I miss seeing family, friends, and other places.

Happy Hour alone is lonely. 

One sure thing about our current situation is that I miss talking to people, in person. Proof of that is my sudden rapid fire blog posts, a poor substitute but it still allows a data dump now and then. I'm realizing that I enjoy just talking to people face to face. Especially, of course, those that know me. Random strangers are unlikely to want me babbling to them. Cindy patiently listens to my baloney, but I don't want to bore her too much. She's heard all my stories. Work now consists of a skeleton crew, and we are mainly conversing in chat rooms and daily phone/video conferences where my "humor" or "personality" does not always translate well.

It's becoming clear that most humans crave personal interaction and I'm finding that I have that urge strongly. I never really noticed it before. I always felt comfortable being alone, and often craved "me" time, but now that I have as much time alone as I want, I'm starting to realize how much I like being around people. Now certainly, if I was forced to be with friends 24/7, I'd go mad, but I sure could go for a crowded bar or restaurant about now.

Cape May at The Schooner in 2016. Can you spot Cindy?

We are rapidly coming up on what would have been spring break, and Cindy and I had tentative plans to go somewhere for a few days, perhaps the Jersey shore or Saratoga. That we can't go feels both depressing and angering. We are used to going where we want, when we want and being forced to stay home seems un-American no matter how sensible it is. By definition the people that populated this country were restless wanderers so maybe that's just built in for many of us.

For me though it may be more than that. I don't consider myself to be a chatty, talkative person, and sometimes more of a loner, but I'm definitely learning that I could never disappear into the woods on my own. I definitely feel like I would go crazy. I need that interaction and feedback. Since our current situation is open ended, there's not a specific release date that we can look forward to. That feels strange too since Cindy and I always have things on the calendar that we are planning and anticipating. Everything is in limbo now. I still plan on retiring in August. Hope we get to go somewhere in September. 

We have a big front porch that would allow a couple of visitors including a six foot interval so I'm thinking of having Social Distancing Happy Hour,  one or two people at a time. Any overflow will have to stand in the lawn.

Hope you are all well and safe.

It's an old house

Before picture of the grate
 from the "bar".  A cream color
 that yellowed to a light
 mustard.

Our house was built in 1915 and it shows it's age. This is both good and bad. It's good in that it's a well built home, heavily constructed. True 2 x 6 rafters, 16 inches on center, with a steep pitch and 1 x 6 sheeting. It would support a tank. There are one foot thick block construction that make up the exterior walls give us a strong and silent home, almost like sitting inside a bank vault. Beautiful hardwood floors throughout, solid plaster on lathe walls. But there is a downside as well, old windows that are beautiful, but now showing their age so a major project looms. Galvanized steel plumbing that has been haphazardly and partially updated with copper and PEX. The galvanized pipe that comes in from the street is no doubt corroded and limiting our flow and pressure. That would be an expensive fix. An old octopus heating system in the basement that has an updated burner, but takes up too much room and runs too much despite my miserly adjustment of the thermostat.  Of course we still love the place, and our work is really starting to make a difference.

Finished product. Photo by Cindy

Our peeling Easter Bunny got a fresh coat too. 

An example of the myriad of jobs are the heating grates throughout the house. They are just plain ugly. I did the bathroom grate when I redid that room, and just finished bar grates, both the heat and cold air return and they came our very nice. The process begins with cleaning, then removing the loose paint, I do this by using a wire brush attachment on my old electric drill. Then we pick a spray paint color and apply multiple coats. The trick with spray paints it not overdoing it, with multiple light coats much better than one heavy, dripping coat. Not a good job for an impatient person. The bathroom grate is a high gloss white, the half bath a gloss black, and we went with a copper color for the bar, which came out very nice.

Then there's the plumbing. Like I mentioned above, it's a mishmash of different types of pipe, which unfortunately included galvanized steel. Last summer I replaced a section that went to the spigot on the  north side of the house. The shut off on the line had been leaking since we moved in. I managed this by cutting off the connection to the copper and rerouting it with PEX pipe, which is a D.I.Y. plumbers best friend. PEX pipe uses solder-less connections to copper and other PEX, and is easy to work with.

The culprit. I added the white
 tape to show the plumber
 the leaky part. 

Then just yesterday there was a more serious problem. After my morning shower I took a load of wash down to the basement and saw water on the floor, then noticed water spurting out of a pipe near the water meter. Luckily it must have just happened. It looked like the galvanized pipe had split. I needed to get into the office so that provided me the perfect excuse to not mess with it. I shut off the water to the house, gave Cindy my regrets and good byes and abandoned the mess. From work, I called the plumber and they showed up before 11 am. Turned out to be a bad gasket in the fitting between the pipe and the water meter, and something I probably could have fixed, but I was happy to let a professional deal with it.

We love our house, our home, and completely understand what we have. It sure has given me fodder for the blog, and will for years ahead. For example, every single window needs to be removed, re-glazed, and repaired. Every single window sash cord needs to be replaced. I hope to begin to tackle that this year, starting in the bar. Don't worry, I'll keep you updated.