NPR has an audio commentary by Jean Shepherd, the author and narrator of A Christmas Story, on his experience at the March on Washington forty years ago.
Yesterday Jen spent the entire day at the house unpacking boxes, washing dishes (yes, we have no dishwasher, one of the things besides CAC that I’ll miss about 620) and making the kitchen liveable. Luckily, the kitchen has a relatively fresh coat of white paint, so it’s sunny and bright in there. The fridge is a smaller apartment-type version, but it holds a remarkable amount of stuff, and it’s pretty new. Plus, it has an icemaker—something we didn’t have in either of our previous houses. It looks great in there so far.
Meanwhile, BG&E was at the house all day ripping out two fuse panels (one for the house and one for the doctor’s office) and consolidating them into one brand-new 220 panel, which makes me feel about a million times better. We had a wonderful fellow named Ben knee-deep in old wiring and 60’s-era Stab-Lok fuses (a competitor to the modern fuse system, long since defunct, and notoriously tempermental) until 8:30 last night. They’re coming back tonight to finish consolidating the meters and mark the panel (and they’ll need some serious help with that, let me tell you.)
As for the phone, the good doctor had four lines coming in to the house; we know that one was the house line, one was the fax, and the other two were business. There’s a mixture of four-prong Bell Systems era boxes, some new RJ-11 jacks, and other mystery equipment scattered around the house, as well as a couple of narrow steel telecom boxes for splitting off the lines in front and back. We had no dialtone in the house until I found the two most modern interface boxes and tried the fax line—naturally, the phone company activated the line used least in the house. So there’s phone service… in the basement. Verizon wants $90 for installation of the first jack and $50 for each additional; I’m going to visit the Home Depot and spend that $50 on some new jacks, 100′ of wire, and an analog phone, and try to get a dialtone in the kitchen tonight. DSL is due to be installed next week, so I have to make some arrangements to get a wire and plug to the dining room, where we’re temporarily setting up the office.
As for me, I’m feeling better about this thing than I was yesterday; there are still moments of outright panic (last night, on my way to the bathroom, the first conscious thought I had was, What the hell have I done?) but I find that when I think of each individual problem separately and not as a whole thundering herd of pain bearing down on us, it feels better. The house hasn’t fallen down yet, it’s in relatively good shape, and it was made well. It will wait for us to get to each issue, one at a time.
And I have to think of all the good things that have happened so far, all the omens pointing to a happy future, and all the bits of luck we’ve had so far—they are many, and appreciated. Great friends, lucky breaks, good neighbors, fantastic help, and small miracles.