Messy Flowers, and Batching it.

 

Well, hello, April.  

When I was very young and I heard the old "April showers bring May flowers," I thought it was about people.  My mother knew members of the Showers family and members of the Flowers family. So I thought it was some woman named April who was bringing her friend May over. 

"Sweetie," said my mother, "No, It's an expression.  It rains in April.  And all that rain gets flowers ready to bloom in May."  OK, that made sense. 

But if we went to my grandmother's, she had a Bingo friend, Bessie Flowers, and for the longest time, I thought he name was Messy Flowers.  Of course, I never said that to her face.  Back then children referred to adults as Mr., Mrs., or Miss. 

What can I say?  Sometimes, I ain't right, then or now. 

Anyway...

The Husband has traveled back to his employer's divisional HQ to train another worker bee so he can shift to a different desk covering a different part of the country, so the boys and I have been batching it. 

Kevin is old, but our poor Rocky has aged the most in the past two years.  He gets disoriented, is hard of hearing, and sleeps 22 of 24 hours a day.  But because of his kidneys, he has to go out every hour to two hours during our waking day.  Since we haven't had the chance to get a fence in, that means I have to get them in their harnesses and take them into the back yard and on walks. 

And being pampered, they HATE being on a leash and want to roam free. 

They hate getting into their harnesses. It is a struggle. 

The first couple of days were easy because they were compliant. Now, the struggle is very real. When the husband comes home, he can fight that good fight. 

But when we go one a walk, Kevin wants to pull, Rocky is just very slow.  The neighbors see me being pulled from both directions.  And Kevin being part JRT means he's trained not to pull, but his selective memory engages and he behaves like he is a magnet and there is some attractive metal pulling him forward. 

The highlight of the morning today was "dual poopage", meaning one of them turns around and around, which sets off the other, and they both go at the same time. 

This is when I get excited because I only have to use one pick up bag.  

I so need a vacation.

And, yeah, it's time for my husband to come home. 

On, Off, Pop, P-U

 So the Cookies are in the new house, and we are getting back to this part of "moving" life that we live. 

We work.  And we work hard. And we unpack a few boxes at a time, and we get into the "wet hair, apply, rinse, repeat" cycle of life.  And laundry. Dear God the Unending Laundry.

But yesterday morning, Cookie started working on some things in the primary bath.  Put away this, move that,  install a towel bar, scrub, scrub, scrub.  That's when Cookie noticed that the four-way gang switches are greasy dirty gunk left by the former owners and full of dusty, cruddy dirt.  

So Cookie gets a screw driver, and begins to remove the eight screws that hold said plate in place.  

Now, I couldn't find an image of our wall switch plate because ours is chrome, chosen by the previous owner - and very antiseptic looking - so this will have to work:

Yes, all of the wall plate and outlet cover screws are aligned in my house, up and down.

This wall switch operates the:

1) Bathroom ceiling light,
2) The lights over the counter with the sinks,  aka Vanity Light,
3) the Stall Shower light (which is actually on the opposite wall from the vanity, and the
4) Bathroom Fan.   

I should add in that because the primary bath was originally built as a Jack-n-Jill bath, their is another single switch on the far side of the bathroom that is just inside the door to the adjoining bedroom. 

And Cookie is not going in to play with the guts of the switches, because Cookie is smart.  But I was going to dry dust the back of the plates and use a microfiber towel to Mr. and Mrs. Former owners grease and dirt off the switches. 

So, with the lights all on, and starting on the right, I unscrew the screw below the Fan (4) switch, above the Fan switch, remove the screw below the Stall Shower switch - and everything is fine.  Then I start to remove the screw above the stall shower switch - one turn, two turns, three tur...and the lights over the Vanity go out.  

Now, this shouldn't happen.  And I said what I normally say when something FUBAR happens: "That's odd."

So what does Cookie do? Well, I stopped unscrewing it and instead turned the screw a quarter turn to the right to tighten it, and the Vanity Light goes back on.

I pull back the screw driver, step back and tell The Husband what happened.  Being a man, he wants to make that happen.  So and so he does, and it does the same thing.  And he says "It shouldn't do that."

He looks at me, and I look at him and we both say, "Call the electrician."

Now, I have worked with electricity when it works the way it should, but I am smart enough to know that when you have this much wrong going on to call a licensed electrician.  

This is the type of shit that can spark and burn the house down.

So our electrician ambles over with his helper, and I explain what is happening and he gets a puzzled look on his face.  So, up we go.  And I show him and his helper.  Now, this guy is really good.  He's been doing this for a long while.  But he got this weird look on his face and said "What the Hell?"

Then he said, "Can I try that?" I handed him the insulated screw driver, and he twisted it and there go the lights.  He turns it the other way, and the lights come back on.

I explained that the lights that went off were on the opposite wall of the lights controlled by the switch.

And then I get a "Well, that's odd" from the electrician.

"Let's get that cover off and get a good look at this."  

He unscrews the remaining screws, starts to take the UL rated metal plate down, and first a bright flash, then a puff of smoke and the smell of OZONE, and the whole house trips off.  The electrician is fine, but he did say, "I didn't see that coming."

We reset the breaker, the house comes back online, and he starts taking everything apart. 

What he sees is a rat's nest of old and new wires, jumpers, and a ground attached to a neutral.  That gets a "God damn it!" 

We made the right call. 

Long story short, whoever the previous owner hired to do this electrical work when they had the bath remodeled didn't know what he was doing, and it could have fried us or caught the house on fire.   

So two hours and 200 dollars later, and a "You got the discount I give people when I see something really botched that your home inspector never would have caught," we are in good stead.  

HOWEVER, they are coming back to go over the kitchen outlets, which were also part of the remodel.                             

Looks like we made it!

 

We are exhausted as all get out, but the Husband and Cookie have made it through the move, the selling of the old house, the closing, etc., and so on. 

Simply put, the next move out of this house is to either assisted living or the mortuary. 

We are not doing this again. 

Well maybe, if we win the lottery. 

A really big lottery. 

The people who bought the former Chateau Cookie have settled in.  We were able to pass them our boxes, wrapping paper, etc., so at least the boxes were recycled. 

The old house was listed for sale at noon on a Friday.  By 3PM, it was sold. You read that right.  

This is the second fast sale that we've had.  One trip through the place and a young couple with lots of enthusiasm put in an offer on the spot. 

Once the dust settled I kept checking the paper to make sure the property here transferred and there transferred as well.  

Verily, Sweet Smoking Jesus 
Was looking out for us.

And one day, Sweet Smoking Jesus, it was in.  Officially, and for the nosey, the properties were listed in the daily paper as transferred.

We did have some bumps on our end.  Like not being able to unpack as quickly as possible because "things" came up. 

It seems that we have fallen into the trap of buying houses that are being sold by long-term residents who are elderly, and they overlook things.  Like the body oil caught up in steam that sticks to the bathroom walls, and the crusted gunk that forms in the ovens and around the range.  And then there is the water filter and charcoal air filter in the fridge that I dare not describe lest I incarnate a reunion of Kim and Aggie. 

Needless to say for the last 12 weeks we've been busy.  Very very busy. 

Now I am back. 

Snow, and lots of it.

 

Welp, it snowed here.  

A lot. 

Almost all day yesterday, in fact.  I kid you not. 

It's hard to say how much we got because then it decided to get windy.  

So all that snow started blowing. 

Well, not all of it.  But enough. 

I cleaned my car off yesterday at 11am when it was about 4" deep. By this morning it had almost a foot of free accumulation meant cleaning the car off, again. 

And I also had to dig it out because the guy who plowed our driveway plowed it in.   Why? There simply wasn't anywhere to put what came off the driveway. 

Ugh. 

The good news is, the sun is out so surfaces are at least getting some warmth.  

The bad news is, that some of the snow is melting to ice. 

But we know what we signed up for when we moved here. 

The better news is it's February 17, so March 1st is coming. 

And if March 1st is fast approaching, I need to stop writing this and start packing. 

Well, life is full of surprises!

 

As Cookie writes this, he and the Husband are on the cusp of a big change. 

Yes, we are. 

Let me explain: 

In my life, I have been very fortunate to have friends who have spoken great truths to me.   In 1996, it was a longtime friend - Beatguy - who participated in a fly-in of friends in DC.  I went through a period after my father had died, I was approaching 34 and very unhappy with and Beatguy listened and said, "You know Cookie, if you two were to break up tomorrow, and you met your perfect match and then spent that same amount of time being happy with "The One", you'd be 45 when that happened."

It struck a nerve. Life only gives you so many years.  And true to fact, there are no do-overs. Nine months later I left that person who had not made me really happy in a long time because I wanted something better for myself.  

And you know, it was the BEST decision I ever made. 

When I met with another friend, "B" (it seems that my truth tellers all have B names) here in Cleveland for a beverage in 2023, we talked about our homes.  They had moved into a house that was more done than the house they had originally bought, and he said that even though they had tackled major projects, that house was never going to be what they envisioned for themselves, so their move was the right and the best decision for them. 

I told him about the house were buying and he said "But will you be able to get it done by a point when you can enjoy it."

I said I thought we could. 

Well, after everything, and more that, that we had replaced, and on the precipice of throwing even more money at a kitchen remodel, when the gas line had to be replaced without warning in December, something inside Cookie snapped.  What my friend had said came into sharp focus. 

And I said out loud what I had been feeling - "We need to admit that instead of this house working for us, we were working for the house."

Mr. Cookie agreed.

I mean after a year and a half, we still had not hung anything on the walls. The three rooms we had painted were done to get rid of the over-saturated HOT pink in the dining room, the YELLOW in my office, and the Nicotine Tan in the kitchen.  And as the fates had happened, something always stopped us from moving forward on the kitchen remodel.  

The Cosmos was telling us we had to find a better house.  This time, a home.

So the search for a new house began. A house with stairs we can navigate into our Golden years. A house with walk-in closets. And a house with a finished kitchen. A yard much smaller, and easier to maintain.  Not perfect mind you, but no major overhauls. But central AC is a must.

And we found just that. 

So now the upheaval of life begins anew.  Even though the world around us seems to be crumbling, we have to keep calm and carry on.  The best tool in fighting chaos is to keep making life plans because life carries on.   

And thus, we are on our way. 

If you had told me in July 2023 that we would buy two houses in greater Cleveland, I would have told you you were crackers.  

But, well, here we are. 

A new and improved Withering Heights is upon us.  Once we are settled, I'll give the updates.

What will become of the Cookies in 2025?

 Darlings, I wish I could say otherwise, but things at Withering Heights have been quiet.  Very quiet. A surprise reared its head on Christmas, so now we are holding onto what promises to be quite a ride.  And that is the keyword "promise".  As we look down the short-term path, there is a lot of work and promise is upon us.  

The house is fine; we are fine.  But life often opens up new avenues and new paths. 

With the shit show that was 2024 in the rearview mirror and God knows what is in front of us, the best advice I can give you is to hold on tight. 

A couple years ago, this was our new years view in Baltimore.  It almost seems like we had more snow back then than we had in Cleveland in our two winters, thus far.

Be safe in the months ahead, and I will be back soon, maybe even tomorrow, I promise. 

Cookie 

What will Christmas and 2025 bring

 

So here we are at Cookie's 60thSomething Christmas and all of us here at Withering Heights are waiting with equal amounts of glee, and dread. 

Glee is for the positive changes ahead.  Dread because nothing is done, not even firm, and Cookie is not one to enjoy the purgatory that is waiting.   

I wish I could share more, but I cannot.  We shall not tempt the fates, here, there, wherever life will take us.  

But the house is draped with festive lights.  I hope every child in a passing car finds our display enchanting.  Kids need some beauty to remember. 

If it happens, I promise to report back. If not, no disappointments will be shared.  Isn't life complicated enough?

So what I can say with certainty is that all of here wish each of you a very Merry Christmas and a safe one too. May your holiday be what you need it to be, and may your enjoy it however you do observe it.   As a cautionary note, remember everything about this Christmas, and in the coming year do what is right and righteous so next years will be as merry.