Notes From a Childless Dog and Pony Lady

 

Oh Lordy! Another political post from a "miserable" (NOT!!) Democrat "lady". (*1) You will note the date- I was an early supporter of Kamala Harris (along with Mayor Pete Buttigieg, Bernie Sanders... I even have an Andrew Yang tee shirt. I collected the whole set!) And as far as "childless"... yes, I am that and very happily so! I can offer no explanations for why people want spawn; they cause so many complications and cost lots of money and are (apparently) frequently "ungrateful".(*2) (*3)

So much has happened in the last two or so weeks and my head is spinning. I am cautiously hopeful despite understanding that fully half of this country is crazy and will happily (?!?!!?) endorse and support a convicted criminal and the electoral college renders the popular vote incidental. Does this make sense? How about that "one person, one vote" thing? Alas...

But I'm sure that you're as thrilled as I am that the orange menace chose a sofa-humping faux hillbilly as a running mate. He is apparently the least-liked vice presidential pick... in history? Hahahahha! And why the party (read "cult") of trump thinks it's a good idea to send half the population of the United States back to the Stone Age is truly beyond me. Big mistake- YUGE!- to pick Vance. Huuzzah.

At least we have the Olympics to detract our few remaining brain cells from constant political insanity. We signed up for yet another streaming service so as to be able to watch the Olympics in all their glory. We enjoyed the Opening Ceremonies featuring some entirely odd and entertaining tableaus: like Drag Queen Last Suppers and Blue Men on Heaps of Fruit. Bob watched boring swimming and terrifying tennis on the Big TV while I repaired to the office to watch hours of equestrian events on the computer. I saw the Dressage and Cross country parts of the Eventing Competition and was so inspired that the last two times I rode Neko, we had fun (*4) playing Olympic contenders. 

Here's Neko training for the sport she excels at: eating.Gold medal for this pony! 

I think I'm offering a gentle suggestion that we temper our political enthusiasms with spasms of other interests... like the Olympics. We've been so exhausted and stressed by wondering what was/is going to happen to American democracy that sometimes even I need a break. Let's hear it for athletics and good, wholesome exercise!

(*1) Not sure anyone would ever mistaken me for a "lady". Although, I have been "ma'am'd" at the store occasionally which also blows my mind...

(*2) With the exception of exceptional children like myself, who were always (ALWAYS!!) exceptionally good and smart and well-behaved. (Except for not being "lady-like".)

(*3) And children smell strangely. And they're terrifying. And the world's going to end because of rethuglican policies and general greed and environmental disasters so having children is nihilist and cruel.

(*4) Well I had fun and Neko tolerated my antics. She's a good sport to put up with me and my endless narration of all the obstacles and trials I put her through. 

The Sky is Falling (Day 2)

 

How about that? I managed to get roofing AND a Doge image all at once!!! Inordinately proud of myself!

So where was I? Ah yes! More to the story... an entire day-full of thrills and spills!

So Day 2 dawned equally hot and sunny and sure enough, the crew was back and whaling away up yonder, applying the now correct Shasta White rolled roofing and redoing the flashing and edging.  I neglected to mention several pertinent fun-facts from our first day. Like the company estimated out all  the materials based on some satellite image from a company A1 contracts with. I had noticed on our contract that the figure of our house's square footage seemed high, but I (incorrectly) assumed that when they got here, they'd measure the correct square footage: pretty simple in our case as our  house is a large rectangle (21' x 48") with a smaller square attached (my studio at another 20" x 20"). They had used the latest fly-over drone technology (or something) to get 1800 square feet. It's actually closer to 1400. That is a 400 square foot difference, right? So I pointed out to A1 that they were wrong, prompting Bob and the supervisor (*1) on duty to measure our house and guess what? I'm now arguing that they're charging us for way more material than we needed. This caused Corrine back at the office to re-revise the figure down, all the while arguing with me about waste from cutting, how I didn't know how these things were measured etc etc. I explained how I work with materials and if you'd asked me to measure, I'd have a whole lot less waste than that!!!  Anyway, the work proceded.

That's us "raising the roof". But we looked way less chipper. There were a few "light-hearted" moments. On Day 2, as it was not as noisy and still hot, I repaired to the bedroom with Robin the Good (who thought hanging out at Bob's studio was just weird) where we have air conditioning. I was laying on the bed, playing a game on my phone when suddenly, the sky light gets lifted up and there's all these young guys and I eye to eye. We all laughed and I shut off the air conditioning and exited the room. (*2)

Did you think that was the end of this tale? Hahahhahaha! I then realized that if there was all this scrap left over, it's our property (as has been argued that the bread and other things on the table at restaurants). So I informed Donny at A1 that I wanted all the scrap as we're handy and could use it for repairs around our property. (*3) Turns out it went into yesterday's dumpster as "most people" (*4) don't want it. So further arguing insued and they actually conceded another mark-down on our bill for unused material. And then the supervisor left us a nice pile of under layment and rollled roofing and some aluminum edging and plywood...

As the crew was finishing up, I put in what I hoped was my last phone call to A1 headquarters. I had a figure (still way higher than I liked but significantly lower than their originally revised materials charge) and asked Donny to confirm how much the check should read. He quoted me a figure a couple hundred dollars higher (oh please god will this never stop!??!!?) and I asked (blood pressure rising yet again) where he got that from. He said, "Oh, we had to charge you for the building permit". I explained that Nick (the salesman) told us it was included in his quote. So they took that off, too. Major weasels!! Trying to add on from ne end of this job to the next!!!

This roofing adventure was a struggle from beginning to end. (* 5) Nothing pleasant about any of it. It always seems to me that if you spend thousands of dollars, there should be some modicum of pleasure involved. Mostly it seems to be the other way around. The roof is done and we have nothing but praise for the roof crew. The roof looks great, they cleaned up admirably, they were pleasant. But the company. Yikes. And now I've received phone calls and emails attempting to solicit "positive feedback" and "great reviews". Hahahahahhaahahahhahhahhhahhaha!!!! We're awaiting today's rain, hoping for no leaks.

(*1) Josh the supervisor corroborated our suspicions that this satellite technology was often incorrect... and very expensive. The supervisor also said that he'd worked on a job where the drone had measured the square footage of the wrong house!! Sometimes, a good old tape measure and a couple of sentient beings is all you need for accuracy.

(*2) Good thing I had clothes on. A bit later, a hammer fell through the skylight. Thankfully I wasn't there for that!

(*3) Like there's a leak in Neko's horse barn that we can fix. Although we all got a good laugh when I suggested maybe A1 would like to estimate that. Probably charge us $10,000!!!

(*4) We are NOT "most people".

(*5) There was a cheerful note on our contract that, "It's going to be noisy and messy so you might consider spending the day elsewhere". Wow. If we hadn't been here, the office people would have forged ahead with up-charging and over selling and we'd be a whole lot more poorer!!!

Up On The Roof (Day 1)

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b_ksNvivbEI

                                                  

(Click on the above link for musical accompaniment!)

There they are... up on the roof.  The start of our sky-high adventure. I'm surprised this photograph came out at all as we were huddled down in Bob's studio, avoiding the inevitable noise and danger- like partial sheets of old festering plywood flying off the roof and landing stuck in the ground. It looked like a hurricane had hit!

But I'm ahead of myself. The first thing that happened was a truly gigantic truck arrived and somehow wedged its way up our driveway to drop off... our new roof in bundles.

Oh boy! I'm like a little kid! I LOVE when huge equipment comes to call. But in all honesty, Bob and I agreed that our roof could have come on a small pick up truck because here's the delivery:

That's it! It sat for a few days with Bob and I tempted to rip open the packaging to make sure the right color roofing material (Shasta White) had been delivered. (it wasn't...) But we were afraid if we "tampered" with the package we wouldn't be able to return it if it wasn't the right stuff. Which, of course, it wasn't but more on that later...

So the roof crew arrived on a day that promised to be super hot with really high humidity and we both thought, "Nope they're not coming! Probably put it off for cooler weather." But show up they did at 7:45 Monday morning. The crew all looked to be about 18 years old and only one young man (besides the supervisor) spoke English. But hats off to them! They got right to work, ripping and pulling up all our nasty, rotting roofing and throwing it down with gusto, as referenced earlier. See above picture of Men on Roof.

This is where problem #1 occurred. Our roof is stripped, we're waiting for the next stage... and we hit a major snafu. The company is suddenly quoting us another astronomical amount of additional money for "decking" (the plywood or similar sheeting). All of it needs replacement- entirely understandable as we knew there were leaks and spongy places. Bob went up and corroborated. But how did we think this was included in the price? (*1)I understood that the roof guys woudn't know the full extent of plywood needing replacing but let's just say that when a figure more than another third again of what we were quoted was bandied about, I freaked out. Needless to say, steam (along with blood and bile) started shooting out the top of my head. Turns out this must be why our contract was so much cheaper than the other companies. Bait and switch indeed! 

(Some of the lovely rotten boards pulled off of our roof.) I was on and off the phone all day, yodeling at some smooth office dude named Donny who kept saying, "Gosh I understand you're upset..." They started by quoting us 60 sheets (!!!!) of substrate at $150 a sheet. I was truly stuck between a rock and a proverbial hard place as the roof is removed and no one can get to work until we "approve" the cost of the sheathing. If I refuse, we've already paid a deposit and have no roof. I argued with these weasels back and forth saying I could go to Lowe's (or Home Depot) and without a contractor's discount, this stuff would cost me $17 a sheet! Quite the mark up!! And I had the quotes from thee other companies that came in- for the same material- at $90 a sheet (still plenty of mark up). How 'bout this company blithely requesting an additional $9000??!!??!?! And it's 100 degrees and humid and I'm now foaming at the mouth.

As anyone who knows me knows, I am nothing if not presistent (as our my sisters- especially Beatrice). I kept calling back and suggesting I/WE WAS/WERE NOT HAPPY. Through much sheer tenacity, I got them to lower the cost of the material and saved us over $3000. Yes, we still had to cover the additional plywood, but at a much lower cost. (*2)

This is the pile of materials and tools at the end of Day 1. I'm sure the roofers were exhausted. I was exhausted, Bob was exhausted and we were not happy customers. But again, in all fairness, the guys on the roof were really good, their supervisor was sympathetic to us, saying he heard this all the time. Apparently the sales people deliberately underestimate and side step the real cost of the decking. (*3)

So as the sun went down on the day, we were angry and I'm plotting my attack once the job is done. Not only is t head of A1 going to hear directly from me, but the Attorney Generals office is going to get a call. Stay tuned for Day 2. 

(*1) In our defense, their sales guy made it all sound so reasonable and we had interviewed five other companies, so many figures were swirling around and many facts and figures and pages of stuff were flying.  

(*2) Another gasket-blowing moment came when Corrine (some how related to the A 1 owners) got on the phone and started talking to me about FINANCING!!! I was so pissed I stated, "We do not need your stinking financing at probably something like 20%!!" Thank god we had the money but nothing like waking up suddenly thousands of dollars poorer!!!!

(*3) Nick the saleman is still going to hear from me after all the dust settles. He never came out and said, "You know that plywood? That's going to run you a substantial additional sum as we charge at $150 a sheet so be prepared. He alluded to having sheets available "as needed" and made it sound like it was included. Live and fucking learn!!!

July 4th 2024

 

Inadvertantly, our laundry was red, white and blue. It seems somehow appropriate as I was doing laundry to get my mind off the weird state of our "union" a day before July 4th. Crazy that we may well be "celebrating" our last year of freedom...

I know I- and everyone I know in person and on the Internet and beyond- is freaking out about the debates, the not-so-supreme court decisions, the rise of American authoritarianism, Climate Crisis, PFAS in our bodies and our food supply, Russia's ongoing invasion of Ukraine, Israel decimating Palestinians... you know: crazy stuff. And I'm certain I forgot to mention many others things worthy of a meltdown or two!

At least our Birch tree (Cully's Heritage River Birch) looks good and that white sheet is NOT about surrendering. (Actually, it has very subtle blue stripes). I had a terrible day and, as I mentioned, I was attempting to distract myself with low-key domestic chores like doing the laundry. I had hung out the wash and was thinking just how nice it smells when the sun and the gentle breeze dry the sheets and towels when I noticed that a bird had thoughtfully pooped all over one of the sheets. Cursing that I now was going to have to re-wash said sheet, I took it down to hose off the offending bird shit before putting it back in the washing machine. 

I laid it on the grass, neglecting to consider that the freshly mown lawn was adding to the ridiculous mess as multitudinous grass clippings were now clinging to the wet sheet. I tried hosing that mess off and only succeeded in soaking myself. Oy. I hung the sheet back up, waiting for it to dry so that I could wash it again. I felt for Sisyphus.

How are you distracting yourself? I am allowing me to spend a couple of days just being. Thne I have a whole series of new pieces addressing the state of our union. With Heritage Foundation heads vowing that "there will be blood" if "the left" doesn't go along with their nefarious and well-laid plans, I despair. Happy Fourth!!