Category: City Living

It’s snowing today, as it did on Friday.  Apparently, we’re going to have an early and persistent winter.  Well.  Our very first winter in Maine, when we were living in Skowhegan, it snowed every night — sometimes a little, sometimes a lot, every day — and I just figured that it always snowed in the winter, in Maine.  In the years between, we’ve had some winters where we got very little snow, but a lot of cold, a couple of warm winters, a recent winter that dropped ten feet of snow over the course of the season, averaging a few inches every couple days, and a biggish fall once a week.  Very seasonal.  Sigh.

Here at the new house, we can hide the car in the garage, and we have engaged a guy to plow the driveway on a temporary basis, to see if we’re both satisfied with the arrangement.  The front steps are gong to have to be solved.  I may need the War  Engineer to come by and see if he can put a peak over the steps, so that we can at least open the front door from inside, during heavy snowfalls.

And!  This Just In from the Maine Weather Service:  Maine Expected to Get Another Snowstorm Before Thanksgiving.

Winter has also illuminated an unanticipated problem with city living.  We are in a hybrid situation with regard to mail delivery.  Which is to say, we do not have what I think of as a City Mailbox, that hangs on the house near the front door, nor do we have a mail slot in the front door.

What we have instead, is curb-side delivery, like we had out in the country.  Which is fine, the curb’s not that far away, after all, except. . .

Mail is routinely delivered between 4 and 5 pm.  It gets dark in the winter-time at 4:30ish.  We live on a busy road, and while there is a streetlight across the street from our drive, there’s no sidewalk.  Therefore, in order to approach the mailbox, in the winter, when there will be a pile of snow between our driveway and mailbox, we will have to walk out into the road, in the dark.

This seems. . .suboptimal.

So, we’re thinking about moving all of our mail delivery to the post office box, and switching the Informed Delivery Service to that address, so we know when we have to drive out.

I will say that I never considered mail delivery when I was thinking about the potential challenges of returning to city life after a quarter-century in the country.

In another aspect of City Living, I’m actually enjoying going to the gym.  It changes your outlook, when the gym’s a five minute drive, instead of half-an-hour.

So that.

From the writing edge of life, Accepting the Lance is moving along; it’s going to be a long book, I fear, so y’all need to prepare yourselves for that.

I think that’s everything, except for this — a video that Steve and I made for you — yes, you! — to thank you for everything you do.

Here’s your link.

 

So, today, we expect a crew of sturdy lads sometime this afternoon, to deliver the new bed.  We hadn’t quite intended to buy a new bed — no, that’s inaccurate.  We had intended to buy a new bed, eventually, but our intent on Thursday was to do some reconnaissance in that direction. Wherefore we visited Northern Mattress, where we investigated floor models, collected catalog pages, and the salesman’s card.

When we returned to the car, Steve said, “You want to go across the river and look at Fortin’s?”

So, we went across the river, to Fortin’s, where we were greeted by Douglas, the salesman who had sold us our new couch a year or so ago.  We explained the problem — the problem being that our bed was a waterbed platform with a queen mattress in the box.  We’d replaced the mattress a few years ago, but the bed itself had been solid enough, at the time, since it had been sitting in one place for 26 or so years.  Unfortunately, the move was especially hard on the old, press-board frame, which had been deconstructed and re-constructed by non-experts three times in the course of four weeks, and was very much the worse for its ill-treatment.  Douglas said, “You want a platform bed,” and took us to the back of the store, where such items are on display.

Among the necessary features of any new bed had to be a headboard wide enough for the cats to use as a highway to the bookcase aerie in the bedroom.  This has been an Approved Cat Route for at least 26 years, which is to say all of Scrabble’s lifetime (Scrabble being 16).  Scrabble being the Power User of the aerie, we didn’t want to cut her off.

Douglas showed us the Perfect Bed, made right in Newport, Maine, in fact, assured us that he could order it with a bookcase headboard, which would be plenty wide enough for Cat Traffic — but it would take about 10 weeks to arrive, because — handmade in Newport.

While Steve and I were discussing this, Douglas went back to the warehouse, as one does, and returned with a look of wide-eyed amaze on his face.

“I have the bed,” he said.  “And it has a bookcase headboard.”

“When can it be delivered?” asked Steve.

“Saturday afternoon OK with you guys?”

So!  This afternoon we’ll be taking delivery of a new bed and cat highway.

Didn’t see that coming.

In other news, we have one more Major Contracting Event on the schedule.  We had been going to put off installing heat pumps (yes, that’s plural; because the house is U-shaped, each wing needs its own pump) until next year, since we’d already gambled with the tax money in order to make the move into this house happen, and though our luck had been in, I am by nature risk-averse, and I’d done enough gambling for one year.

Then Mr. Trump announced Trade War, and we realized that waiting til next year would see tariffs and ill-will increasing the cost of items imported from Japan, which would likely put the project out of reach.

We therefore went looking for help, and it turns out that there is a useful consumer program in Maine that has somehow to date escaped cancellation by our governor.  It is the Efficiency Maine Loan program, which gives long-term, low-interest loans on things like heat pump installations, and also has a rebate program for installation of energy efficient systems.

Heat pump installations are therefore set for next Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday.

We’re also expecting the Window Guy to sweep by at some point to fix the stuck windows in the hallway to Steve’s office.  It will be Good if they can be made to close.  It would be Optimum, if they can be made to open and close on demand.

So, that’s the next phase of Real Life Adventures.

For those who are here for news of books, and the production of words —  yes, writing has been going forth.  For those expecting a new book in January — no, sorry; we are scheduled to turn the book in to Madame the Editor in January.  What happens to it then is wholly up to her.

I believe this catches us up again.

I hope everyone has a splendid weekend.

 

So, the new neighborhood continues to be amusing.  Yesterday, on my way to the mailbox, I was stopped by a friendly woman, who turned out to be the wife of one of our candidates for House District 109.  Of course, she wanted me to vote for her husband, and gave me the literature and the story, all very succinct and pleasant.  At one point, she turned to survey the house, and her eye caught on the CAT magnet we have on the car, and she turned back with a smile.  “Cat,” she said.  “We’re definitely your candidate.”  The conversation then turned to the neighborhood — she’d lived in the house next door for a couple years when she was a kid — and the state of downtown.  We found, not surprisingly, several mutual acquaintances, and by the time her husband arrived, and I got to shake hands with him, and was released to gather the mail, and come back inside, where Steve said, “Who were they?”  I handed him the literature, and said, “The guy I had already decided to vote for.”

Also yesterday, earlier in the day, I installed a bird bath, renewed the Hummer Bar, and then took a tour of the back yard, trying to figure out the various flowers, bushes and trees, and take inventory of which needed dead branches cut out, and what beds needed thinning — as one does.  I am pleased to report that there are at least three rosebushes in the backyard, tucked away into surprising little nooks.  They all appear to be domestic roses (as opposed to sea roses, for which I have a really unseemly passion), and I await news of their color and style.

My tour took me down past the shed, and ’round to the forest gate, which opens onto the trail/road maintained by the sewage district.  I did not on this occasion venture further, though I’m told that, if I follow the sewage district’s greeny road, I will eventually come into the network of trails maintained by Thomas College.  Also, if I like to fish, there are apparently several off-trails that go down to the rivers.  Actually, the trails are there whether I like to fish or not, which I fear that I do not.

Eventually I wandered back into the house, sat down at my desk, and glanced out over the yard — just in time to see a fox dart out from the tangle-growth at the side of the yard.  Running full speed, he slammed into a squirrel who had been rootling around in the grass, grabbed it and kept on running, down to the bottom of the yard, and out the forest gate.

Trooper, who had been lounging on the back of the desk, looking out the window, sat up with a Completely Astonished Look on his face — Good Ghod, there are predators in the yard! I think the expression on my face was its mirror.  Who knew the city was so wild?

For those keeping score, this house has a Goblin Room, and a Forest Gate.  Also, a yard fox.  Yes, we’re living in an urban fantasy novel.

In other news, Real Work has been going forth.  I finished the first draft of Nameless Space Opera story and passed it to Steve.  Steve finished the first drafts of the whole-book introduction and the individual story intros for Constellation Four, and passed them to me.

Accepting the Lance broke 10,000 words last night, so that’s moving along at a rational pace.

This morning, Steve made us pancakes for breakfast, which we had with strawberries and maple syrup, mmmm.  After I finish my second cup of tea, and this blog post, my morning will be about mopping floors and cleaning bathrooms, because I haven’t yet gotten my act together to find a cleaning service (the little voice in my head, the one that says, O, Rly?  You can’t take care of your own house?  Aren’t you SPESHSCUL. — is NOT helpful.  Just sayin’.)

After chores, then to work, and so into the new week.

Everybody have fun, ‘k?  And don’t forget to take some time to sit and look out the window.