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. 

FedEx Ground Purgatory...

 

So a couple weeks ago, I found a floor torchiere just like the one my mother had in Shaker.  I have been looking for one for years. 

Unlike most floor lights, this torchiere directs 100% of its light output directly up and is styled in the Hollywood Regency style.  I never took Mom's when she was combining houses with my stepfather because it didn't go with the arts and crafts thing that we favored at the time.  But once we moved to the big house in Cedarcroft, I wanted one. 

Well, I found one and after weighing the expense of buying it, I bought it. 

And that is where my hate-hate relationship with FedEx Ground began. 

The seller shipped it from the upper Midwest via FedEx Ground. That should have taken four business days.  Should have. 

Everything was swell from the seller to Minneapolis, to South Bend, to Toledo, according to tracking, and then I started getting delivery notifications, via email, that the package would arrive that day, even though it never got to a regional sort facility in greater Cleveland.  "Expect your package today from 10AM to 3PM today" the messages promised.  So I waited.  And waited. and it never came. 

Then the next day, FedEx got it to another regional Ohio facility, and again, another promise of a delivery, and nothing. 

THEN Last Thursday it arrived in Twinsburg, Ohio, in the wee hours of the morning, and then more options appeared in grey, including received at the facility, transferred to delivery truck, and out for delivery.  But the only one in black said that the trailer had been delivered to Twinsburg, which I found odd. 

So I called FedEx Customer support. 

Now the FedEx I remember was the one that had its call center in Memphis.  But when I heard the made say that his *name* was "Baub" I knew it was a script-reading employee overseas.  And this is where things got interesting. 

"Oh, yes Mr. Cookie sir, I can assure you that package is available for pick up."  Never mind the system said not available, *Baub* assured me that he had sent a message to have the box pulled and held for me in the pick-up facility.   That was around 8am, and I set out for Twinsburg, which is about an hour away in snow and ice. 

When I get there, and I call the number indicated, an older woman answers and castigates me for coming to pick it up.  When I said what I had been told by *Baub*, her words were "You cannot believe anything they say." So I was told to wait a couple minutes and she would locate the package.  After forty minutes I called back to ask "What the hey?" and was connected to another woman who said "I'm sorry, but we are backed up and I cannot tell what truck it's on.  So I drove home. 

So for the rest of Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, the box with my lamp sits in the truck. 

On Monday it was received and set onto a truck for delivery. Yay, right? 

Wrong. It was never delivered. 

Tuesday, it went onto another truck and, well, again, it wasn't delivered. 

Wednesday morning?  It was in the warehouse, and my contact in the warehouse said she told them to hold it, but it was loaded onto another tractor-trailer and moved outside to a location. 

So they got it there, checked it in, failed to deliver twice, and then tossed it into the trailer, AGAIN, and parked that out in the lot. 

Come to find out that at least three other people I know, including a cousin, have had packages stuck in Twinsburg for longer than three weeks. 

By this time, the person I was working with was frustrated, I was frustrated, and then I got a call from FedEx Corporate.  The caller was in the U.S., she apologized, listened to the whole run-in, and said "Multiple lines of management are aware" that the box is to be located and sent to the cage for pickup.  

But what they were really onto was *Baub* telling me to drive out in inclement weather to pick the box up.  Evidently, that's a HUGE no-no. 

I thanked the troubleshooter for listening, gave my compliments to the employee at the center who was trying to get this ironed out, and even said that they needed more of her and less *Baub". 

But here I am, in FedEx Purgatory, going into their busiest week of the year.  And every time they pick it up and send it somewhere, the chances of this lamp not being damage-free grow exponentially. 

And now this is going into its fourth week.   I am not alone. Evidently, this is impacting a very large chunk of North East Ohio. 

So now, along with a couple thousand other people, we sit and we wait.

Yet another storm a brewing and Krab With a K

 So, yes, again, it is winter, but the weather forecasters who love a good winter storm are predicting we are going to get one Thursday.  They are sure of it, this time. Very sure.

Again, another Lake Effect snow event with winds coming in at 60 miles per hour.  So what did Cookie do?   The winds are starting to pick up a bit, so it is brisk outside, and there is frost on the leaky windows.

I went to Heinens, the local better grocery store, in University Heights. 

A gallon of skim milk - which we do drink, makings for Pot Roast for tomorrow evening, and BBQ pulled pork for dinner tonight, with Tater Tots. 

We might be in for something.  The dogs, who also act as barometers are curled up and asleep.  But then again it might be their age - but pups have crossed into that 16-year-old range. 

The new boiler that we added in the spring is pumping out so much steam heat to the second floor, I have the door to our enclosed but unheated sleeping porch open to help balance out the torrid heat these radiators are putting out.  In our bedroom, one of the windows is open to balance the huge radiator in the room.   And our first floor? Figid.  But that's another story. 

Meanwhile, the kitchen is like an ice box because someone in the last 50 some odd years ago, someone had the idea that enough heat from the house would keep that room warm.  

WRONG.

The kitchen has no heat. Not even baseboard heat. But then again, it could have had it and some previous owner removed it for the dark oak banquette and table they installed and we tossed it out to the trash. 

Other than that, we're nestled in. 

In other news, Cookie is also going to be resurrecting Krab With A K blog shortly as well.  Withering Heights will be more reality-based, Krab With a K anything I choose not to publish here. 

Cookie

Our second Thanksgiving and STILL with the boxes...

 

Today marks our second Thanksgiving in the house and in Cleveland. It's much less stressful than the Baltimore Thanksgiving.  

The weather hangs over us like the Sword of Damocles.  There is a weather front bringing us this fall's to the coldest temperatures. and promises of rain, sleet, grauple, and snow, separately, or at the same time.  In my childhood days, this happened by Halloween, but these days, who knows. 

Right now it's sleeting.  Five minutes from now it's anyone's guess.

Projects coming up include a new back door to replace the worn-out 1974 door, and new storm doors. That should be happening in the next three weeks. 

As for BIG projects, that would be the kitchen and the sleeping porch off of my office. 

The sleeping porch is a full gut.  The previous owner claimed to have put $30k into remodeling the sleeping porch, but no.  Because of his handyman job - over boxed windows, window and door trim put on every which way, and his "Built-Ins" - crafted with all the skill of a five-year-old with a junior tool kit, the contracts have to rip out everything to replace the old broken, nasty, vinyl windows from the 1970s.  New windows will go in, then new drywall

The kitchen is a total gut.  What was done in 1974, and then "refreshed" in 2010, is worn out.  Open a cabinet door and it could fall off and bean you.  We can't safely used two burners on the new range because of a wall.  And because of where the sink is, we cannot have a dishwasher that is correctly vented. 

ALL Of that will get remedied. 

So we are Thankful.  Thankful we can do this, thankful to have a roof over our heads, and thankful for a plan.