Interesting Days

February 1, 2022 — Pat Bertram

This is another of those interesting days where a problem looms that takes a lot of time on the phone to resolve. Yesterday it was my water bill — apparently, 19,000 gallons of water have disappeared on my side of the meter. After talking to six people yesterday, I finally found someone who will probe for the leak. The problem is that if they can’t resolve this today, it will continue for the next week or so because a major storm is coming through here tonight and tomorrow, with subzero temperatures and six inches of snow.

Today, I got a message that PayPal had paid my virus protection renewal bill even though it doesn’t come up for renewal for another thirty-five days. I also don’t have money in the bank account associated with the PayPal account to pay for it (I always keep that account almost empty in case of such problems), so that’s another issue to deal with. The virus people were supposed to email me before they renewed, but didn’t, so I didn’t get a chance to stop the auto-renewal. Normally it wouldn’t matter, but after I signed up for the services, I found out I got the same service free through my internet provider, and I certainly don’t want to continue paying for something I don’t have to. I would have stopped the auto-renewal months ago, but they made it sound as if they would immediately cancel all services, and I didn’t want to take a chance. Instead, they decided not to take a chance on me and renewed early.

I called the virus protection people to have them issue a refund, and because of a language problem, they didn’t understand what I wanted. Finally, the word “refund” got through. Now I only have to wait for a few days to make sure that if/when PayPal takes money from my account, it will be refunded, though perhaps there won’t be a problem because the refund went through before the money was debited from my bank.

When all that is taken care of, I will have to contact my internet provider to set up the new protection plan (which actually is the very same one I just discontinued). I don’t want to get started on that until I have a lot of time at my disposal because nothing to do with the computer is ever easy. It should be, but it isn’t. There always seems to be a problem.

These “interesting days” will be continuing, not just because of the switchover for the virus protection plan, and not just because of the water issue, but because of the winter weather advisory and all of the problems that will arise from the storm, such as shoveling the walks and getting safely to and from my job.

But it will all work out, one way or another.

***

What if God decided S/He didn’t like how the world turned out, and turned it over to a development company from the planet Xerxes for re-creation? Would you survive? Could you survive?

A fun book for not-so-fun times.

Click here to buy Bob, The Right Hand of God.

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Meter Mystery

January 31, 2022 — Pat Bertram

I’m dealing with a bit of a mystery today. I got my water bill in the mail, and it showed that I used 19,000 gallons of water more than I did a year ago, and 11,000 more than last month when I was watering every day. (I didn’t water at all during this billing cycle.)

Apparently, when the billing people saw the hefty usage, they sent a meter reader here to check the meter to see if there was leak somewhere, but they meter wasn’t spinning, which showed no water being used. At first, I thought they were referring to the extra water I was using to water my grass, but when I got the bill, I saw what they did — a huge amount of water being used. Also, I found out today that when they reread the meter, just a couple of days after the first reading, I’d used an additional 3,000 gallons, which is more than I generally use in a month.

One thing they suggested (because their electronic readers supposedly have an accuracy rate of 99.9%, so it can’t possibly be a reading error) is that I have an intermittent leak. Huh? I’d think you either have a leak or don’t. Leaks don’t repair themselves temporarily. They also thought that perhaps someone was stealing my water, though I don’t see how that is possible, either. I only have two outside faucets, both of which are attached to hoses (because I thought I’d need to water my grass occasionally this winter). I also have the faucets wrapped in insulation, so it wouldn’t be easy to get to them to turn on the water. (It’s not even easy for me to get to them!) Besides, with the snow we had, I could tell no one had been in my yard. Their third suggestion was that the 19,000 gallons came from the faucet I let drip on the subzero nights, but I know for a fact that uses less than five gallons, not the thousands they said it could use.

I eventually ended the call, leaving her as bewildered as I am. She said she will check with the meter reader again (as well as tell him where I’d stashed the tool he left behind when he read the meter) and see if he can think of anything, though basically, all he can do is read the meter again.

Luckily, I have a contractor on call. He’ll send someone over this evening to see if they can find a problem I might not be able to see.

I did think of one possibility for him to check: the dishwasher water lines. I haven’t used the dishwasher for a couple of years, and I recently started again, partly because I wanted to make sure it would still work, but mostly because it’s easier to stash the dishes in the machine than to dry them by hand. I only use it every five or six days, so if somehow there is a 3,000 gallon per use leakage rate, that would add up to the extra 19,000 gallons. But still, wouldn’t I hear all that water swishing through the lines?

One way or another, the contractor will help me figure this out. Meantime, I have a dishwasher full of dishes that I’m afraid to wash.

***

Pat Bertram is the author of intriguing fiction and insightful works of grief.

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Winter Interlude

January 16, 2022 — Pat Bertram

Well, today was the day. A warm spell between two cold, dry spells. So guess what I did? I watered my grass.

It seems silly to water the lawn in the middle of January, but this isn’t an ordinary January. The average temperature seems to remain about the same, but we go from above normal to below normal, which averages out to . . . normal. With no moisture except one decent snowfall and one light dusting, the recommendation from the people I bought the grass from was to make sure it got plenty of water even in the winter.

So I finally caught the right day. I missed the last perfect day because I had to work, and although the highs have been respectable, the lows were way low, so the hoses didn’t thaw out. And to be honest, I probably wouldn’t have thawed out. I tend to sprinkle myself as well as the lawn when I set the hoses, and I don’t fancy myself as a Patsicle.

I don’t expect to have this situation once the grass takes hold, but the lawn is still too new to be left to the vagaries of the weather. And anyway, it was a pleasant day, and I had a chance to be outside for a while and soak up some sun, though how much sun I soaked up wearing a winter coat and a sun hat, I don’t know. But it’s the thought that counts, right?

Tomorrow will be another day much like today, but I doubt I will water again. With a new cold cycle starting, the moisture won’t be evaporating any time soon. So, a whole day to myself with nothing on the schedule! Wow! I’ll certainly enjoy the freedom.

[I just deleted a whole section that mentioned plans for after my day of freedom. The Tarot cards today warned me to be prudent, keep silent about future plans, and take into confidence only those I absolutely must. I figured since I go through the trouble of reading the cards every day, I ought to heed them when they offer good advice. I certainly don’t want to advertise when I’ll be away, even though I have nothing anyone wants, except perhaps the house itself.]

I hope you’re doing okay wherever you are, and that those caught in the winter storms sweeping across the USA will be safe and warm.

Incidentally, those aren’t my sprinklers in the photo, and that’s not my grass. The sprinklers I have are the kind that can be held by hand or placed on the ground. I use them both ways, on the ground for large areas, by hand for the narrow strips. In the spirit of prudence, I thought it best not to post a photo of my house and lawn, though I have done so many times before.

***

Pat Bertram is the author of intriguing fiction and insightful works of grief.

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Dedusted

January 9, 2022 — Pat Bertram

I actually felt like playing house today and had the energy to do it, so I dry mopped then wet mopped the floor and dedusted all hard surfaces.

Yes, I know — dedusted is not a word, but it should be. The way the word stands, “dust” as a verb is the opposite of itself. For example, when snow dusts the ground, it means that a light coating of snow was deposited on the ground. Some cookie recipes require you to dust the finished cookie with powdered sugar, which means to putting a light coating of sugar on the cookie. I dusted today, but I did not leave a coating of dust on the ground. In fact, the rooms were already dusted with a powdering of dirt particles. So, see? When I cleaned off that dusting, I dedusted. If I had redusted, then I could say I dusted the room, but I didn’t add another layer of dust; I removed what was there.

Look at it a different way: if you bug a room, you place electronic bugs in the room. If you debug the room, you remove the bugs. If you code a text, you put that text into code. If you decode it, then you remove the code to reveal the plain text. If you clutter a room . . . You see where I am going with this.

It is interesting to me though, that a whole slew of words mean the opposite of themselves, not just “dust,” as I pointed out here, but “cleave,” which means both to cling and to unite and “trim” which means to add something or remove something. In fact, there are so many such autoantonyms, they have their own category name: contranyms.

I just realized that spell checker didn’t underline dedust, so I looked it up, and lo and behold, it is a word, and means exactly what I said it should — to remove fine particles and to free something of dust. Who knew? Not me, obviously, because I thought I was being so very clever and whimsical. The truth sort of puts the kibosh on this whole essay, but I’m posting it anyway because whether I dusted or dedusted, the house is clean.

***

Pat Bertram is the author of intriguing fiction and insightful works of grief.

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Back to Normal

January 6, 2022 — Pat Bertram

It was cold this morning, with supposedly a wind chill of 25 below. The weather service issued a warning to be careful, that such a chill could give exposed skin frostbite within 35 minutes. I wasn’t concerned because I always bundle up, then I remembered — my face! I don’t wear a ski mask or anything like that, not even a muffler pulled up over my nose, because it tends to fog my glasses, and then the fog freezes. It’s so much better to simply stay inside.

So I did.

Because I’ve been spending so much time inside lately, the Christmas clutter has been getting to me. I figured today was a good day to start putting things away, and to my surprise, not only did I start, but I finished!

Without all the decorations and Christmas boxes and ribbons and such, the living room seems bare, but by tomorrow I will be used to the bareness again.

It’s funny to me how so often in mystery stories, a character who lives in a stark place with no pictures and knickknacks strewn around is suspect. Such a person has to be secretive, burying a shady past or hiding a felonious present.

I hope that’s not true in real life, that people who see my empty walls and lack of knickknacks don’t automatically assume I am not as I appear. And if it is true, I don’t suppose it matters. Mostly, though, people seem to be comfortable when they are here. Without being suffocated by my stuff, visitors can — for the time they are here — write themselves into the place. Many people love to have photos and knickknacks everywhere, which does put a personal touch to their space, but it can be overwhelming to live with. For me, anyway. Hence my empty walls and tables.

I do have a couple of personalizing touches — a book shelf and a glass-fronted cabinet — so my space isn’t a complete blank, but there’s nothing on the coffee table and the only things on the lamp tables are lamps.

There is one room with clutter, and that is my work/play room, but the clutter is that of living — electronics and books and notes and started projects. Oh, and a shelf for all my tarot cards.

I’m hoping for one more cold stay-inside day so I can do a thorough cleaning. I did vacuum up as much of the glitter as I could, but I’m sure a lot of sparkles drifted under the couch and bed the way dust does. Of course, no matter how well one cleans, there will always be a bit of glitter hiding in corners and cracks, so it’s a lost cause, but I would at least like to make an effort now that my living room is back to normal.

***

Pat Bertram is the author of intriguing fiction and insightful works of grief.

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Someone to Call

January 2, 2022 — Pat Bertram

Apparently the tarot cards are right. This year is starting off with failure and defeat. Actually, that’s not anywhere near the truth. Failure and defeat are sometimes simply in the mind of cursed — a mishap that is a defeat for one person can be one of life’s negligible challenges to take in stride for another, and that is the case here.

I hope you know that my talk of the tarot and its prognostications is more or less me being facetious and playful. Whatever the cards say is not something I take personally. If anything, they seem to reflect my state of mind, and I think that’s because I interpret the cards through whatever my mood is at that particular time.

That being said, I started off the day with a frozen hot water pipe in my kitchen. I had cold water in the kitchen and both hot and cold in the bathroom. To be honest, I didn’t know a hot-water pipe could freeze, at least not more so than a cold-water pipe.

I texted my contractor for help, and he suggested putting a space heater under the sink, and if that didn’t work, he’d come out and unfreeze the pipe for me. So I opened the hot water spigot (to relieve the pressure), put my little electric space heater under the sink, and in the hopes that the hot water in nearby pipes would help, I also took a shower. Not the smartest thing, perhaps, to leave a heater alone in a semi-enclosed space, but this heater is so small and uses so little electricity, that I wasn’t worried.

Whether it was the shower or the heater, I don’t know, but the hot water soon came gushing out of the faucet.

So, not exactly a disaster.

Even if my efforts hadn’t helped, the contractor would have come out or sent one of his workers as he did last year when the entire pipe (both hot and cold) to the kitchen froze. He’ll be replacing the water lines someday, and when he does, I’m going to ask him what all the pipe are, how they connect up, and where they go. I can see some of the water lines, but I’m not sure which are hot and which are cold and where they meet up. (Last year, I guessed wrong about which was the frozen pipe and heated one that wasn’t a problem.)

As long as we’re even and I’m not too far ahead of the contractor with my payments, I’m fine with however long it takes him to do my work because he always responds to my texts, so it’s like having a contractor on retainer. (I must admit I do get worried when the payments get too far ahead for too long because if something happens to him, I’m out the money. I am certainly not going to dun a widow and her fatherless children, and I can’t afford to just write it off.)

It’s not supposed to get down below zero (Fahrenheit) again for a while (apparently eight below is too much for my pipes), so I should be okay. If I remember, the next time I’ll open the cabinet doors under the sink so maybe it won’t get as cold under there as it did last night. That’s assuming, of course, that those are the pipes with a problem.

This is certainly no omen for an unpleasant new year. It’s just typical of the myriad things that need to be taken care of when one owns a house.

It’s funny, now that I think about it. One reason I preferred renting was that when things went wrong, all I had to do was call the landlord, and have him do the work or arrange to have it done. Too many crappy landlords and landladies taught me that this was a naïve view, so I didn’t take the matter into consideration when I had the opportunity to buy. Now, though, I have the best of both worlds. A house of my own, and someone to call.

***

Pat Bertram is the author of intriguing fiction and insightful works of grief.

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A Toast to Mother

December 10, 2021 — Pat Bertram

Today is the fourteenth anniversary of my mother’s death. I have thought about her more since I moved here to my new home than in all the years since she died. Sometimes the memories come from nowhere, just the odd thought that I haven’t talked to her for a while and should call to see how she is doing.

Sometimes the memory comes from something of hers I have and use. She used to have a cupboard full of unmatched stemware. I kept those goblets when I cleaned out the house after my father died, and so now I, too, have a cupboard of unmatched stemware.

Sometimes an old memory arises, and I’d like to ask her what that was about. For example, decades ago she told me that when I was a baby, I had casts on my legs. I was under the impression that the casts were to correct leg or hip alignment, though why casts, I don’t know, since my siblings all had braces (a curved metal piece connected to shoes). I read that the current research shows that babies’ legs adjust on their own, so I don’t even know if they use such devices anymore. But I never heard of using casts for that problem, and now I will never know what they were for. It never really mattered, but now my feet seem to be turning in more than they used to, and I wonder if age and use is undoing what the casts did. I’ll never know that now, either.

When I got my first apartment, I asked her for the recipes that I especially liked — things like pierogis, tuna roll with cheese sauce, and hamburger rolls (known to others as Runzas or bierocks). I found it interesting that I was the only one of my siblings who had those recipes, so several years ago, I made each of my siblings a recipe book, which included those recipes as well as a Friday staple of our youth: creamed tuna and peas on toast. (Sounds disgusting but was actually quite tasty.)

I didn’t copy all of her cookie recipes. Neither cherry winks nor date nut pinwheels were favorites of mine when I was young, but a couple of years ago when I suddenly got a taste for those cookies, I thought of calling her and asking for the recipes. Luckily, my sister kept them, thinking that mother’s treat recipes shouldn’t be thrown away so now I’ve collected some of the recipes I didn’t back then. Also, I imagine that at the time I got that first bunch of recipes, I wasn’t considering the distant future when she’d be gone.

Well now, she is.

She wasn’t much of a drinker, though she did love Bailey’s Irish Cream, so in honor of her this day, I offer a toast — Baileys in a Baileys glass that once belonged to her!

Here’s to you, Mom. I hope your new life is what you’ve prayed it would be.

***

Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One. “Grief: The Inside Story is perfect and that is not hyperbole! It is exactly what folk who are grieving need to read.” –Leesa Healy, RN, GDAS GDAT, Emotional/Mental Health Therapist & Educator.

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Inauspicious Day

November 29, 2021 — Pat Bertram

This was another long day at work, and it turned out to be a good thing, not just because of the extra money but because this was not an auspicious day to do much of anything.

For one thing, last night I dreamt that the neighbor’s tree, which creaks horrendously in the wind, fell and destroyed my garage (even though in actuality, if the humongous branch would fall, it would be his garage that would be destroyed, not mine). This morning, before I was fully awake, tree trimmers came and started working. They were trimming a different neighbor’s tree, but I did not like the coincidence of both the dream and the reality.

Even worse, my tarot card today was the ten of swords (called the ten of weapons on this particular deck) followed by the nine of wands (nine of staves.) The ten of swords is not a good card to get because there is nothing remotely cheerful about it, speaking as it does of misfortune on a grand scale. The second card was the nine of staves, a card of great strength and denotes being prepared for any contingency.

My preparation for the looming disaster was simply to go about my day as planned.

One good thing about a tarot reading (beyond the fact that the cards I turn up so often have nothing to do with me) is that the effects last only until the next reading. Which means tomorrow is a whole other story.

Speaking of story . . . when I was at my client’s house, I read an excerpt from a book where the character mentioned that the tale of how she met her husband was different for each person she told it to. I thought something like that — telling the truth, but picking different elements of the truth to focus on each time you told it — would work well in the small-town novel I am thinking of writing. Perhaps each person in town thinks they know the truth, but since they assume everyone knows the same truth, the salient points get buried until our hero (me!) starts asking questions and sees the variations of the truth. I guess it would be sort of like the folk tale from India about blind men “looking” at an elephant. Each person who touched a single part of the elephant found out a truth that reinforced their own belief, but it was only when they put all the concepts together that they came across the greater truth of what an elephant was.

In a way, I suppose, all mysteries are like that, with every character believing they know the whole truth but only knowing part of it, so perhaps it wouldn’t be such an interesting idea after all. And anyway, I am no closer to writing the book now than I was when I first started thinking about it, so I have plenty of time to figure it out.

Meanwhile, I missed all the commotion of the tree trimming even though the woodchipper was parked in front of my house because I left to go to work. Luckily, the tree was trimmed without any damage to my property except for a few small twigs in my rocks that did not get swept up. I’m back at home now, safe from whatever dangers lurked out there for me. And tomorrow is a new day . . .

***

What if God decided S/He didn’t like how the world turned out, and turned it over to a development company from the planet Xerxes for re-creation? Would you survive? Could you survive?

A fun book for not-so-fun times.

Click here to buy Bob, The Right Hand of God.

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Raking Up the News

November 27, 2021 — Pat Bertram

I didn’t watered my grass for a couple of days — the first day was too cold, the second day was very warm but I had to work all day. Even though I didn’t notice any difference in the grass, I gave it a good watering today, letting the hose run while I raked up leaves. Odd how I have no trees except a couple of babies, and yet I get a yard full of leaves from all the neighbors’ trees. In previous years, I never paid attention to the leaves, but I need to make sure they don’t damage my sod, so I did the work. I considered giving the leaves back to the neighbors, but despite my blisters, I was glad to get the leaves. I dumped them among some bushes, thinking they will help rejuvenate the soil when the leaves break down. As someone once said to me, “Compost happens.”

I had to unfortunate task of laying off a handyman who was working at the house I’m taking care of. He was in such a panic over the loss of income, that I hired him to do a couple of small paint jobs the contractor has been putting off. I was kind of surprised (but just kind of) when he never showed up, so even though I’d paid twice for those jobs, I ended up doing them myself. At least the raw wood surfaces are protected now.

A friend had some good news today — my contractor is going to work on her house, which was left unfinished when her husband died. It’s a huge job, and they are both glad to be connected — she needs the work done, and he needs to keep his employees busy. I’m not sure what it will mean for me, though I tend to think my jobs as always will be delayed. I’m not really sure I care, at least not all that much and not all the time, because the undone work gives me a sort of lien on his time. When I have an emergency, he comes right over or sends one of his guys. If all the work around my house was finished, perhaps he wouldn’t be as conscientious about taking care of my problems. On the other hand, he probably would especially now that I recommended him for that big job. And anyway, he does try to look after me when he can.

I asked my friend if she minded if I mentioned her and her unique situation, and she said okay. She was born in Malaysia of Chinese parents, and educated by Irish nuns. She has three sisters — one lives in Malaysia, one in Singapore, one in Australia, and she, of course, lives in the United States. Talk about a far-flung family! Luckily, there is Skype. The sisters talk every weekend, which is more than I do with my own siblings, and they live here in this country.

She would make a great character for my book, though I’m not sure how her story would contribute to whatever story I come up with. For now, I’m just collecting interesting characters and waiting to see if they want to engage with one another, literarily speaking.

Well, that’s about all the news I can rake up for you. I hope you had a more exciting — and blister-free — day than I did.

***

Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One. “Grief: The Inside Story is perfect and that is not hyperbole! It is exactly what folk who are grieving need to read.” –Leesa Healy, RN, GDAS GDAT, Emotional/Mental Health Therapist & Educator.

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Eternal Good Luck

November 17, 2021 — Pat Bertram

1000 origami cranes is called a senbazuru, which translates as “1000 cranes.” Legend says the crane lives for 1000 years, and from that legend arose the mystique behind the senbazuru. Paper cranes have come to be a symbol of peace. Before that, they meant healing. Before that, a person who folded a 1000 paper cranes was said to have one special dream come true. Originally (at least I think it was originally — the legend has become so entwined with the story of Sadako and Hiroshima that it’s hard to find the original meaning), folding 1000 paper cranes gave a person longevity and happiness — one crane per year for a thousand years — as well as eternal good luck. (Which is why the cranes are often associated with weddings.) Further, the cranes must all be folded within a year. 

I had no special wish when I started folding my 1000 cranes at the beginning of this year, though I was taken with the idea of good luck forever.

I’m not sure my 1000 crane project is strictly a senbazuru because from what I can gather, a senbazuru has come to mean 1000 cranes strung together and mine are in plastic bags, 10 cranes per sandwich bag, ten sandwich bags per gallon bag. That was the easiest way for me to keep track of how many I had folded, and now that I am finished and my good fortune stowed so neatly, I see no reason to string them. (Though I did string some other origami birds and hung them in my garage so I know where to stop when I pull into the garage.)

Whatever the name — “senbazuru” or simply “1000 paper cranes” — I just finished folding my origami cranes, well within the required time frame. So now it’s a matter of waiting to see what will happen.

Even if the cranes came with a guarantee of eternal good luck, I don’t expect my life to change all that much. I used to think I was bedeviled by bad luck, but over the years I have come to see that I have more good luck than perhaps I deserve. So often, I don’t get what I want (becoming a better selling author, for example) but more often, I get what I need (a temporary job, for example,) Even better, I sometimes don’t get what I neither want nor need (the Bob, for example. I didn’t want it, didn’t need it, and didn’t get it even though I was definitely exposed to the virus).

The biggest example of more luck than I deserve comes in the form of my house and even perhaps my yard, which, with a little more luck will one day be breathtakingly beautiful as well as safe for an aging woman to navigate.

Whatever the future holds, I know I did my part by folding 1000 origami cranes this year.

***

What if God decided S/He didn’t like how the world turned out, and turned it over to a development company from the planet Xerxes for re-creation? Would you survive? Could you survive?

A fun book for not-so-fun times.

Click here to buy Bob, The Right Hand of God.

Posted in culture, house, life. Tags: , , , , . 3 Comments »
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