A hearty Ho Ho Ho etc. to all! I am in limbo. The guy we contracted with last April to rebuild our flooded kitchen cabinets? Talked with him last week. “Materials are finally in, I’ll stop by sometime after Christmas to discuss…”
The guy who last March was going to rebuild the damaged lower dresser drawers? I texted him, he said they would be done probably next week? The guy who was going to arrange for an engineer to get an estimate on raising our rental unit a few feet so as to be above Flood Plain so that we can rebuild the major damage caused by the wind-toppled 100-foot white pine? Some time this week, maybe? The lady who was going to arrange our secondary internet connection so that our niece Mary can re-establish her home office here now that she can’t live in the damaged rental? Still waiting for a call back. [Back story on the rental: our niece lives there. We lived with her 8 months last year after our home was flooded. The pine tree blew over onto her house Dec 11th. She’s moved in with us. Because we are in a flood plain, special rules apply. The U.S. Government subsidizes the cost of flood insurance, and communities that agree to FEMA’s rules are given more generous discounts on the insurance. FEMA’s rules are designed to avoid constant rebuilding of structures in jeopardy, like along the coast in the traditional path of hurricanes or in known flood plains in the interior. Requirement is that the community will not provide a building permit to any upgrade or repair unless either A- the cost of the upgrade or repair does not exceed 50% of appraised value, or B- the structure is brought up to current building code. So, above the flood plain, with up-to-date wiring, etc. We will likely be well over 50% of appraised value, and thus anticipate Option B is going to come into play. So the first question is, how high do we need to raise the rebuilt/replaced structure? Probably 3-4 feet. And meanwhile niece Mary has lost her home office. She works for a hospital on medical insurance issues. Usually about 90% from home. But because of the private sensitive nature of what she deals with, her home office work computer cannot be WiFi, it needs a hardwire ethernet connection. Our cable modem is at the other end of the house, so I am trying for a secondary connection in “her” new office…] So, waiting, waiting, frustrated at having so many of these details which are just out of my control. I took the requisite shots of the tree down across the house, of the crane lifting the pieces out, the guys nailing sheets of plywood and tarps across the holes in the roof. But I can’t be too excited about any of those shots. One of my occasional outlets is cooking, but that is harder with Mary here. We get along well with Mary, we are comfortable with her in our home. But she is still dealing with damage caused by her COVID over a year ago. Loss of taste has now become distortion of taste, so there are a very limited number of food options that she can tolerate. I could still make my sausage and cheese breakfast casserole or my 3-meat 8-bean chili. But she wouldn’t be able to eat those, might not even be able to tolerate the odor if she were in the same room with those, and so it wouldn’t be right for me to indulge. I am looking forward to getting some of these nuisance details out of the way! And I am looking forward to some travel we have booked for 2022, some trips just for relaxation, some trips (e.g. Iceland) for exploration and photo ops. And hoping that we can zig-zag our way through the COVID restrictions and outbreaks. While life has not been ideal for us lately, we have avoided serious tragedy, I know that many of you are facing similar woes, and we are all ready for a big party! Or something. Meanwhile, Ho Ho Ho and serious best wishes for a healthy productive prosperous New Year! Stan -- %(real_name)s Pentax-Discuss Mail List To unsubscribe send an email to pdml-le...@pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
