Basement Wall Leak Fixed!

Viola! Today I finally had our basement wall leak fixed.

Three years ago I first noticed ground water after a heavy rain was seeping in our basement wall. The culprit was a defective sealant around the sewer pipe exiting our basement wall. "Sewer", no one wants to hear anything with those two words:

SEWER

LEAK

Apparently, when the builder applied sealant around the sewer pipe when our house was built in 2006, didn't do it properly. It held for many years but in 2019 I noticed a musty smell coming from our finished media room. Our wall to wall carpeted media room.

I investigated and found on the other side of the dry wall of the media room a puddle of standing water. I traced that to a leak coming from behind the insulation on the narrow passage between the media room drywall and our poured concrete basement.

I had to tear up all the carpeting of our media room and have new carpeting installed. Of course my homeowner's insurance didn't cover it. "ground water" is not covered I was informed. So my perfect record of my whole adult life never using my homeowner's insurance continued. For the total amount of premiums I've paid for homeowner's insurance over the years I could buy a small house. Really, I could. Probably not a water view but a nice small house in a quiet red state town. But I digress.

Bill fixed the leak the last time in 2019. But this year it gave away. "Water will always find a way" so the saying goes. The wall behind our media room was crying tears of groundwater again after a rain. A heavy rain brought puddles. Lucky us.

Since December I've been trying to have it fixed. COVID interfered. The guy who was going to fix it contacted COVID then his family got it (or maybe it was the other way around). Whatever, there was one delay after another and Bill was driving me crazy with "When is he going to do it?" I trusted this guy so I had no doubt he was going to fix it. Today was the day.

Now for the next rain storm. 

Fingers crossed!

Garage Door Fixed!

 

Hip hip hooray! 

Our garage door is fixed! 

One less problem to worry about!

On this cold and sunny January day, right after I finished lunch (good timing), the roof repair guys drove up our driveway setting off our driveway detection bell which I installed a couple of weeks ago just for these service visits.

"Nick", the brother of the owner, told me right away that the visit was a minimum of $125. Fair enough. Donald McDuck here. 

I told him the problem I was having, the garage door not closing all the way and then sometimes only coming down part way until it goes back up. As a couple of commenters on this blog suggested, my safety garage detection lights were interfered with some way. I cleaned them and the garage door was working, albeit a bit wonky.

I asked Nick just to do a general check and maintenance which he did and I went back to cleaning up my dirty dishes from my lunch.

Fifteen minutes later Nick banged his fist on our door. He was finished. 

I wrote him a check for $125 and apologized for not shaking his hand. COVID. That started a conversation with him that he told me he had a bad case from the Delta variant. He said he was quite sick for a while and still doesn't have his taste or smell back completely. 

This is the fourth person who has come to Casa Tipton-Kelly who has had COVID. Bill's hospice nurse had it, my computer guy had it, and the guy fixing my basement wall leak had it. I'm telling you folks, I think eventually all of us will get IT.

So far Bill and I are lucky but I did order the free COVID tests from the U. S. Government web site. 

And the beat goes on.

"Upgrades" And Other Bits

 

Many thanks to long time blog follower "Vic" who brought to my attention that my posting dates were blacked out. A few weeks ago I struggled through updating my blog format and I inadvertently blacked out my posting date. Blogger used to be easy to change formats but several upgrades ago I lost the ability to easily make changes to my blog.

I have a problem with "upgrades." Maybe it's just me but every time I have an upgrade, I find things harder to use. I see where MAC OS has an upgrade, which I'm going to do as soon as I complete this blog posting, which will undoubtedly make using my iMac even harder to use. It says there are upgrades to FaceTime, which I use all the time. Here we go. I'll tell you what I need an "upgrade" on, my garage door. I was able to get it working yesterday by cleaning off the electronic eye sensors at the bottom of the garage door but I still don't have confidence the garage door won't go wonky again. Tomorrow the garage doors come by. Fix it please! 

Tomorrow Ryan, who is fixing my basement wall leak is coming by to apply more epoxy on around the sealant around the sewer pipe exiting our basement wall. Fix it please!

Last night while I was talking to Pat on FaceTime, I got something in my left eye (probably one of those old man errant white spikes eyebrow hairs that stick straight out). I was in so much pain that I had to abort my usual Saturday night activities (movie in the Tipton Cinema) and took to bed. When I woke up this morning the pain was gone and apparently the eyebrow hair but my eye is still sore. I've had this problem before. Just another "benefit" of being an old man. 

I can't believe I'm still somewhat functioning at eighty years old. My body is so stiffened by arthritis that I have to take at least ten minutes to limber up in the morning. When I roll out of my bed to put on my socks (I don't sleep with my socks on), my Charley Horse cramps start attacking my legs. I have to jump up and down to shake out those Charley Horses. 

Once I complete my morning bathroom ablutions, including the morning BM that must be obeyed, it's downstairs to get Bill ready for the day. I've already went over that routine in previous blog postings. 

Today, every Sunday I have a weekly Zoom call with my friends Stuart, Larry (both classmates from first grade) and Pat. Four old men who get together and go over our maladies. Today the subject was asking Pat how his fellow Canadians felt about watching the slow descent of their southern American neighbor into autocracy through the Trump controlled coward Republicans who are actively planning on stealing the next election. And believe me, what not may be obvious to Americans who are in the Fox New Bubble, our long take for granted freedoms are about to slip away to the lifelong criminal Donald Trump. Whoops! Here I go into a political rant. Back to a nice blog post that doesn't offend anybody. 

I hope this time next year, COVID will be far behind us and I will be preparing for my annual visit to Palm Springs with Pat and attending Modernism Week. It will be after a two year absence. Of course I won't be able to go if I'm still caregiving for Bill which takes priority. Palm Springs can wait, even if it is years down the road. I don't know how much longer Bill will be here but Palm Springs will always be in the Coachella Valley in California. Palm Springs can wait.

Have a great week everyone!

Now The Garage Door Doesn't Work

 You get one thing fixed, then something else goes wrong. Oh the joys of home ownership! 

I noticed last week that our automatic garage door was acting a little bit wonky but I put it out of my mine. I just don't want to deal with yet another problem. 

Yesterday I noticed that the garage door didn't close all the way. Left about a half a foot opening at the bottom. Just enough to let the outside twenty degree frigid air in our garage. 

I played around with the pulley and accidentally made the garage door manual. Now that isn't going to work. I'm used to pushing the garage door button on the wall to open the garage door. Not for me getting out of my car and manually opening the garage door then once out of the garage, getting out of my car again with my eighty year old arthritic body, to CLOSE the garage door.

I called the garage door company I had in my Contacts list on my iPhone. They told me it would cost me initially $160 to JUST come out here. WHAT? I asked them where they were located. The nice woman on the other end of my iPhone call told me "Easton, Maryland." "Oh no" I said. I'll have to call a local company. She said "Fine." She was actually very nice about it, not snotty or anything. I don't need snotty right now.

I looked again in my Contacts and there he was. Randy P., the guy who fixed my garage door several years go when it acted up. He was friendly, and reasonable in cost. Not $160 for just showing up, for chrissakes. 

I called Randy. He said "Hello Ron" (he knows my name! Well, I aim unforgettable to some people). He said he couldn't send his guys out until Monday. Okay, that will have to do.

In the meantime I got in touch with my neighbor Bob M. who has way better handyman skills than yours truly, although I am learning since Bill is out of the handyman picture around here at Casa Tipton-Kelly. 

Bob looked at it (he brought me over some homemade chicken noodle soup, which I'm going to have for lunch today, yum). Put it back on track and it worked.

A few minutes ago I went out in our garage to open the garage door to take Bill for his daily ride. The garage door open.  So far so good. I decided to check it to see if everything is working. I tried to close it, only went down a bit then came right back up. Uh oh. I tried several more times, same thing. I asked Bill if he could forgo today's daily ride. He said "I'll do whatever you want me to do."  Fine, we won't go out for a ride today or tomorrow. Besides it's to damn cold. Twenty degrees with some wind. TOO COLD.

Good thing I stock up on food for emergencies like this. Also, I won't be bored being housebound for a couple of days. Look at the positive side, I won't be exposing myself to the latest variation on the COVID virus. 

Bill's Diary

 

Cover of Bill's 1956 dairy he kept while stationed in Japan

This morning, while in Bill's bedroom preparing him for the day, I noticed a little book in the headboard of his bed, a bed he doesn't use, he sleeps in a recliner.

I picked up the book and noticed this Japanese writing on the cover. Does anyone know that the Japanese says? I tried to look it up on Google translate but I didn't have any luck. 

I opened the book and saw where it was journal/diary that Bill kept while he was serving with the United States Air Force in U. S. Occupied Japan in 1956. I read a few entries and discovered new things about Bill that I didn't know before. 

Bill's first entry in his 1956 diary in Japan

Bill isn't stupid but I didn't realize that he was that curious about his friends and fellow service members. 

The daily entries in his diary are mundane but I think interesting. Much like mine, it states the time, weather and what he did during the day. Samuel Pepys diary, his is not. However there are some very interesting entries like the day he and his buddy visited Tokyo and Mt. Fuji and on the way they stopped by the Japanese Imperial Palace and saw Emperor Hirohito and his wife strolling through the gardens of the palace. Pat and I plan to visit Japan someday but we will never see anything like that. Bill has had a very interesting life. Prior to joining the Air Force, he was in the Army and in Germany right after World War II. He visited Hitler's mountain retreat home before the Army blew it up. 

One thing I really found interesting in Bill's diary was the impression he has written about some of his fellow service members. Usually just one or two sentences but succinct enough to give an idea of who that man was. For example:

"Dickey - A odd guy, fair in personality, & intelligent, considering personal appearance, is supervising, although not the type for close association -"

Another one:

Durham - A very swell guy - very considerate & a good personality. A true rebel from Louisiana."

I didn't realize, after living with Bill for the past fifty-seven year that he was that observant of people's personalities. I asked him what he thought of me when he first met me. All he could say was that he wanted to spend the rest of his life with me. 

That's good enough for me!

Losing Friends and Relatives Over The Trump Big Lie

 

Zoom call with friends (three gays and two straights) Ecumenical. 

Yesterday I thought I had ended a lifetime friendship over the Trump Big Lie.

I've known Bill B. since we both attended first grade class in 1947. During high school, we were both in our high school marching band. He played the bass drum and I played the Sousaphone. We were always last on the band bus for the away football games because he had the biggest instruments (get your mind out of the gutter). We waited until the rest of our band members loaded their instruments in the baggage area of the bus and then we loaded our massive instruments. For three years we saved a seat for each other for the away games. 

After school we went out different ways as is the case with many high school friends. We stayed in touch for awhile during my Army days (letters, remember that way of communicating?) Then, after my three year tour of duty was over in the Army I came out as gay to everyone. Friends, family and anyone within earshot. This was in 1964 when being gay was illegal (I could literally be arrested for being gay) and dangerous for my physical being. Of course my friend Bill put distance between us lest my gayness be contagious.

Then came a time many years later when I attended one of our many high school class reunions (yes, I am one of THOSE who gets involved in class reunions). I think it was our 20th, 25th or 40th class reunion that we renewed our friendship. Of course I came out to all my classmates (via way of listing my Bill as my "spouse" on the class reunion booklet which I prepared). We renewed our friendship. He was the same Bill of old that I knew many years ago when we sued to ride the band bus together. Wicked funny and witty. I just enjoyed his company and even for a time in high school I had an unrequited crush on him. That ended though by the time we reunited at whatever class reunion (I forget which one). We were "just" friends. We enjoy each other's company like we did of old.

There is the background of our friendship. Now not all is/was perfect. He's a Trumper, hates Democrats. Can't help himself to excoriate every Dem from Hillary to now Biden. He's an Evangelical. He wants to "save" me, which I find very arrogant and presumptuous that I needed "saved." I think I finally got him straightened out on that one "Worry about saving yourself Bill, I'll take care of myself because I know I'm going straight to hell." I can't emphasize how much I take offense to these Evangelical Christians who feel the need to "save" us "sinners." Give me a break. And these so called "Christians" support Trump? Give me a break!

I have other friends and relatives who are blind to Trump's crimes and the Republicans traitors to the Constitution and the United States by their obstruction of ANYTHING the Democrats try to do to improve the lives of Americans. Remember this about Republicans:

They opposed Social Security

They opposed Civil Rights

They opposed Medicare

They opposed same sex marriages

And I could go on.

I can be friends with people who support Trump and the Republicans, like my neighbor Bob M. and others as LONG as they don't try to convert me to their brainwashed ways. My personality isn't of a cultist.

Last year I wrote of my relationship with one of my brothers when he insisted that George Floyd "killed himself." When I told him "No, a police officer knelt on his neck for almost nine minutes and suffocated him." My brother's reaction? He screamed at me "You're a fucking Democrat!" That was it for me with him. I went through all the Clinton years and all his disparagement of me supporting Clinton. I'm no Clinton fan just like I'm not a fan of Biden but they're way better than whatever the Republicans are putting up. My other brother, who actually is an Evangelical Christian pastor, knew better than to try the "I want to save you" arrogance on me or impart his political views on me. I was done with my other brother, forever. At this point in my life, why do I need this? Thankfully though, around Christmas time he contacted me via text message and told me "blood is thicker than water and could we let bygones be bygones?" I told him "Yes" and now we're in contact every morning when I send out my "Good morning" memes.

Two days ago, responding to my "Good morning" meme, Bill B. said something disparaging about the Democrats and Biden. I wasn't having it. I blasted him back and wrote him off, thus ending seventy some years of friendship. He noticed yesterday he didn't receive my "Good Morning" meme. He e-mailed me, not an apology but a statement to the effect "we have our different opinions but don't let that interfere with our friendship." I guess that was an apology of sorts. I accepted it and now he's on my "Good Morning" meme list. We've since texted each other about the fate of our previous school buildings and other subjects. We're back on with our friendship, which I consider important at this time of our lives. We're both eighty years old and we don't have that long to go. Yes, we have our differing political views and even religious views but we can still be friends. Witness my weekly Sunday Zoom call with my friends Stuart (Jewish), Larry (Evangelical Christian), Pat (Catholic) and me, an unrepentant atheist who is going straight to hell when I die. We all get along and enjoy each other's company and DO NOT DISCUSS RELIGION OR POLITICS.

Have a great day everyone!

Day Is Only Half Over

Bill looking at the hole in the ground outside my bedroom window where the sealant around the sewer pipe lets in ground water down the wall of our finished basement. When it rains it pours.

Busy day today and the day isn't even half over yet!

As usual, first thing in the morning is to get Bill ready for the day. Even though today wasn't "Shower Day" (that's every third day), it was the usual preparing Bill for his/our day.

If I get up later than seven o'clock, I immediately go downstairs to his bedroom to tell him I'm up lest he worried that I checked out in my sleep. I know from past experience if I don't do this he'll come upstairs to my bedroom in a panic thinking I died in my sleep.

Once I prepare myself for the day (bathroom ablutions) I bet Bill's morning meds out on the counter with peach juice to wash those three pills down (also three pills at night before bedtime, two of which are different than the morning meds). I get his packet of oatmeal ready also. Then I go downstairs to his bedroom, turn on his light to wake him (he's sitting fully clothed in his Archie Bunker chair). A morning kiss and then help him up so I can help him take his pants off because he has to wash himself (head, ears and private parts) and put on a fresh Depends underwear. I prepare a pan of Dial anti bacterial soapy water for this daily routine. Once we struggle to get his old Depends off and put the new ones on then I have to change the dressing on his edema swollen leg. That has to be done daily. Take the dressing off, wash the wound, and put new dressing on. Before I do that however, I wash down his whole legs with the same Dial anti-bacterial soap and soak his feet. I think the washing/massaging keeps his edema swollen legs from getting worse. 

Then we put on his socks and pants and I help him put on his sweater (always a challenge for him, he had it on upside down last week when I let him put it on himself). 

Then we're off to upstairs and breakfast. He always has the same breakfast, oatmeal with an extra tablespoon of sugar. Bill loves his sugar.

After breakfast Bill always has to go to his bathroom for his daily bowel movement (thank goodness that's still working). I tell him he's a "processor of oatmeal" which he always thinks is funny (doesn't take much folks).

After this is when I have my breakfast of cereal and then I take my morning walk. It's been so cold lately I haven't been taking my morning walk and my legs, especially the left one where I tore my quadricep muscle a few years ago, lets me know by swelling up and going numb. 

This morning was a bit different because at 9:30 AM I was expecting my local geek squad (i.e., "Computer Guy") to come over an install a driveway sensor to let Bill (us) know whenever someone drives up our driveway. Bill had made one some years ago but it stopped working and I'm not the electronic genius that Bill was before he lost his eyesight and cognitive abilities so I have to hire someone to do these jobs. "Jake" did a find job and new we have a bell that goes off every time someone dares to enter our space.

Then it was off to our local supermarket to see if they got any food in. They did get in my favorite crinkle cut French Fries but now I see where the meat shelves are empty? WTF?  

Empty meat shelves at our local supermarket. Where will the folks get their protein? Beans?

I also had to stop at the Post Office to return my latest DVD to Netflix. A really good one called "The Forgotten", a PBS Masterpiece Mystery Theater. I can't wait to get the next DVD to find out who killed that skeleton they found in the basement of that old house builders were excavating. Oh I do love a good mystery, especially one that is well written and acted and this one is EXCELLENT!

After the Post Office (lots of cars in the PO parking lot, what's going on? It's not Christmas), I had to stop at Ace Hardware and get a tarp to cover that gaping hole I have outside my bedroom window where the guys yesterday dug out around the sewer pipe that exits out basement. That was/is the source of the groundwater leak (every time it rains) that drips down and sometimes cascades down our basement wall). HAVE TO GET THAT FIXED. I'm told they're coming by tomorrow to get it ready to epoxy. 

I got the tarp at Ace Hardware and while in the parking lot I called Touch of Italy restaurant to order their Tuesday special of Chicken Parm which is half price today ($16.95 - man oh man I couldn't pay full price on my retirement income). That an a tip of $2.00 and I have a meal for four days or five depending on how hungry I am. I had to go to Lewes to pick up the Chicken Parm. While I was there I took my old People magazines and dropped them off at my barber, Hyatt of Hyatt's Just Cuts. This time I included the Royal Special Editions of People magazine. Hyatt will like those! Even though she's Moroccan she loves following the British Royal family shenanigans.

Then back home here. I laid out the tarp to cover that hole (actually before I went to Lewes) and then in the house to put everything away. Bill still gets mixed up getting out of our car. He keeps locking the car instead of reaching for the handle. Then he gets so frustrated. When we first went out this morning he was having trouble putting on his outside Crocs. I look and sure enough, he didn't take off his inside Crocs first. Not the first time he's done this. Again, he gets so frustrated when this happens but he'll do it again.....tomorrow. 

Now I'm back home updating my blog. Haven't have a chance to update "the boards" (the twelve online Scrabble games I play with Pat). But I'm disciplining myself to update my blog everyday even if it is with boring and mundane nonsense like I just posted now.

Have a great day!