, where I recovered from my distress by practicing a little ice cream therapy. (Recommended by grandfathers for all manner of life’s little disappointments.)

We definitely don’t want any surprises or disappointments next week. Construction is scheduled to start at 8 AM Monday. Most of the first week will be demolishing the old, making way for the new.

I hope this finds everybody doing well.

Our dryer has a long vent pipe. The result is air restriction which makes the dryer less efficient. We ordered a ventless dryer a little over a week ago. These use a heat pump. The heat pump warms air to pick up moisture from the clothes. Then it cools the air to force the dampness to condense into water. The water goes out a hose that takes it to the same discharge pipe the washing machine uses. It’s a slick system we first heard of from Ryn. The dryer came in this week. It runs fine.

Today we attended a concert at Howard Community College. We heard two piano concertos — one by Mozart and one by Beethoven. They polished off the afternoon with Beethoven’s second Symphony. They did a very good job. The concert started at 4 and was on the long side. By the time we got out, we decided to eat dinner at La Madeline’s.

Other than that, it was a laid back week. I hope this finds everybody doing well.

Hurrah. Amazon finally agreed to refund the money for the fraudulent book purchase. If this had ben physical books, the process would have been trivial. But it was for E-books, which are easily downloaded. One has to work hard to get a refund when no physical things are involved.

We had a wonderful brunch at the Baltimore Museum of Art. After being fed, we heard a presentation about oriental art. I have in the past wrote about “art speak”, where people use common words in unusual ways. If one isn’t in the know, it can be hard to figure out what the speaker is saying. This time the presenter was over 60, the emcee in his 40s. The younger man was fluent in art speak. The presenter spoke standard English with only a few individual art speak words sprinkled here and there. I guess this is as much about age as art.

We had a very good Gyro / Greek food truck this week. We also had one of our neighborhood parties. The party had chicken lasagna, which was OK, and some very interesting deserts.

The movie house near us is offering $5 ticket Tuesday. We decided to take advantage and watched “One Battle After Another”. It was so bad, we walked out. The movie had good reviews, but it wasn’t for us. If you go the movies, don’t glance at the number of stars. Read some of the reviews.

My hearing aids are OK, but they don’t help at all when I am in noisy environments (such as a neighborhood party). A couple of weeks ago, my audiologist blasted out flyers about new, better hearing aids that help in noisy environments. I was skeptical, but my hearing aids are going out of warranty soon, so I visited the audiologist. I got a pair on loan. I was quite surprised. I heard almost everything at our table during the neighborhood party. Are the hearing aids really that helpful? Was I simply having a good evening? I don’t know for sure, but I decided to spring for the new. I will buy the new hearing aids this week. It helps a lot that my health insurance pays most of the cost.

That’s all for us this week. I hope this finds everybody doing well.

We went to a piano recital at UMBC Last Sunday to hear Beethoven’s “Hammer-Klavier”. The description left out one critical piece of information. This work is 45 minutes long. They didn’t tell us that until we were seated in the auditorium. Too long, too long.

SOCA (our association name) has phones that use wired service that is no longer supported. We want to switch our phones to some kind of internet service. I spent several hours with some of the SOCA board members and our property manager. There’s lot’s of confusion.

Somebody helped themselves to some children’s books from Amazon using our credit card. Amazon promised to investigate and get back to me in 48 hours. They didn’t, so I reported the fraud to our credit card folks. It’s hard to prove anything because these are E-books. There’s nothing to hold or touch. In the mean time, the bank invalidated our credit card. We should receive a new card within a week. In the mean time, they sent the new credit card number so we can pay our online bills.

Ted Hartka passed. He was 85 years old. He is Danita’s first cousin. We went to the funeral yesterday (Saturday). We didn’t know any of Ted’s relatives. We saw Ed and Lynne. All four of us decided not to go to the reception. The funeral was at our old church near Kingsville. We took Cromwell Bridge Road to get there. Afterwards, we drove by Jamie’s, purveyor of very good subs and milkshakes. Strangely, at 10 of Noon there were no cars in their parking lot. We drove on and had lunch at the Sunshine Grille. We came back via Harford Rd, pausing for a drive-buy of our old house. It’s looking pretty good. The only thing we could tell about the back is that the fence surrounding the back yard has been removed. There wasn’t much change from Cromwell Bridge all the way down to Joppa Rd. They put in a very confusing circle at Harford and Mt. Vista. The Buddhists are building a temple on Mt. Vista at the Harford Rd intersection.

Today we had dinner at Ed and Lynne’s. Rick and Suzy are in town, but Suzy isn’t feeling well, so they decided to stay home. We decided not to pass up a great dinner and good conversation, so just the four of us had dinner together.

That’s it for this week. I hope everybody is doing well.

I wrote about our too-big tree. I decided I wanted to replace it with a Dogwood. I assembled the paperwork and submitted it to our HOA (Home Owner’s Association). I thought I could get the tree swap done in a couple of weeks. Wrong. The HOA rejected the application and provided wording that would meet their requirements. I modified the application to include their words, which included the requirement that the tree should be at least 8 feet tall (along with some other requirements). I figured a new application made the swap a sure thing. While waiting, I called a couple of tree specialists. They told me nobody sells an 8 foot Dogwood. A large one is 4 to 5 feet. I went to the HOA meeting and explained the problem. They said “Nope. It’s gotta be 8 feet”. If I want an exemption, I should have the tree specialist write a letter. Plus, I should take a picture of the tree I propose to buy. And by the way, there’s a specific specialist who works with a specific company I might consider consulting. Whatever. It’s clear I can’t get the tree done quickly. I didn’t want have my front yard dug up while construction was going on in the kitchen. I will wait until spring, gird my loins, and re-approach the board. There’s one silver lining. While going through all this, I found another tree that is even better. An Eastern Redbud is on the HOA acceptable tree list, it has a root structure that is less aggressive, and it doesn’t drop as much stuff.

We saw Downton Abbey movie. It was nice, but not compelling.

My hearing aid company came out with new devices that do a better job of cutting background noise. I’m skeptical, but I got a trial pair at no cost. In two weeks I’ll decide whether to keep them.

That’s it for this week. I hope everybody is doing well.

Concentration

There are a few more pics on the website.

It’s been quiet, but not totally without drama. I got my flu and Covid shots. Danita got her flu, but delayed the Covid to this coming Wednesday. Here’s hoping she gets her shot before RFK raises the minimum age to 75.

We went to a house fixtures store to select faucets, door handles, and other miscellany. There’s not a lot to think about, but the cost certainly adds up. And we didn’t pick the fancy expensive stuff.

We had a Chill ‘n Grill party. It’s well done hamburgers and hot dogs, paid for by the association. Everybody brings a side. Attendance was down a little, but the noise level was way higher. I spent the evening not understanding what anybody said. Still, who can argue with a free hamburger and some chocolate chip cookies?

I’ve been doing wrong by Mom. When she goes to a doctor that’s not associated with Charlestown, I’m supposed to request a yellow jacket several days before the appointment. The jacket has her abbreviated medical history. The doctor adds his notes. I return the jacket to the nurses. I wasn’t doing this. Shame on me. So I went back and added a “YJ” reminders several days before each of Mom’s outstanding appointments. I made it a yellow event. My stupid phone saw a YJ for Mom’s dental appointment and decided to be “helpful” by replacing the yellow reminder with a picture of elves cleaning teeth. I don’t know why “they” decided I didn’t want to see the yellow reminder that I explicitly requested. Thank goodness for the good guys on the internet. There is a way to turn this useless feature off. All you have to do is know where to click. It’s a good thing I found the answer on the internet. I would never in a hundred years stumbled into the secret sequence of taps that make those silly pictures go away. Even Indiana Jones himself wouldn’t have figured it out.

The tree in our front yard is too big. It blocks our window and also our neighbor’s window. We’ve been having it pruned at a cost of about $500 per. This year it’s not clear we can prune enough away to clear my neighbor’s view. I’m tired of spending the money in any event. The tree is too big for the tiny yard we have. We need a smaller tree. The HOA says the yard is mine, but I can’t make changes they don’t like. What are the rules? I don’t know. They don’t seem to be written anywhere. Instead, I have to write a proposal and send it to the board. After a month or so, they will let me know if the changes are OK. Stupid HOA.

I hope this finds everybody doing well.

Our home improvement project moved a step closer to reality. We approved the cabinets, countertops, and tile. This means they can start ordering the long-lead items soon.

My Mho’s surgery is healing nicely. I no longer need to cover it with a bandage.

Danita and I both got a cough from our cruise. We are finally well along in shaking this stubborn bug.

I got a few bike rides in this week. They were easy 10-milers. It’s a start. After taking the weekend off, I’m planning a 20-miler that includes some significant hills. I’m anxious to put this ride back in my active itinerary because the ride includes a stop at a bakery that makes excellent muffins.

Other than that, this has been a quiet week. I hope this finds everybody doing well.