Life is tough

 

November 25, 1998

 

Portends and omens aside, the house seems solid enough now that we have the heat fixed.

Burger king John tells us we won't have to replace windows, a $10,000 proposition -- he seems to label everything at that price, and perhaps I should just start believing that all repairs will end up there with the wrong contractor.

Sharon worries over John's getting the painting done in time, since we are now on a deadline. The movers should arrive on Dec. 19, and if their trip last time is any indication, we shan't have a long process in resettling. The biggest issue currently is getting the boxes from Sharon's place of employment to our house and our possessions packed.

We took a year to make the trip West to Haledon, only to wind up within six blocks of where we started. Yet the process seems longer, as if we could not have possibly packed so much experience into such a short time.

I keep forgetting how much was packed into the two and half year process back when I went on the road, and how big an influence that journey still has in my life, one of the transition moments I can never forget or live without.

All our worry over the heat has resulted in nothing, although we only narrowly averted disaster. The PSE&G man could not say for certain, but it appears that the previous owner replaced the thermostat in the house, then mis-wired it downstairs. Puzzled over why it did not work, the owner then turned the boiler onto manual, and chose to operate it that way by turning on and off the gas valve. Unaware of this, I turned on the value and presumed the thermostat worked. We left thinking the heat had turned itself off as it would have in normal circumstances, one of those reliances upon machinery that leads people to disaster.

In this case, my return to the house 24 hours later found the walls nearly burning and the boiler overheating. It is only luck that kept the house from burning down, and a small release valve that kept the boiler from exploding

Never take anything for granted in this world, and especially where this house is concerned.

Sharon's seeking work is another matter, and something that will later bring us into a new funk, as Sharon always fears no one will hire her. I suppose this has some validity as we both age. I thought I would have a job on the New York Times by this time, something I now believe will never happen.

Life is tough.