Four men and their ladders

#1 - Art

My husband Art stopped smoking before I met him in 1992. I asked him how he'd managed to do it, and he said, "It's as easy as falling off a ladder." Apparently he'd broken two ribs when he fell at some point, and it hurt too much to breathe, so he had to give up smoking.

This summer we remodeled the daylight basement of our home in Brier. Art did all of the wiring and electrical work. He was there three times: for five weeks in June, a week in July and three weeks in September. He spent a lot of time on ladders, leaning and twisting and reaching upwards and through.

Art did a phenomenal job on the project, but it was too much for his back. He has spinal stenosis anyway, but his nerves and muscles got inflamed, and he developed sciatica and muscle cramps in his legs. By September he was walking hunched over at nearly 90 degrees because that position lessened his pain. He saw a physical therapist three times, and got a lower lumbar injection which helped somewhat on his left side. 

We returned to Tucson on October 31. About a week later he got a call from the Washington clinic where he'd gotten the lumbar injection, asking how he was doing. He said he was feeling better. They asked if he wanted to get a second shot. He said no. 

A week after the phone call, the shower curtain rod in our tiny Tucson bathroom fell down. Art, ever the handyman, wanted to remount it. He stood for 45 minutes, left foot on the toilet seat and right foot on a chair, while he twisted and stretched upward. Eventually he gave up, in too much pain to continue. It turned out that a small piece of the rod had broken off where it attaches to the wall. I went to a nearby store and bought a new one for $8.99, and our across-the-street neighbor, Mike, came over and put it up in about ten minutes.

It's been a month since then. Art has seen the physical therapist in Tucson and has more exercises to do. He has begun water walking three times a week. He has a cane, a pair of walking poles and walker. His doctor says the walking poles would be the best to use, as it would support him standing up, but he prefers the cane and the walker for some reason. He's been prescribed a couple of medications but they haven't given him the relief he needs.

We are researching a second lumbar spine injection, but his insurance won't cover the procedure here in Tucson until January 1. Otherwise we'll pay cash as soon as we find a doctor here who is available.

All this, and he didn't even fall off a ladder!

#2:  Dick

Dick and JoAnne are friends here in Tucson in our retirement community. One day last month JoAnne went into town to play golf with a few friends. Afterwards they stopped for breakfast at a favorite eatery. Just as the food arrived JoAnne got a call from a neighbor. At home, Dick had decided to put battery-operated lights above the kitchen cupboards. As he was descending on the stepladder, he fell and broke his leg near the hip. He knew he needed to get help. The closest door was in the living room, but there was carpeting, and he knew it would be tough to drag himself across the carpet. So he headed for the kitchen door across the flooring. The door was locked but he managed to get it open and shout for help. A neighbor heard him, an ambulance was called, and he was taken to the hospital. The ambulance had just pulled away when JoAnne got the call. The neighbor wasn't sure which hospital Dick had been taken to. Eventually Dick was located. After surgery to repair the break, and a few days in the hospital - where JoAnne couldn't visit him because of the coronavirus, Dick went to rehab. He is home now, using a walker until his leg heals and he regains his strength. 

Last night four couples gathered for dinner, masked and social distancing. Two of them were Art and Dick, both on walkers.

#3: John

John and Joan are Tucson friends living across town. Last week, John decided to put up the outside Christmas lights. For the first batch, he asked Joan to hold the ladder while he climbed it. Afterwards, Joan didn't realize John had more work to do on the lights, so she went inside. John went back up the ladder. The ladder collapsed and John was left hanging on the tree branches. When he dropped to the ground he sprained his ankle. Apparently John made one more attempt. This time the ladder fell over sideways, and John fell across the ladder on the ground, resulting in multiple bruises.

#4: Al

Al and Bonnie live in our Tucson retirement community. Al's mishap happened some time ago, but I just found out about it this morning.

Al decided to climb a ladder to the roof of the couple's park model mobile home. Bonnie says she didn't know why he needed to go up there, but Al was insistent. The ladder didn't reach all the way to the roof, but on the ascent Al had no trouble reaching it. It was when he was coming down that he got into trouble. He couldn't get onto the ladder from the roof, so Bonnie had to call security to give him a hand. She said Al was pretty embarrassed!

I'm not going to talk about Art and the tree stories. Maybe another time.

Trash talk

My husband Art and I recycle just about everything. He's been known to go through the kitchen trash can in search of items that I've neglected to recycle. One of his endearing qualities, I guess.

At our family home in Brier, Washington, we've been customers of Waste Management Northwest for decades. We have the largest yard waste bin (green), the largest recycle bin (blue), and the smallest trash bin (gray). Art takes pride in rarely having a full trash bin on Wednesdays, when the Waste Management truck comes by at 7:00 a.m. or so.

For the last year we were in Tucson and one of our sons rented the house. We paid the trash bill each month. Then, in May, we started the remodel of the lower level of the house. Son and family began renting the upstairs only. 

In September the remodel was done. We flew to Seattle to spend a couple of months setting up housekeeping. We ordered what we needed - from Amazon, Bed Bath and Beyond, Overstock, Wayfair and other online places - and the boxes began to arrive. We had a lot of boxes to recycle. A lot. We left them at the bottom of the steep driveway, nested. We knew we could leave them at the curb, broken down next to the recycle bin, which was full of everything else to be recycled. Eventually someone took them to the recycling facility at the Lynnwood dump because it would have taken a month or so to get all those boxes to the curb.

One difference between us and our son is that we recycle everything, and they usually don't. So the gray trash bin was full two days after the truck had come by. Full as in the lid wouldn't close. Full as in the crows got into the topmost trash bag, broke it open, and scattered trash and garbage and broke a bottle when it fell to the ground. 

So I called Waste Management Northwest and explained our problem. The very nice lady said that, for $9 a month, we could have a medium-sized bin for the trash. "Leave the bin out as usual on Wednesday," she said. "Later in the day another truck will come by, take your small bin away and leave a larger one." That was great, I thought. 

The next Wednesday we put out the bins. The gray trash bin got emptied, but no truck came by to leave something larger to replace it. That afternoon I got an email from Waste Management, apologizing for not leaving a new bin, and telling us it would happen the next week, and thanking us for our patience.

The next Wednesday, the same thing happened. No new bin, email of apology, promise of next week.

By this time we were up early on Wednesdays, listening for the trash truck. As soon as we heard it drive off, one of us raced out to the curb in our pajamas with a couple of bags of trash. We had asked our son and his family if they would please recycle what they could, and they said sure. So, of course, the recycle bin was full within three days after pickup. So on our Wednesday races to the curb, we carried all the broken-down boxes to go into the recycling bin.

And the next Wednesday. I finally called Waste Management Northwest and asked what was happening. I got a different lady, who was also very nice. "There is a shortage of bins in the Pacific Northwest," she said. "With Covid, and so many people working from home, they all needed bins, so we ran out. And the manufacturing plants couldn't keep up because so many of the people who worked there were sick."

And then, the next Wednesday - two weeks before the end of our trip to Washington - a larger trash bin arrived at the curb.

You would think that, with one family living upstairs and another one living in the new apartment downstairs, the biggest problem would be sharing the laundry room. But it was easy. We had Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday, and the upstairs people got Monday, Wednesday and Friday. 

We also had to teach Amazon, FedEx, UPS  and the meal delivery services how to find us. Our address on all of them said, "Lower level, right side of house." Apparently the delivery people didn't read the second line of the address. At least twice a week, one of the upstairs people came down with something that had been delivered to their front door. They were good sports about it.

But I'm thinking they were mighty glad when we got on the airplane for Tucson!

Amazon is my friend, I guess.

The remodel of the lower level of our home is complete, and now we are setting up housekeeping. We're frequent flyers on Amazon these days. Here's what we've ordered for our new place.

7/29 - 8 flush-mount ceiling lights. Operate on dimmer switches. Wonderful light for dark days.

7/30 - Armarket cat bed - exactly like Larisa's bed in Tucson. So far she has not slept in it at all.

8/7 - Aposen cordless vacuum cleaner. Like the one in Tucson, it's easy to clean the vinyl plank flooring.

8/13 - Keurig classic coffeemaker

8/15 - Cuisinart cast-iron double burner - because the municipal code in our small city doesn't allow two dwellings in a single structure on a property with less than 20,000 square feet, and "kitchen" is defined as a range with a vent. So we have a wet bar with everything else.

8/15 - KitchenAid dual convection counter toaster oven

8/19 - Heavy duty clothing garment rack. No closet in the tiny bedroom, we hang clothes on this rack in the bathroom.

8/22 - Bed sheet set. We had to buy a new queen bed, since the two queens we had are in use by our tenants upstairs. We've rehomed a double and two twin beds.

8/22 - Fitted mattress pad, queen

8/22 - Lightweight quilt coverlet, oversized queen

8 /22 - Set of two pillows

9/9 - Bi-fold fitness mat - for physical therapy exercises over vinyl plank floors.

9/13 - Waterproof wireless doorbell kit - for new downstairs entrance

9/21 - 3-piece set of kitchen cutting boards

9/22 - digital bathroom scale

9/22 - Set of four woven storage boxes, teal. In an attempt to keep desktop and tabletop clutter corraled

9/22 - Power cord cable for downstairs TV - tenants are using the old one upstairs

9/22 - AC/DC adapter for CPAP cleaner; I brought my smaller machine along

9/24 - Commercial plastic cutting board - the other three are "too small"

9/26 - Noise-reduction headphones for TV watching when the other person is reading close by

9/26 - Toilet brush set. A brush in a plastic container won't cut it for a new bathroom layout

9/28 - iPhone case for the new, larger phone that replaced the one I dropped in the toilet

9/30 - 16-piece set of drinking glasses

9/30 - 36-piece kitchen utensil set

9/30 - 45-piece flatwear cutlery set

9/30 - Set of six porcelain salad pasta bowls

10/1 - Five decorative glass bowls, teal - to warm up the room

10/1 - Tissue box cover - new bathroom 

10/2 - Cuisinart 6-piece steak knife set

10/4 - Expanding file folder, teal - setting up the desk

10/4 - Pen holder, teal

10/7 - Two more sets of woven storage boxes, teal. They appear to be working to contain the clutter.

10/10 - Electric stapler.

10/10 - Box of standard staples

10/11 - Two oil-filled electric radiator heaters

And from other stores:

1 8x10 rug for living room

1 sofa-back table

2 end tables

1 TV console

1 dresser

1 nightstand

1 bookshelf

On order:

1 small dining room table and four chairs

1 sleeper sofa with matching loveseat

1 5x8 rug for entryway

1 coffee table with lifting surface

I have never spent money like this in my life. We're like not-starting-out-poor newlyweds.

It is nearly finished, I think. And in two weeks we return to Tucson, leaving this nice little apartment vacant for six months. Probably. Maybe. Who knows?

The Room Where It Happened

We've remodeled the lower level of our family home in Brier, Washington, a northern suburb of Seattle. We want to live more simply now, with less space and no stairs. Our son James did all of the work except the electrical, and my husband Art did that part, in two trips from Tucson during the summer.

My requirement was "light and bright and warm and welcoming." And minimalist. Art's requirement was a functional kitchen. Actually, it's against the Brier municipal code to have a "kitchen", which is defined to include a stove and venting. So instead we have a "wet bar", with a countertop oven/toaster, a two-burner hot plate and a microwave. Everything else in the room looks just like a kitchen.

The footprint of the room hasn't changed from before the remodel. We divided up a larger guest room into the wet bar and a smaller bedroom, and enlarged the bathroom slightly while making the laundry room a bit smaller. We share the laundry room with the tenants upstairs - currently our son Jason and his family.

Here's how it went. I struggled with the photos, so there are a few out of place and one duplicate.

Art's design

Demolition

Framing

Framing the kitchen

Moving the door, adding a slider


New slider

Electrical

Wiring for the kitchen and new bedroom

Dimming lights

Tearing out the old vanity

New bathroom vanity

 

Kitchen cabinets

Flooring going in



Barn door to bedroom

Small bedroom




Waiting for kitchen countertops

Completed kitchen

The apartment deck

Joining the new deck to the old

Now we're settling in to the room where it happened. We have a lot of work still: buying what we need, letting go of years of things now stored in the garage. But it is our own place, with no stairs. Just right for who we are now - from May to October.

Grateful, grateful!

A bazillion little things

It's been over 100 degrees every day for the last month here in Tucson. Once I ride eight miles on my e-bike in the early morning, I'm mostly indoors with gratitude for A/C.

It may look like I'm just sitting in my recliner with my laptop. But I'm really doing a bazillion little things.

We are remodeling the daylight basement of our family home in Brier, a Seattle suburb. Last summer I found it was difficult and sometimes painful to carry the laundry basket down the stairs with dirty clothes, and carry it back up with clean, folded ones. Aging hip and knee, you know. It was time for single-story living. Since we split our year between Tucson and Brier, it wasn't practical to lease a condo or to buy anything. So we decided to create a one-bedroom space downstairs, with a wet bar (municipal code doesn't permit a stove, because that would define an "accessory dwelling unit," not allowable in our small city unless the lot size is 20,000 square feet. Which ours is not).

The project is nearly complete, and we'll return to Washington next week to settle in and do another massive downsizing. We'll be living in 780 square feet - larger than our 620-square-foot place in Tucson. And one of our kids will live upstairs with his family.

There have been a bazillion little things. My husband Art came up with the design with my input. My contractor son James agreed to do the work, except for the electrical which Art would be responsible for.

How do we create a light and bright space? By moving windows and adding a sliding glass door to replace a regular one. By installing ceiling lights on a dimmer.

How do we add a food space? By dividing a regular bedroom into a very small bedroom and a small kitchenette.

How do we want the kitchen to look? Several hours spent at Home Depot, choosing cabinets. Art is the kitchen person, and he wanted a lot of cabinet space and adequate counter space. He wanted an under-cabinet microwave, a dishwasher and a garbage disposal (both of which I do without in Tucson).

Should we keep the 40-year-old vanity in the bathroom or change it out for something contemporary? Art wanted to keep it since it was still functional, but James told him it would cost more money to restore it than to replace it, so that's what we did.

And so on. Paint colors, flooring (we chose vinyl planking), where to put the cable for TV and internet, what to buy from Amazon, Overstock, Wayfair, Home Depot and Lowes, and what to scrounge from stuff stored in the garage.

I thought I was doing well with the bazillion little details - several hours a day online to buy what we would need: microwave, Keurig coffeemaker, countertop convection oven/toaster, countertop double-burner to replace the not-allowed stovetop, rolling laundry hamper, ceiling lights. I had to create a new address for our Brier place: Jason Myers (our oldest son, living upstairs with his family) for Art. Otherwise, the smaller items might have been forwarded to us here in Tucson, or sent back to the source.

I was feeling pretty proud of myself for managing this project 1200 miles to the north, making sure everything was taken care of and ready when it was needed.

Then, yesterday, I talked to my auto insurance carrier. I'd called to take the Ranger, currently in Brier, out of storage, and to put the Accord and the Prius, currently here in Tucson, in storage. I do that when we move back and forth, to save money on insurance. Art had flown to Seattle on May 22 to launch the remodel, returning to Tucson on June 23. The insurance person said to me yesterday, "I show the Prius has been in storage since May 22." Oh, my gosh. I had forgotten to take the Prius out of storage when Art returned to Tucson in June. So he has been driving around without insurance for THREE MONTHS! 

My friend Ellen told me this morning that it's because I'm getting older. I don't like that explanation. I think it's because, if I'm responsible for a billion little details, I will probably make one mistake.

I hope my opinion is the correct one!

The hula hoop saga and the wedding shirt

One July morning in 1997, Art and I decided to get a marriage license. We had been together for five years. We'd already combined most of our individual resources anyway, and were parenting - full time or part time - most of the children each of us had from our first marriages.

Our minister friend Chuck Davis agreed to marry us. He suggested we create some kind of ritual for the informal service. We came up with the idea of decorating a hula hoop and standing within it as we said our vows. I'm not the least creative, but Art's daughters Laura and Melissa wound inch-wide satin ribbon around the hoop and added silk ivy. I went to Michael's and bought a yard each of ribbon in the colors of each of our children's birthstones. 

Two weeks later, we were married on the sailboat of our friends Bob and Sheila Airis. The only others joining us were Chuck and his wife Barbara, and our eight children. 

At the end of the ceremony, each of the kids - Melissa, Jason, Karl, Russell, Laura, James, Peter and Greg - tied their respective ribbons onto the hula hoop. Then they all jumped into Lake Washington for a swim. 

The decorated hula hoop lived in a closet in our basement for 22 years. I'm not a saver by nature, but it seemed callous and irreverent to get rid of it. 

Until one day in May of this year. Art and I had traveled from our winter place in Tucson to Brier, the northern Seattle suburb where we live the rest of the year. We'd decided to remodel our daylight basement to create an apartment for ourselves. It will be light and bright, with no-stairs access to the garage, side garden, and laundry room. Jason and his wife Kalei and our grandson Kaleb have been living in our furnished house this year. Once we decided to remodel, they moved upstairs and put everything of ours that they weren't using on one side of the garage. 

The garage was pretty full when we arrived. Within a couple of days I had sold the office desk and chair, the treadmill, the Bowflex and one of the twin beds. I offered some things for free on the Buy Nothing Brier Facebook page. I took the eight ribbons off the hula hoop and found the shirt Art had worn at our wedding (!). I have an artistic friend in Tucson I thought might create something for our remodeled place.

I set the hula hoop outside the garage. I said, "This may be of interest for a crafter." 

A woman named Zoe responded, "I could use it for a fairy-themed one-year-old birthday backdrop." How delightful!

Zoe picked it up the next day and sent me this picture of how she'd transformed the wedding hoop:

When I flew back to Tucson on June 1, I brought the ribbons and Art's wedding shirt. 

I took them to my friend Connie Remetch. I had no idea what I wanted except for size - about a square foot. I said I'd like to somewhat match the framed wedding announcement that hung on our bedroom wall for those 22 years. Art was still in Washington; he took a picture of the announcement and sent it to me.

Three days later Connie called me. "Come see."

Perfect!

I'll hang the wedding announcement and Connie's beautiful creation on a wall in our new remodeled space. 

I am a fortunate and grateful woman.

Something new and different

We're living in Tucson right now while our Seattle home's basement is being remodeled. We're in the middle of summer; yesterday the high was 113 degrees. I ride my bicycle at 6:00 a.m. when it's already 80 degrees. But I'm okay with the heat as long as the a/c in house and car are working. 

This is normal for Arizona summers, and I wanted to experience one. The night before last we had our first monsoon of the season: wind, dust, a bit of rain and a spectacular electrical storm. 

It's a little harder doing the social distancing thing. We don't have people in our house, and it's too hot to sit outside and talk, and it's too hot to walk. Last night it was 100 degrees at 10 p.m. 

Back in April Johns Hopkins offered a free online course in contact tracing, where you talk to a person diagnosed with covid. They're infectious from two days before they develop symptoms until their symptoms are improving and they haven't had a fever (without tylenol) for three days. So you want to find out who they have been with during that time - especially before they develop symptoms. Then you contact the exposed people and recommend they self-quarantine for two weeks, providing them with access to resources they might need to successfully do that.

I read recently that 240,000 people signed up for the Johns Hopkins course, and 180,000 obtained the certificate of completion. I was one of those people. When I was done I contacted Pima County (where Tucson is) and expressed my interest in being a contact tracer.

I didn't hear anything from the county. And then I watched the number of covid cases soar in June. It was a couple of weeks after the governor opened the bars and restaurants and similar businesses. The young people, released from their lockdown, congregated in those places. And they are the ones who are most commonly experiencing the virus now. The older people, like me, tend to remain at home, knowing their increased risk.

Then today I got an email:

Good afternoon Ms. Myers,

I wanted to reach out to you about your email on April 13, 2020, inquiring about contact tracing.  Thank you for willingness to assist the Pima County community as a Contact Tracer.  At the time of your inquiry we were working on developing a process for contact tracing.  

We have recently contracted with Maximus for contact tracing.  If you are still interested in being a contact tracer then contact FSSHumanCapital@maximus.com  for contact tracing positions.  Once you email expressing interest for a contact tracing position in Pima County/Tucson, Arizona then your application will be moved accordingly through the application process.

Thank you.

Emergency Operations Center

Volunteer Coordinator 2

I wrote to Maximum to express my interest:

In April I applied to Pima County, Arizona to assist with contact tracing. Today I got an email saying they have contracted with you and said I should send you an email.

I completed the Contact Tracing course offered by Johns Hopkins in April. Though not a healthcare professional, I have been a certified mediator, made five trips to Greece in the last four years to volunteer at a refugee camp, managing that camp twice as vacation relief. I spent 20 years working in IT as a business systems analyst. 

I divide my time during the year between Tucson and Seattle. Since this is remote work, I could be useful anywhere I’m needed.

Looking forward to hearing from you. 

I wonder what will happen now that I have said yes one more time.