The Other Don Kelly

I busted out the “to-do list” thing again, mainly just writing my lists into a text file and checking off the items as I go. That gets me through the more energetic part of the day — one morning I cleaned the bathroom and the brewing equipment, another day I did the bills and similar, and today I did a bit of overdue yardwork before lunch — leaving me a more guilt-free evening for computer play. (We’ve been running and lifting when we get up, so that’s already covered.)

Anyway, today’s chore was yardwork: there were a bunch of wildflowers — weeds, really — in the front yard that needed to be cut down. I went out to deal with them, and it was freezing out. Two minutes into the job and it’s blowing a hard bitter bluster, and another five minutes brought snow, which started as flurries but soon looked like a real snowstorm coming down, or rather sideways, in all that wind. Cutting the wildflowers was barely a half-hour’s work, and I much prefer cooler weather for outdoor work, but this was brutal, and as soon as I was done the snow stopped.

The rest of the day was spent indoors, guilt-free.

Just checking in. I’ve been a bit depressed about the election, and haven’t had much to say — I haven’t done much since then either, so there isn’t much to say — but but it’s time to start putting things back to normal in my life, our lives, so here goes…

Thanksgiving was awesome, if a bit overwhelming. Thursday was a bit quiet, just a small meal with Anne and me, and Ben who was up from Philly for the week (though we did stop at John & Donna’s place for a late dessert), because Friday was our day to get together with Anne’s family, at her mom’s place in Jim Thorpe.  Us, and  Ben, and all five of Anne’s siblings and their spouses, plus a good chunk of the grandchildren (Ben’s generation) and their spouses, and even a bunch of great-grandchildren running about. We ate, hung out and BS’ed, watched said kids run about… Fun, but a very tiring day.

We brewed on Saturday, making an oatmeal stout with the help of Peter C, another one of the “Quaker kids” who grew up with Emmi and Ben, who’d brewed before but only with malt extracts, and wanted to see how it was done using grain. (A Cornell grad and budding farmer, Peter’s unconventional but very sharp, and surprisingly pleasant to be around — but then he did let me mansplain the brewing process.) We also tapped our rye IPA that we’d made a few weeks before (verdict: delicious), and Anne also did some baking, something that had become pretty much a constant the entire past week, what with Ben home, and Thanksgiving treats to make, and us all being homebodies while the beer brewed… I had no complaints!

Bicycling: Not much going on there, but I did ride Sals with Doug on Sunday. Not much to say except that the both of us were pretty well matched in terms of being out of shape, and we did a few of the less used trails — we visited the old YCC pavilion, which had burned down years ago, but apparently had been rebuilt long enough ago to have sustained damage from a falling tree — and spent a lot of time catching up.

So that was last weekend. Other recent events included a recent trip to Bonn Place, seeing that movie Moonlight at SteelStacks, helping Josh B bottle about 42 cases of beer at Two Rivers last Tuesday, and seeing our friends Ed and Ann last night. We may stop in at Two Rivers tonight, since it’s Bacon Night — I have only a vague notion what that might mean — and some of the home-brew crowd might be there. Life goes on.

Just thought I’d check in with a Subaru update: the engine is shot, there’s nothing short of a new engine that can fix it and a new engine is not worth doing, so I’m scrapping the car. The towing company will actually donate it to a local (Saranac Lake) fire company, and I get a tax write-off — I just have to wait for my new, duplicate title to come from Harrisburg since I lost the original, probably years ago.

Anne and I were talking about cutting back to having only one car between us, so for now we will not be replacing the Outback, though our original plan was to get rid of her aging Mazda and keep the Outback, so our situation is a bit fluid, and we may end up getting a replacement for the Mazda in the foreseeable, though probably not the immediate, future.

The question then becomes: what kind of new car? I have had an Outback for about 18 years at this point; the first one lasted 10 years and almost 200,000 miles, while the second did eight years and only 170,000 miles. I suppose I’d consider another Subaru if we could find a used one for a decent price — it still is pretty much the only game in town if you want a 4-wheel-drive station wagon — but the problems I had with the second one were depressingly familiar, almost at the exact same mileage as the first, and though I know every old car will have problems — and I have trouble imagining myself in something that isn’t a 4WD station wagon — I think I’m a little tired of Subaru right now. I guess we have to do a bit of research.

Today was the last day of our Adirondacks vacation with Anne’s family; we got up early this morning, cleaned the cabin, said our goodbyes and took off in the rain, the only rainy day of the trip. We (Anne and I) got as far as Ray Brook NY, midway between Saranac Lake and Lake Placid — in other words, we’d just barely started our homeward journey — when the car made a “clunk” sound and died. I had just enough presence of mind, and momentum, to pull into a parking space on the side of the road, in what turned out to be the local Post Office.

Long story short: my timing belt snapped, and there was no oil in the car. I have no idea which came first but both are bad, like possibly “car needs a new engine, which really means I need a new car” bad. We’ll find out Monday, when we also are going to rent a car in Plattsburgh, so we’re here in Saranac Lake until then.

Fourth of July, third day of vacation, a bit of a mellow day after yesterday’s hike. Anne and I got up early and went kayaking with Lorraine, Laura and Marie, and we might do a short walk on our dirt road soon, but we just finished lunch and the ladies are carding and spinning wool, and I’m just sitting here watching the lake and trying not to nap…