Crazy House, Part 2...

One serious note:  As I make fun of my house, let it be known that I love my little house, and I am fighting tooth and nail to keep it sane in a world where it no longer fits.  This house and I have an unusual relationship.  I get annoyed at the idiosyncrasies from past residents, and it drips water on my head when no one is around, with no sign of a leak anywhere.  

I started this post last May.  That says a lot.

On with the fun and craziness of this house because who can't use a little fun and crazy of this sort right now with the governor  -- I mean virus -- running loose.

My house is a never-ending source of amusement for those with a strange sense of humor.  I hope the biggest thing to come out of the kitchen redo is that we get rid of the ant hill, and maybe one of the places mice like to come in.  After 20 years of living with them, I'm ready for a "Richmond Divorce"  (from the mice and ants, not the house.) Yes, I have lived here longer than anywhere else in my life, surpassing my beloved Bates Road.

Before I enter the fun and crazy, a little background...  I found a house plan, courtesy Internet Archive, from Modern Home Plans ca 1955, which is the closest I have yet found for my house.

Look at that linen closet!  In my dreams...

A few differences:  the plan has stairs for a basement ; no laundry room; kitchen and dining are flipped; and the bedrooms are larger in this plan.  Also, the closet is next to the bathtub, whereas ours is in a row with it. 

My attempt at drawing our house layout.  2 squares = 1 ft

Classic ranch-style, I believe.  It had a one-car garage at a point, where the plan I found had a car port.  I don't know my garage sizes, but I assume a 14 ft wide garage is a one-car.  I don't have enough experience with garages to know.

Not a bad house at all, but certainly not standard to today's standards.  We hit 1400 sq ft because of the garage, but we lose a bit to the furnace and everything that would be in a basement, if we had one.  Originally it didn't have a furnace but a heat pump outside, which explains a few things that never made sense.

I have always thought the pantry in the hallway was a nice touch. 
It took me years to realize it was supposed to be a pantry.

This shows the current layout of the kitchen and laundry.    The washer and dryer are 9" off the wall due to the sagging floor and the way the dryer vent comes through the floor.  All of the appliances are in the same spot, helping cause the sagging floor.  The rest of the floor issue involves an old leak which rotted the joist and cracked it, conveniently where all four appliances meet.  This is what really is setting off the "kitchen redo." We should have fixed the floor sooner, but we couldn't find anyone willing to help.   We were even told leveling the floor couldn't be done.  Thank God for friends who say, "Oh, I've seen worse than this before..."  We couldn't have made it this far without that kind of encouragement.  I can understand now why people buy a house and completely tear it apart.

Family

I received the news Friday morning that my Uncle Howard passed away.  Uncle Howard was my grandma's brother, so my great-uncle.  To my kids, he was a great-great uncle, a rare creature indeed to many.  To see my kids' reactions to the news would have destroyed anyone's idea that a great-great uncle isn't really family. 

Uncle Howard had three children and a grandson, all of whom he loved very much.  But that big old heart of his had room in it, and he loved his sister's family also.  Grandma died in 2009 and Grandpa in 2012, and he said to a niece, "Well, someone has to watch out for you kids now."  Last March, he stood at the gravesite with a cane as his niece was buried.   A man of great faith, he was not afraid to fight for what he thought was right.  That included singing hymns in church loudly, with the words he remembered as a kid. 

As we mourn, we laugh, however.  Uncle Howard was the king of mis-pronunciation.  His ability to butcher words brought the same look to his sister and wife's faces, and numerous bouts of laughter to the rest of us.  My favorite of all has to be when he went to the gastroenterologist and pronounced it "castrologist."  I couldn't resist and asked my cousin last night if anyone was going to contact the "castrologist" and let him know. 

I wrote back in August 2018 of my frustration with so-called professional genealogists and the one who tried to tell me my family wasn't my family.  Well, some of us had DNA done for the fun of it.  Uncle Howard was one.  When I did it, the closest matches which were found for me were in this order:  my half-brother and his kids, then Uncle Howard.  The service didn't know we were related or how and says he's my first cousin.  I think it hilarious.  Take that as a warning, you by-the-book-the-records-are-never-wrong people.  You never know when your great-uncle is your first cousin! 



        

Update and apologies

I want to apologize to the couple of people who watch the blog.  My intention for 2020 was to be a more active blogger.  If I had any idea what was coming my way, I would have just shut it down completely.  I may still.

This has been my 2020 thus far:

~My mom went into the hospital January 17th.  She had two bacterial infections in her leg (likely from being kicked by the grandson they adopted 8 years ago), pneumonia, fluid in lungs and around heart, and was in full septic shock.  13 days in ICU, 2 days on the floor from hell, then a month in rehab (at a wonderful place).

~ On top of that, said grandson became more and more violent.  My parents have been abused all along without getting the help they have needed, and this time was no different.  The day came where my dad was held hostage in the house by an 11 year old.  When he was supposed to pick him up from juvie a few days later, my dad could not for his own safety and that of his granddaughter, who was also being abused by her brother.  (He hit her in the neck the day of the hostage situation.)

~Now CPS and Michigan Dept of Health and Human Services are involved.  It is a flaming joke.  No, I cannot call it a joke.  Those departments are complete and utter travesties of justice.  My parents are put into the position of having to say they abused the grandson in order to get funding, for him to not be able to beat them up.  There is now a court case and trial, as my parents didn't want to perjure themselves.  (Funny, that.)

This is the short version.  I don't have it in me to relieve this in detail.

April 1st begins the kitchen project.  Only the last few days have I been HOME to clean out the kitchen and begin to get ready for completely evacuating the kitchen and laundry room.  I still have furniture to haul out (stove, fridge, washer and dryer must go somewhere) and all sorts of fun stuff to figure out in between doctor's appointments.  (Don't ask why my dad isn't capable, but he isn't.) 

As the Barenaked Ladies sang, "Pinch me."

Guess it wouldn't be horrible to live another 20 years with pipes in walls and freezing, the washer perched on a 2x4, and the largest galley kitchen in the world.

To the Gramer Road Residents in Lenox Township, Michigan...

...  Bloody good luck to you, my friends.

I heard yesterday that DTE is building a new substation on Gramer.  It really sucks that these companies can just come in and do as they like, without care or concern to the neighbors, using protections given only to the government by the Constitution.  However, such is life, until the Supreme Court restores homeowner rights. 

Vibroacoustic Disease -- you may want to learn about it.  Depending on the substation, it can be noisy from the hum.

And the doctor wonders why my blood pressure is high.....

The Never-Ending Kitchen -- "new" table

Anyone who knows me, knows no matter how well I plan things, I always end up doing things backwards.  Perhaps I think ahead too far and get ahead of myself?  Jump to my new kitchen table, when we haven't yet remodeled the kitchen.  

The backstory:  My uncle had back surgery in May, and yours truly had nursing duties yet again.  Being over there at my grandparents' old house (and mine for almost 4 years) brought a few things back to mind, not the least of which was the necessity of getting that garage cleaned out.  It was a job my cousin and I were never able to finish (due to said uncle, who also has pack rat tendencies.)  So while he was bemoaning what he couldn't do any more, I was busy planting ideas to make him realize he COULD clean the garage out, with my help -- which lead to this:

It took me almost a month to decide to take this table on.  It was my great-grandparents' kitchen table from the 1950s.  It came to live with my grandparents around 1975, where I remember it as the table in the back kitchen, where we used to fold laundry on it.  In 1991, when my grandparents retired from farming and built the house across the road, it moved over there where Grandma used it as an island in the kitchen.  Of course, it clashed with 1991 country kitchen decor, so she painted the metal off-white and put contact paper on it.  (Cringe but be thankful, folks!)  After Grandma got her real island, it went out into the garage in the corner and held things for the next 25 years, until I rescued it August 12th.

With the paint stripped and contact paper off, it doesn't look half bad, does it?  Once I knew the table was still good -- thanks to the paint and contact paper that protected it, then I was willing to look at the chairs.  Of the 3 chairs -- yes, my great-grandparents only bought 3 chairs with it -- this was the best one.  Grandma mended it with wood-grain contact paper first, then Grandpa with duct tape later.

See what I mean?

And the final results:

Not too shabby, eh?  I'm very proud of it. 

I splurged and bought red cracked ice vinyl to match the top, though the top is faded.  It's about 65-70 years old, I'd guess.  I was asked if I was going to get new laminate for the top.  Heck no!  I want it to look good for its age, not new, and besides, if I had found some vinyl that looked more like the colors in the top, I would have gone with that.  After all, this came out of my grandma's family, and they were the sort of people to make something useful and not worry if it was original or not.  I haven't fixed the leaf yet, but I will. 

Like chair number 4?  My great-grandparents only had 3 chairs because that was what they needed (and had room for), but I had a chair with a cracked seat.  A little extra vinyl, and there I go -- a 4th chair that kinda matches but doesn't. 

If only the rest of the kitchen were this easy......

Another July 4th

I have heard it said that 'one never appreciates the freedoms one has, until those freedoms are gone.'

In the last months since November 2018, I have found that to be true.  Once upon a time, mineral rights meant something.  Now, all a company has to do is go to a judge who will grant them to a company, without compensation to the homeowner.  A pipeline can be put in on a homeowner's land, without permission, within FEET of the house.  Some companies have tried to tunnel gas pipelines UNDER houses.

We homeowners, who live in the bullseye of natural gas, are told to "just sell and leave" if we do not like it.  Easier said than done.  My home will be devalued next year by approximately 30%, by a gas company from Wisconsin, who has no oversight by Michigan because the pipeline only runs through the state.  However, the township I live in, which has been of no assistance, won't lower my taxes.  They will continue to get the same money and more, while I have less of a chance to get out.

Two hundred forty-three years ago, Thomas Jefferson wrote, in a now-famous document:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed...

According to Bluewater, we have no right to life or liberty.  Our lives are not even worth dirt berms and trees, designed to protect the area from explosions by directing the force upwards.  Our liberty does not exist when a company can say, "We will do we want, and you can't stop us."   Until the US Supreme Court returns homeowners' rights to the homeowners, this is the situation.

However, all hope is not lost.  Tuesday the second I was in Lansing with my neighbors, asking the MPSC to intervene however they might be able.   The youtube channel for the MPSC will show you my neighbors were more eloquent than I.  Right before I spoke, the January 30th incident flashed before my eyes and caused me to stutter (though I did mean it when I said I would rather have Consumers behind me than Bluewater.  I mean it with all my heart.)  The MPSC heard us.  They are doing what little they can to assist us with the safety of the plant, and for that I am so very grateful. 

I am sure Bluewater will find a way to punish us for that, but that is the price of freedom.  We signed our names in our blood Tuesday as did the signers of the Declaration of Independence in 1776.   As gruesome as that sounds, it is true.  If Bluewater gets to build their plant like the one on 29 Mile and there's another explosion, it will mean damage and death here.  What do I fear more -- Bluewater's retribution or an explosion?  After all, they seem to like to blow up every 5-6 years.

On Loss, Regret, and Being Grateful

A year ago in June I learned of the passing of one of my chemistry professors in January, a brilliant organic chemist.  His classes were so well-taught I still have the notebooks from 1996.  I still contend that his notes were the best textbook I have ever had.  He would come into class with a 3" x 5" note card with a few lines written on it, pull it out of his pocket, look at it, and back into the pocket the card would go, never to be seen again.  This is the professor who taught me to take notes in color, who once mathematically proved there is such a thing as a no-brainer.  

Just this past week, I learned of the death of another of my chemistry professors.  This one I didn't care for as much, but I liked him as an individual.  His office was across from my research lab, and I grew to appreciate him though I had a hard time understanding his lectures.  He died three weeks after I learned of my organic chem professor's death.  This professor's death hit me rather hard.   Perhaps it was because of the other recent deaths in my family.  Perhaps it was because it was a year before I heard.  Perhaps the fact he was on hospice with the same group as my aunt didn't help, either.  

I realize it has been twenty-one years since I graduated with a BS in Chemistry, but it still hit hard to hear of their deaths.  It also brought to mind an event from some twenty-two years ago.  I was in my physical chemistry professor's office trying to understand something and failing miserably, and in frustration I muttered, "I'm just too dumb to understand this."  I received a several minute lecture from him about how I was only too tired, not dumb, and I shouldn't have to work so hard while a student.  I still remember that tirade today, and it still inspires me today.  Yet I neither thanked him nor told him how that speech has followed me through some dark times.  Until now.  This past week, I wrote to him and thanked him for that speech all those years ago.  Shock of shocks he remembered me, called me an "excellent student", and reiterated that he still felt the same as he did back then.  

Do not wait to tell someone how much they mean to you, or thank someone who has influenced you in your life.  You may not get the chance.

Oakland University's motto is "Seguir virtute e canoscenza", 'seek virtue and knowledge'.  It is from Dante's Inferno.  No matter the degree, it is an apt motto for higher education.  Life will throw many obstacles in one's way.  I could write a book about mine, about those individuals, even at Oakland University, who told me I "wouldn't be hireable".  Today, twenty-one years later, I use my degree every day.  I use classes I never thought I would use, which were not related to my degree.   I am not paid one red cent for using my degree, but I have retained my honor.  In my research in my garden, I answer to myself and not a corporation.  I have no reason to lie to myself.  I also continue to seek knowledge.  I have continued to read, my current book being Crime and Punishment until John Coykendall's book Preserving Our Roots: My Journey to Save Seeds and Stories is released this fall.   Higher education isn't about how much money one makes;  It is about improving oneself.   And honestly, I do not know if I would be where I am today, if a physical chemistry distinguished professor hadn't snapped when I called myself dumb.