Just hangin' around for the holiday....

[captainsblog]

Fortunately, not like this:



We've put off having our front gutter cleaned out in awhile. To the point where the front steps were icing up all winter from overflow from it, and where, in now warmer climate, we were getting full-blown trees sprouting up there. So Eleanor wrote a note to herself to get them cleaned when she got home from work today....

which note, sadly, was intercepted by an unsafe-at-any-speed husband;)

I hauled out a non-extension ladder to take a peek, and saw the extent of the detritis. After rooting (literally) through several handfuls of gunk, I had my first Scathingly Brilliant Idea of the day: Hymie.

Named for the robot agent in Get Smart, Hymie is our shop-vac, who bails out our cellar in its biennial sewage backups and does other occasional yeoman's service.  But today was the first time he rose this high. I planted him atop a garbage can, hauled his tentacle up to the top of the ladder, and let him suck merrily away. He got most of the flora (if not all of the dirt and the rather annoyed antfarm) across most of the front of the house, save a spot near the front steps I didn't feel comfortable going up a ladder without someone riding shotgun on me.  Still, I felt accomplished at the end- enough to post this on Facebook earlier:

Just finished cleaning out our front gutters. Alone. (Eleanor's at work, boo.) Using a kludge right out of "There I Fixed It" to expedite the process. AND, did it on a national holiday, which for us typically ends not with fireworks but with an emergency medical bill. Best of all, here I am, safe and sound, to post about it. TAKE THAT, INVISIBLE SKY WIZAR....



Fortunately, Sky Wiz never retaliated- not even after Eleanor came home and we took turns using an even dicier extension ladder to finish the cleanout and also hammer the loosey-goosey-guttery back into place along the front of the house. 

----

Ideas were still coming, though, even though I avoided falling on my noggin.

We learned last night that Emily did not get the Palmyra apartment she'd initially checked out. I got a series of texts, and a semi-panicked phone call, during my workout class last night. First, it turned out, the landlord was bringing several people through at once; next, they learned that the advertised apartment had already been rented, but let me show y'all this OTHER one we have! It didn't have nearly the same views and ventilation as the one they'd seen pictures of, was quite a bit more expensive, and had bird poop all over the front door.

I asked her, never mind the competition, never mind the cost; do you like it?

Erm, no.

So they were on to other possibilities seen on the street and through Craigslist, until I had Scathingly Brilliant Theory Number Two of the day later today.

Their current landlord on Rochester's western edge (Palmyra is 20-odd miles east) is a big company with lots of complexes. I googled them and got a state map, with lots of dots in Rochester's county and one lone one in Wayne County to the east.  I clicked it; it's smack dab IN Palmyra; not a six-minute walk to work like Tippi Hedren Estates was, but when Em checked it out, it looks like not much more than fifteen minutes on feets.  Plus, they probably don't need to go through as much vetting since the landlord company already knows them; it's big enough that they probably always have vacancies (she confirmed that their current complex almost always has a FOR RENT sign out front); and they might even be able to coordinate move dates and some of their deposit monies if their current place is a more desirable commodity than one they'd be taking out there.

So she's going to check it on Monday, in addition to their other explorations.  Her first two days of work went well enough that she thinks it's going to be a good fit, so this may work out well as shop-vacc'ing a gutter.

Comments

[symian.livejournal.com]

Working on the holiday! Me too. *rolls eyes*

I never seem to just relax.