A Banging Time

Are we home yet? The roofers have just about stopped their banging. This has dragged on for a full week, thanks to them not being around last Tuesday through Thursday, and I've never been so happy to be away. A decent night's sleep at the hotel, followed by a lovely brunch this morning that lasted way shorter than we thought it might, so we Uber'ed it to 30th Street Station and waited a couple hours for our train, running into our cousins (the groom's parents) who were taking an earlier train, for the traditional Jewish goodbye that lasts a bit longer than the Irish one. Yesterday we'd had trouble finding seats on the southbound Amtrak, and figured if we stuck with the redcap we'd have better luck with the northbound train. Alas, although we got seats they were hardly together. Lesson learned, it pays to be fleeced a bit if you want to sit together. I just hope we can get adjoining seats on Tuesday's flight to London! By the time we got back to New York, I wasn't thinking straight enough to remember the subways weren't running to our neighborhood, so we walked through Macy's and waited for the express bus home, which detoured a bit due to street fairs, and we finally got home about an hour ago to, as mentioned above, the sound of banging. It should all be over by the time we return from across the pond, and I'm looking forward to the relative quiet!

Roofer Madness Redux

Have I mentioned next Monday marks the 24th blogiversary of Pen-Elayne on the Web? And that I may go dark for a week or so after that as I'm not sure I can blog from my iPad? Well, if I haven't mentioned that it's because the roofers have driven most of the sanity from my head. They were here from 9 AM to almost 9 PM, and they threw a lot more stuff into the dumpster in the space where my car is normally parked so I know they were still stripping shingles, but I have no idea where they left off as they were hammering like crazy during the last hour or so. We'll find out tomorrow on our way to the express bus. With any luck, by the time we return from Philly everything will have been done. I don't get it, other roofers working on houses in this neighborhood didn't take more than a day. I'm figuring there was just way too much damage on our roof for it to be a quick job. In any case, I wore my earbuds and got through work, we took a long lunch at our favorite sushi place and picked up a bare minimum of food for tomorrow morning, Sunday night, Monday, and most of Tuesday, and I won't have to hear any banging for at least the next couple days. Now to finish packing!

Passage to India

White Rabbits! Do they have that superstition in India? Regardless, that's where one of my partners is headed next month, so I spent half the workday getting the ball rolling on his travel, which seemed to change a few times every hour. We finally got everything set, and it certainly kept me busy during an in-office day! I came home in the muggy and amp weather to find the roofers hadn't been working today, but they certainly made use of the dumpster still sitting in "my" parking spot. At this rate I hope they at least try to finish up by the time we leave for England. In the meantime my car is safe in the driveway in a spot where I can see, so I'm trying not to be too concerned about what happens when we're away.

Roofer Madness

Had Robin not encountered our landlord at the mailboxes last week, we would never have known he'd hired contractors to redo the house's roof. Well, they arrived today and summarily asked (very politely) if I could please move my car out onto a main street so they could park their behemoth of a dumpster in my parking spot. The downstairs neighbor had to move his car as well, so I wasn't the only one affected. But I wasn't feeling well, and having to look for a spot then trudge back even that 1-2 blocks did me in. And this all happened in the middle of working. It was impossible to concentrate on any job stuff with all the banging going on; today seemed to be removal of the old shingles and putting down big wooden slabs to protect the area from the coming rains. At the end of the day I was able to move my car back to at least a spot where I can see it from my living room window, but I'm very glad I'll be in the relatively quiet Manhattan office tomorrow. And I believe the worst of my ailment is over, judging by my multiple trips to the "reading room"...

Lofty Ambition

When Robin met with the landlord in an unsuccessful attempt to get another mailbox key, he was informed that the house's roof is going to be replaced, which I'm sure it desperately needs. This spurred him to action to finally empty the loft space (really only rafters) which we've used for storage since we moved in a couple decades back, which of course we needed to do anyway but thought we had more time. As it turned out, Robin did a yeoman's job of getting all the various boxes, suitcases, etc. down into the apartment proper, and the only thing remaining up there now are a couple of dusters and two doors that were taken off what's now our larder and coat closet back when our wall-to-wall carpeting was installed, and have been used as runners of a sort to hold all the boxes and such. Now begins the wonderful job of sorting through it all. I suspect our shredder will be working overtime in the next few months. But it was, as Robin says, a job well jobbed, just in time for my godson's visit on Sunday where I'm going to ask him if he wants to give some of our old tech a new home. Slowly downsizing!

Done, Done, and Done Again

I didn't have very high hopes for the latest place I visited bright and early this morning to get my inspection done, but this one turned out to be a winner. In the time it took us to buy new windshield wiper fluid and a drink in the adjoining convenience store, the inspection was all done! And I was back home in plenty of time to log on to work. With my car worries allayed, I decided to finally book our train tickets to Philly, and that went smoothly as well. Lastly, even though I was kind of beat by the end of the day, I decided to make a stir-fry and use a couple things for the first time: a cast-iron pan to get the tofu nice and crispy, a wonderful sugar-free teriyaki sauce, and mixing corn starch with rice vinegar to thicken the sauce. Two of those three things worked well. Next time I mix the corn starch with the sugar-free sauce. Now I have leftovers and our fridge is much easier to get into with all those veggies being used up (two kinds of oyster mushroom, a bunch of scallions, lots of baby bok choy, half a mandolined daikon). All in all a great day for accomplishing things. Back to Manhattan tomorrow!

The Wilds of Lawn Guylan

Today we packed up about half the alcohol we've had lying around for ages and went to visit our friends Phyllis and Richie in Bellmore, whom we hadn't seen in way too long. They have the coolest backyard area and gardens, I got to each freshly-picked celery (although the basil I picked straight from the plant was a bit much and made my tongue kind of numb). The snacks and lunch/dinner they prepared us was wonderful, as was the entertainment as I learned all about Angine de Poitrine, Avatar, and Babymetal. Hey, gotta keep up with the latest musical trends, if only for my education. On the way there we went over a drain stuck out into the left lane that jogged our hubcap loose, but it doesn't appear any harm was done. Richie was also kind enough to fill our windshield wiper reservoir, allwaying fears it had sprung another leak (I guess I've just used a lot of fluid). Alas, no auto shops near them that could do a state inspection were open, so I'll have to resume my search to find someplace before next Sunday.

House Call

This morning I had a necessary telehealth visit with my new primary care provider, who will take care of renewing all my prescriptions under her name as both my old PCP and endocrinologist have left their respective practices. I like her, she seems very nice, and best of all she's in my neighborhood, but she may wind up being a little hard on me. Ah well, I'll probably need it. Meantime, the inspection machine is still broken at my usual auto shop, and the one around the corner doesn't do inspections, so I'm still on the lookout. I also had a lovely text convo with my godson today. He's back in New York City to stay, at least for now, and wants to come up and see me (and my uncle, his grandfather). Which I want as well, as I hope to pass along to him a lot of our household belongings in a few years when we retire and move countries. But for now, I have to deal with the fact that I actually have a social life. I'm way too old for that!

Stop and Go

My life has once again become things I need to do before vacationing, the first being to take the car in for its annual inspection by month's end. Alas, the NYS DMV has suffered a major outage for the past few days, and while I believe things are now restored I'm going to have to wait until Friday to take the car around the corner (literally, I can practically see that auto shop from our home) and leave it there for the inspection whilst I go back to working from home. Saturday is the usual shopping and meds, and Sunday we head out to Lawn Guylan to see our friends Phyllis and Richie. But before that I'm having lunch with a former colleague tomorrow, where I will pick her South Asian  brain to make sure my outfit for the upcoming Indian wedding celebration is acceptable. The dress I wanted finally arrived today, looks lovely, and fits wonderfully, so I'm hoping it's okay. Now I just have to finalize plans with my Philadelphia colleague so I can figure out which Amtrak to take and how to get around downtown Philly by bus. Fortunately that's all still a couple weeks away. Unfortunately the end of that trip is only two days before we leave for England. I'm getting a bit nervous about it all.

Wedding Out the Window

White Rabbits! And I thought this was going to be an especially lucky day, what with my usual weekend chores all done before 8 AM and the grocery shopping (and gas station) before noon and the lovely emotional nostalgia kick I got from the 1986 NY Mets reunion ceremony... but that all came to a crashing halt around six hours ago when extremely loud music started emanating from the Hot Tub House outside our Yonkers-facing windows (home office and bedroom). Apparently it wasn't a run-of-the-mill party, but a complete wedding party, all in white and enjoying music that must have been too loud for them, and was certainly too loud for a suburban-city enclave surrounded by neighbors. I'm usually not that passive aggressive any more but I called the cops as the speakers blasted it out well above the 60db allowed before 10 PM (and the 50db allowed after 10 PM). No idea if the gendarmes ever arrived, but I've spent much of the last six hours in a very shaky state, wearing earplugs as well as the new noise-cancelling headphones Robin purchased for our flights to and from England. Unfortunately we couldn't get the earphones to work with the bedroom TV, but they worked well enough with my iPhone that I was able to listen to (and thoroughly enjoy despite the circumstances) the new Paul McCartney album. But the wedding noise put paid to my plans to, you know, get a nap in which I couldn't do earlier in the afternoon because screechy children, or even take a much-needed shower which will now have to wait another day. The music is finally winding down now, although loud voices still prevail, so the earphones are off (tried in vain to doze with them on) and the earplugs are in until the madness abates entirely. I reckon I'll be a wreck tomorrow, when I do hope to get in at least one nap and definitely a shower, and am very grateful it's a Sunday as I'll need the extra day to recover.

Wrapping Up the Month

Weird day, I had dreams of my mother back when she was mobile (pre-COVID) but I knew she was gone so I kept wondering if I should ask her how she could be there when she was dead. Not the first time this has happened, but it was impetus enough to keep me up in the wee smalls as well as ta post-logoff visit to my uncle in his current assisted-living facility a short bus ride away. And my cousin showed up while we were there, so that was a nice bonus! While we were out I mailed some checks at the post office and we had some copies made of our mailbox key (alas, we'll have to return as, while they fit the lock, we couldn't turn them to open the mailbox). The heat took a lot out of me, and I've been hydrating like mad since we got home. I'm just happy July is over with.

Zoo Me

This morning we made our final preparations for the 20-minute drive down to the Bronx Zoo to stroll about and schmooze with coworkers and take photos of the animals. This time we stayed longer than we'd planned as we had "table duty" for an hour where Robin drew sketches of the mascot for one of the firm's charities and I got to exhort folks to donate to receive very cute little animal keychains with KPMG t-shirts (I got the little lion, which goes with my work backpack). Unfortunately the volunteer hour meant there was no way we could realistically make the monorail in the Asia exhibit, probably my favorite part of the zoo, because if you don't go in the morning (which we couldn't as our time started at noon) you will never get into as the queues are too long. That did me in for certain, and we decided to abandon the queue and head on home to watch our recording of the last Tour de France stage and pretty much collapse. I'm still somewhat somnambulant, but managed to shower thanks to Rob's assistance. All my stuff is now packed for tomorrow, it's just a matter of getting up at 5:15 AM...

Quality of Life

The air quality rose to dangerous levels today due to the Canadian wildfires wafting down to cover much of the northern US. Thank goodness I work from home on most Wednesdays so I didn't have to go out anywhere, although I believe some of the bad air did come through to our apartment. Certainly it affected us both physically, because we're Olds. Something else that came through our apartment was our downstairs neighbor with his daughter - huge comic book fans, and the daughter is an illustrator. She was positively drooling over Robin's work, and they showed us photos from the various cosplays they've done at comic conventions. Made me long for my "previous" life before it got too unwieldy to travel and Friends of Lulu's mission was more or less accomplished and Robin wasn't really having that much fun any more (hey, those cons are work for him). But it's wonderful to have "fans" living in the same house as us! Not coming through today was England; I honestly didn't expect them to win the semi-finals against friggin' Argentina, but I also didn't expect things to get so nasty. Ah well, I get to see them battle France for third place in the Hundred Hours War on Saturday, sans England shirt as that's finally in the laundry.

We Have the Power

We knew it was coming.We'd been warned that Con Edison was treating faulty equipment in this heat wave and there'd be brownouts to avert an even greater blackout situation, but until two hours ago we weren't affected. Then at the height of the evening heat, all the power went out. Thank goodness I'd showered not long before, and we have three battery-operated fans and four LED lamps. Even so, it didn't take long for the apartment to heat up during the last two hours. It's not like I could do anything besides sleep, or at least lie down and try to forget how uncomfortable I was. The electricity just came back on, and now we're waiting for the place to cool down again. I've said it before, I don't take any creature comforts for granted, and I'm very grateful it was only a 2-hour blip!

Won't You Be My Neighbor

The family downstairs seems to have begun moving in, although the folks coming and going don't seem to be the same ones we met earlier this month. Robin calls them "the advance guard," and assumes they're mainly there to install air conditioning and other necessities since we have yet to see a moving van either. They do seem to do it during the evenings though, which tends to be disruptive to a 9 PM bedtime or even, in some cases, an afternoon nap. Ah well, the noise isn't that excessive (I'm just hyper-sensitive) and it's not like I have to deal with getting up early this coming week so I presume my circadian rhythm will right itself eventually. In the meantime, only one World Cup game today, the first of the "gang of 32" lose-and-you're-out round. Mets won their first game under their new interim manager, Yanks seem to be winning but Boston has won the first three already and who knows what's going on with New York baseball?

The New Neighbors

Pablo and Raquel (plus Raquel Jr.) seem lovely, and Pablo is a big comics fan! He was thrilled to see Robin's studio, and Rob gave him a Supergirl compendium which pleased him so much he gave Rob a big hug in return. He's very effusive! I think I'm going to love our new downstairs neighbors! They're coming back from their current location in two weeks to actually move in, so I assume all the renovations are finished and it's just a matter of waiting for them to take up residence. Work was pretty quiet today so I was able to take things slowly and relax, watch some World Cup, and prep for tomorrow.

Brief Holding Pattern

Today was pretty much a do-nothing day, but a nice quiet one. I'm fairly sure they're about done with the downstairs renovation, and now it's just a matter of waiting for our new neighbors. I caught up on the local paper and finally filed not only my personal finances but the myriad estate papers (we're far from over the distributions but we're actually getting to the point where things are becoming manageable). Oh, and of course lots of footie, and even some baseball. All set for tomorrow if I can get some sleep!

Productive!

Alas, my circadian clock is still a bit out of whack, as this was the third day running where I got up at 4 AM. While I went back to bed around 6:30 I don't think I slept much before Robin and I both got up, although thanks to the new temporary normal quiet I did get an afternoon nap. I don't take any of this for granted! Shopping done early (landlord had to move his van so we could park in the spot he's allowed us to use), two World Cup games watched (the first admittedly with my eyes closed, having given up switching channels between that and the two NY baseball games), getting ready for another one or two now, and financial stuff printed and organized in prep for entering and filing tomorrow. And now I've exhausted myself just typing all that!

The End in Sight?

The noise has been minimal downstairs, so with any luck they're in the home stretch. Now we just have to hope that whoever rents the apartment downstairs is quiet enough to make the next few years bearable...

Bang Bang Bang Went the Folly

Back to the noise of the downstairs construction as I tried to work. I'd put on leggings to feel more comfy in the heat, and of course Robin drew the blinds to keep out some of it, but I had to venture downstairs to ask that the workman please keep down his music while I tried to work as well. For some reason the thumping of the beat bothers me more than hammering and sanding and such. He was done around 5 PM today which meant no afternoon nap, but I'm starting to get used to the New Temporary Normal and not expecting to rest unless I have earbuds in. We've decided to put off looking for a new car until all the dust literally settles (our current vehicle is covered in it), and we're not going anywhere this weekend anyway due to the heat. So we'll make the best of things!