I'm not sure how I'm supposed to feel about Christmas now that both my grandma and my mom are gone. For my entire life, they were Christmas. Even once I decided I didn't need to celebrate the holiday, it still meant something to me because it meant something to them.
But now? Forever more, it's just another day without them here.
Which is to say that it's just a day like any other day.
Might as well see a movie?
We ended up seeing Vice which I was a bit excited about because Adam McKay wrote and directed it. Having his wit turned towards the steaming pile of garbage that is former Vice President Dick Cheney...
Didn't care for it.
It was funny in spots (and really funny in one particular spot), which was entertaining... but it was a kinda slapped-together documentary-style movie that didn't expose or enlighten. And while it did present some of the horrible shit Cheney unleashed... it didn't show it in any real context, nor did it really explore the consequences. It's just laid out the stuff we already knew.
Lame.
Dick Cheney is a fucking monster.
I want to see a movie that takes what he did and follows it through to what happened because of it. Not with a title card at the end of the movie, but with and actual exploration of just what a heinous blight on all humanity he has been.
All that being said, the performances in this flick are phenomenal. Christian Bale... Sam Rockwell... Amy Adams... they all deserve their Golden Globe nominations, and are a shoe-in for Oscar nominations as well. Truth be told, Steve Carell was brilliant as well. But best picture?!? Seriously? Nah.
Have a happy Christmas, if that's a thing you celebrate. Otherwise? Happiest of Tuesdays to you.
Apparently squatting down to apply and remove chains to my car for the drive over the mountains yesterday worked some muscles I haven't used in a while... because my gluteus maximus is all kinds of sore today. Guess I need to look into assercize or something like that. Or, I dunno, just exercise at all maybe?
And speaking of chains...
Yesterday after I made my way through Tourist Town, there's a sign before you head into the mountains advising you as to road conditions and closures and such. If the roads are impassable, there's also an arm-block that drops down to keep people from going any further.
This was the sign which warned me that chains were required over the pass... 21 miles ahead.
Some people decided that they didn't want to wait 21 miles and were pulling over to apply chains for driving on bare roads. Since the roads were bare, everybody with chains was driving way too fast. And so... chains were flying off tires and being busted to shit left and right. Which meant that some people wouldn't have chains for the pass and would be ticketed if caught.
Welcome to the hazards of winter driving.
But it was worth it to spend the holidays with friends...
Bring on the jolly fat man!
Happy Birthday, Mom.
The thing about life is that your "normal" is always changing. Just when you think you've got things figured out, BLAM! Suddenly what you thought you knew goes out the window and you're scrambling to figure out what your new normal is and how to live there.
When I look around, my life has remained relatively steady (comparatively speaking). I've lived in the same valley for 47 years. I've worked at the same place for 35 years. I've had my closest friend for 32 years. It goes on and on. Most of the significant factors that make up my life are unchanging. I've had three "major" relationships (and a few not-so major relationships) but even my being single feels unchanging and consistent.
Then my mom dies, everything changes, and I haven't been able to find my new normal since.
It all hit me like a ton of bricks on Thanksgiving when I realized that I wouldn't be hauling my ass over the mountains to get turkey take-out from Denny's so I could have dinner with her this year.
Or any year ever again.
I had plenty of places to go for Thanksgiving, but decided to stay at home this time and let that sink in.
Except it didn't, and I was no closer to normal than I had been for the past five months. Apparently sixteen years of prioritizing my mom in my life doesn't leave quickly. Nor should it, I suppose. Howard once told me that a breakup takes twice as long as the relationship to get over. Technically, my relationship with my mom has been 52-years long, so I guess I'll finally be back to finding normal when I'm 104.
Something to look forward to.
If Facebook has a redeeming quality, it's their "Memories" feature where they give you a run-down of what you were doing on this day a year ago... two years ago... three years ago... and so on.
Well, kinda redeeming. I find that much of the time there's at least one painful memory which you'd just as soon not re-live, but that's life I guess. In general, it's a good thing though.
And that got me to thinking...
I should be able to do something like that for my blog!
I started writing out the code I would need, then remembered that there's nothing new with WordPress, and surely somebody else had already done this. Sure enough, there's a bunch of plugins available.
Alas, none of them work for me.
And so... I'm back to coding.
How else would you know that a year ago today I was returning from my Antarctica trip?
Or two years ago I was wishing you a Happy World Monkey Day?
Or five years ago I was saying goodbye to Peter O'Toole?
Or twelve years ago I accidentally smacked myself in the balls with a shampoo bottle?
Heaven only knows your life isn't complete without reading all about that!
My mom was an avid Teddy bear collector. She had tons of them. So many that she ended up donating a bunch of them to a firefighter drive. Apparently when firefighters respond to an emergency where a child has lost everything, they will give kids the bears in order for them to have something of their own from which they can start rebuilding their lives. It's a pretty incredible concept. But, then again, firefighters are pretty incredible people.
When my mom couldn't stay with me any more, I packed up some of her bears and took them to her new home. The rest of them I boxed up and stuffed in a closet because I couldn't bear to give them away.* Now that she's gone, there's not much point in hanging on to them.
Last month, I decided I would start donating her massive bear collection to the annual "Toys for Tots" drive. Almost all the bears are brand new, have never played with, and still have the tags attached. I'm sure mom would be happy to know that her bears are making kids happy for the holidays instead of sitting in a closet collecting dust, so it really is the perfect solution.
And so... every weekend I've been unboxing another crate to make sure they're in good shape, give them a vacuuming, then bag them up for the Marines...
There are a couple bears I've run across that I'll probably hang onto. Sunday I found the first bear of her collection which, coincidentally enough, I bought for her. Then there's her Teddy Ruxpin, which I also bought for her. I don't know that I want to keep it, but I'm interested in selling it if I can get a good price! Probably a long shot since there's no box for it, but you never know.
I was told that getting rid of mom's stuff is good therapy for accepting that she's really gone.
That's a therapy I don't need. I know she's really gone every single day.
*See what I did there?
When Jake got sick, I turned off Carl the RoboVac because I didn't want him running through puke and smearing it all over the house. Now that Jake has been puke-free for two months, I'll likely turn Carl back on. Because there's nothing quite like having your floors vacuumed when you come home after a hard day at work. Especially if you have pets shedding all over the place.
While Carl has been hibernating, I've been using my cheap cordless Hoover to pick up all the kitty litter and cat hair. For what it is, the thing does a pretty good job. Not so good that I can use it for my monthly deep-clean... for that I have to pull out the Shop-Vac (which my cats hate more than just about anything)... but for day-to-day cleaning it's fine.
But Hoover has been acting up lately so it was time to find a newer, better, stronger, faster vacuum. The only requirements being that it had to be cordless and it had to be lightweight. So when Black Friday rolled around, I did my due diligence Google research and found that Dyson came out on top every time for the things that were important to me. I loathed to get in bed with Dyson again (which was explained here), but they had a deal that was very good and so away I went.
Believe it or not, the two features I was most looking forward to were these...
Being able to clean baseboards and above door-frames without getting on my hands and knees or climbing on a stool is a pretty big deal. And so I've been counting the minutes until my Dyson V7 Absolute would get here. And today was the day.
Overall? I like it. But it's not perfect...
Compared to what I have, the Dyson V7 Absolute is a dream. Sure I wish it had more power in "regular mode" but it still does a very good job of making quick work of dirt, cat hair, and random cleaning tasks. Though there is an up-side to the lower power... the thing is so quiet! That goes a long ways towards my liking my new vacuum. If you can get it on a good sale, I wouldn't hesitate picking one up. But, once again, if you have hardwood floors you must get the "Absolute" version that comes with the fluffy cleaning head! For me, the V7 would be half the vacuum it is without it.
When I bought my home, there was a lot of remodeling that needed to be done so that my mom would be safe living here. She couldn't walk on carpet very well, so I had to replace all the flooring with hardwood. She couldn't use the showers because there was a lip she'd trip over, so I had to put in a zero-entry pan. I had to remodel the stairwell railing so she wouldn't fall down the stairs. It went on and on. And that's not even touching on some of the cosmetic things I wanted to change (the sponge-painted accent walls had to go).
When it came time to hire a contractor, I had to be sure they were available ASAP and would do high-quality work. I ended up going with one of the most expensive options, but I felt I'd get what I paid for. My mom's safety was worth more than money.
After the work was completed, I was fairly happy with everything. I ended up being more expensive than quoted... took longer than quoted... and was one of the most frustrating things I've ever done... but it's all good.
Then I started living with it and noticing things.
Fixtures were crooked. Workmanship was shoddy. Paint bled onto my floors. And these were not isolated incidents... they were everywhere. I paid a premium price for shitty work.
Which meant I had to remodel my remodel. I started with the horrific job they did on my "California corners" on my baseboards. Instead of being sanded smooth, they just painted over their shitty mis-matched bullshit...
Then back in August I saw that the paint was sagging off the wall of my guest bathroom...
Upon inspection I noticed that the texture which was still stuck to the wall was applied badly. They didn't bother to sand down the patchwork they applied after ripping the mirror off the wall...
Not only that, but they didn't bother to match the texture that was already on the wall. There are no less than six texture patterns across the whole bathroom along with ugly smooth spots where they didn't apply texture at all...
This is infuriating.
Everything is so messed up that the only realistic way to fix it is to scrape everything off, sand it all smooth, then start over from scratch.
I don't have time for that right now, so I started removing the texture that was sagging. The reason it was sagging is that they didn't sand off the paint from the previous texture, so the new texture couldn't stick to it...
And then something horrible started happening. The patch material that they used where the mirror used to be (and didn't sand down) was starting to turn to power. The texture would peel off the wall with the slightest scrape of my putty knife...
Even worse? As you can see, chunks of the patchwork was falling out of the wall as well.
What a fucking joke. My contractor's team did the shittiest job possible and apparently didn't give a crap that it would fall apart within two years. Some of the repairs were so badly applied that I had to cut them out of the wall so it would flatten out.
After scraping practically the entire wall and sanding around the area that fell off, I was ready to tape off everything and re-texture...
Despite coming from a can, the new texture went up easy. I dare say that my effort matched the walls better than the various textures my contractor used...
After painting, the wall looked far from perfect... but at least it wasn't sagging and flaking any more...
Maybe next Summer I'll be able to take a week off work, pull out the fixtures and furniture, strip everything down, then do a proper repair. In the meanwhile, this will have to do.
I remain dumbfounded that people don't seem to take pride in their workmanship or build anything to last anymore. The only way to make sure of anything now is to do it yourself.
I am a total miser when it comes to electricity usage... in that I try to use as little of it as possible. When I moved into my home I replaced every single light with LED bulbs. I replaced all appliances with the highest Energy Star rated devices I could find. I replaced the insulation on my doors. I joined a maintenance plan for my HVAC (Heating/Cooling) to make sure it's running at peak efficiency. I bought a whole-home humidifier to put moisture in the air during our dry winters to help hold more heat in the room. I purchased a smart thermostat to automatically turn the heat down when I'm not at home. Basically, anything I could think of to reduce my electricity bill... I did it.
Most people are surprised to learn that I went to such effort and expense given that electricity is so cheap where I live. But money saved is money saved no matter how much money it entails, and being energy-responsible is a good thing regardless.
Thanks to my energy sensor, I know exactly where my money is going month-to-month. In the Summer my electricity bill is around $17-$20 because the device with the highest energy consumption (air conditioning) is rarely used. My home is fairly well insulated against heat and stays cool with just the ceiling fans running.
In the winter, however, it's a different matter entirely.
The highest energy consumption in my home by far is the heating. Last year it raised my bill to $32 in early winter and $44 during the coldest months. But in order to get those amounts, I had to set my thermostat to 67 degrees. Which isn't bad with a sweater and good socks on. I mean, yeah, it's not entirely comfortable, but you get used to it.
But when I have houseguests staying for one or two nights at a time, they aren't given much time to "get used to it," so I've had to change my strategy. Sunday through Thursday, the thermostat sets the temperature to 70 degrees. Friday and Saturday (the days when guests are usually here) it sets to 72 degrees. Now admittedly, that's not a huge difference. A shift of 3 degrees and 5 degrees is hardly anything, right?
And yet...
My bill increased from $32 this time last year to $40.
$8 doesn't seem like a lot (though if these vet bills keep piling up, it'll seem like a lot to me!) but you have to keep in mind that a small temperature change resulted in a bill 125% higher than it used to be. If your winter electricity bill is $350 (typical for the coast)... it skyrockets to $438! Insanity!
If this pattern holds, my bills in January and February will go from $44 to $55. Again, not a huge leap when you have relatively cheap electricity... but it's tough to see that extra $11 on your electricity bill when you've spent hundreds to keep it low.
I'd buy sweaters and good socks for all my guests, but something tells me that would cost more than $11.
As I've mentioned here a few times, I love maps. Because of this, Google Maps is a never-ending source of wonder to me. I could wander around the world for weeks and never get bored. There's just so much amazing stuff to see.
So when I dropped by Google Maps tonight so I could grab directions for some guests I have coming, it should come as no surprise that I got distracted and started poking around my home town in satellite view. It was then I saw something quite odd. An irrigation ditch just outside of town (which I was aware of) seemed to disappear into a big hill (something I was not aware of)...
Image courtesy of Google Maps
If you look in the lower-right there, you'll see that a ditch winds itself around then... poof.
WTF?!?
Where did it go? It looks like it goes in a tunnel. But where does it come out? After a little while scrolling around, I found it...
Image courtesy of Google Maps
This raises all kinds of questions. Because this is a good-sized hill that it travels through...
Image courtesy of Google Maps
When I traced the path of the tunnel in map view (not a straight line, as I had thought) and measured its distance... the tunnel ended up being a mile long!
Image courtesy of Google Maps
Things like this are fascinating to me.
Is it, in fact, a tunnel? If it is, then when was it built? Who built it? How did they build it? How is it maintained? If leaves and garbage and stuff blocks it, how do they unblock it? And how in the heck can something like this exist without me knowing about it? What other wacky stuff is waiting to be discovered around my home town?
There's only one way to find out...
UPDATE: I found an abbreviated history of the Greater Wenatchee Irrigation District on their website. No mention of the tunnels though. And so... I will continue to investigate.
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