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Thanks a lot, Irene
Sep. 1st, 2011 11:23 amWell, I've read the "famed" (or is that "defamed") article. The book has to go back Friday, so I think I'll see if they've finally fixed the photocopiers and make a copy of it. Yes, it has problems, but I need to re-read it to make sure my problems with it are actually organic and not just inattention on my part.
In other news, Friday I head off to Cleveland for the National Gymanfa Ganu, which should be fun. I will have terrific company, and there is a film series, so I can even justify it to the people who cut me a paycheck (not enough to get them to pay for it, but enough they aren't giving me grief about cancelling some classes).
Irene spared us for the most part. Our power flickered on and off, with some sporadic fairly short term outages. The yellow delicious apple tree is now horizontal, but the roots are still below ground, so we're hoping we can do some radical pruning and save the tree. The big pine in back is another story.
We have christened it the "Tree of Damocles" because, well, that's how it feels. The tree is appallingly tall, the trunk is snapped 3/4 of the way through about 4 feet up from the ground, and what's holding it up is a moderately sized maple. If that shifts at all, Damocles is going to come down on the carriage house attached to the house proper. It is a very real danger, and something we want to avoid. So we called in the tree guys. Who blanched when they saw it. Taking it down is both very necessary (they agree with us), and very dangerous. The kind of dangerous where if something goes wrong it could very easily result in "very bad things" happening to one or more members of the tree crew (and we had more than our share of "very bad things" happening in an around the house 3 years ago, so, to be avoided please). And they estimate that there are 1000s of pounds of tree to deal with. They said they'd throw in the the maple in front (that is threatening to come down on the residential part of the house) for $300 off their usual price for a tree that big (it towers over our 19th century Victorian), because that really needs to come down before the next big storm. So they quoted us a price. We blanched.
And this is on top of the sedan dying two weeks ago. We cashed out one of the retirement funds to get the money to get a new used car (something just above the classification "beater"). It now appears that $$ is going to go for the trees.
Our insurance company said if it had actually come down on the house and damaged it, we could apply for government $$ to cover part of it (we're in one of the hammered counties), but because it didn't we are completely on our own.
And since the oil bill went up this year to the tune of an additional car payment (actually, more than my car payment--making the total monthly oil bill more than double my car payment), life is not so happy at the white house in the valley.
On the other hand, the roof no longer leaks, and I have a job. I'll try to count my blessings. It's just a little tough right now.
In other news, Friday I head off to Cleveland for the National Gymanfa Ganu, which should be fun. I will have terrific company, and there is a film series, so I can even justify it to the people who cut me a paycheck (not enough to get them to pay for it, but enough they aren't giving me grief about cancelling some classes).
Irene spared us for the most part. Our power flickered on and off, with some sporadic fairly short term outages. The yellow delicious apple tree is now horizontal, but the roots are still below ground, so we're hoping we can do some radical pruning and save the tree. The big pine in back is another story.
We have christened it the "Tree of Damocles" because, well, that's how it feels. The tree is appallingly tall, the trunk is snapped 3/4 of the way through about 4 feet up from the ground, and what's holding it up is a moderately sized maple. If that shifts at all, Damocles is going to come down on the carriage house attached to the house proper. It is a very real danger, and something we want to avoid. So we called in the tree guys. Who blanched when they saw it. Taking it down is both very necessary (they agree with us), and very dangerous. The kind of dangerous where if something goes wrong it could very easily result in "very bad things" happening to one or more members of the tree crew (and we had more than our share of "very bad things" happening in an around the house 3 years ago, so, to be avoided please). And they estimate that there are 1000s of pounds of tree to deal with. They said they'd throw in the the maple in front (that is threatening to come down on the residential part of the house) for $300 off their usual price for a tree that big (it towers over our 19th century Victorian), because that really needs to come down before the next big storm. So they quoted us a price. We blanched.
And this is on top of the sedan dying two weeks ago. We cashed out one of the retirement funds to get the money to get a new used car (something just above the classification "beater"). It now appears that $$ is going to go for the trees.
Our insurance company said if it had actually come down on the house and damaged it, we could apply for government $$ to cover part of it (we're in one of the hammered counties), but because it didn't we are completely on our own.
And since the oil bill went up this year to the tune of an additional car payment (actually, more than my car payment--making the total monthly oil bill more than double my car payment), life is not so happy at the white house in the valley.
On the other hand, the roof no longer leaks, and I have a job. I'll try to count my blessings. It's just a little tough right now.
