Unexpected Repairs

There is a reason why we retirement geezers find our fondness to our homes and communities fraying as we age.  In my home, I work at my desk and sit in my recliner next to the desk essentially daily, watch the big screen TV most days, though my interest has been waning.  I use about half the bedroom and the adjacent bathroom.  In the living room I recline on the couch.  Fleishig is eaten at the dining room table.  The Family Room has a nook for my treadmill, to which I have been faithful to a set schedule.  I do my laundry when it needs to be done, use the powder room when I am downstairs, and regard my upgraded kitchen as a destination.  Parts of the house that I don't use comprises a lot more floor space.  Could duplicate all with 2 bedroom condo, though a little tight with a mobile home.  Stuff not used goes to yard sale.  I'm not the first senior to think of this.  And then there is where.  I like where I am.  State of Delaware may need to rename itself from The First State to Conscience of America as our voting pattern was one of the few to reflect concern for Derech Eretz and kindness in a meaningful way.  But having driven through Trump pockets of three states this month, there is something appealing about their spread out nature with space between neighbors. Rhetoric about protecting us from those neighbors, or from the people like me from elsewhere has less appeal.

But changing housing and location by seniors also suggests that time to be Lord of the Manor has come and gone.  I have a nice yard, but it wouldn't be a nice yard without a lawn service.  I do the garden myself, never taking a disappointing harvest that could have been improved with better attentiveness as a personal failure.  But as my FB friends nudge themselves to city condos or planned 55+ communities, it seems less about space and more about divesting themselves of maintenance responsibilities.

Got an unexpected jolt of kitchen maintenance last night.  To manage a Kosher kitchen amid my interest in using the kitchen, I needed more easily accessible storage space than my cabinets had available.  Many years ago I found a pair of wire grids at a small department store, long since defunct, and installed them on a dominant wall.  Using S-hooks one became fleishig, the other milchig. It remained static and trouble free for decades.  When I remodelled the kitchen I took them down to enable new wallpaper, but the brackets back in the original holes and reattached the grids.  It took minutes.  Suddenly my wife comes upstairs late at night to inform me that the fleishig side had collapsed, scattering pots and pans everywhere.  On inspection, there was surprisingly little serious damage.  One of the screws holding the upper left bracket had dislodged.  I figured an easy repair, just insert a plastic anchor and screw the bracket back on.  However, the plastic anchor did not go into the hole evenly.  When I tried to hammer it in a little farther the bracket that held the grid snapped so I would need new brackets.  Finding one proved impossible, both at local big box and hardware stores and and online.  Instead I got a new set, one with premade drywall anchors and installed those, but in order to do that I had to hunt my basement for a drill and a 0.25 inch bit.  Not as easy as it looks but done and should be adequately secure.

And it's leaf time.  The bane of my existence in my young parent years.  Delegated in my empty nester years.  Need to clean gutters too.  Reputable contractor came, gave an estimate for about twice what I think it should cost.  Thanked him for coming by then got more estimates, settling on one from somebody we hire for other outdoor things for $200 less.  

And there is all that stuff that will one day find its way to a clean-out service which parcels some to an auctioneer for the estate sale, the rest to landfill, and the structure to a realtor, all to do what may have been better to do myself while I still had the vitality to do it.

The rack has been rehung.  Not exactly what it was before but serviceable.  There is some cleanup in its wake to restore the kitchen to its previous function.  Just need to set my timer to the estimated time needed and do it. 

The question of setting an endpoint for these responsibilities drifts along, to be reconsidered at the next event.