As I mentioned last year, we wanted to replace our back porch, which was beyond repair. We tried contracting with someone two years ago to work on a more ambitious project, but it didn’t pan out.
In July 2024, we learned that the insurance company covering our home and auto would be going out of business. Suddenly, we needed to get new coverage. We also knew that, because of the condition of the back porch, we needed it replaced ASAP. Otherwise, we would never get an insurance policy approved.
We had contracted with someone to work on this, and he said he’d get to it in August, but he didn’t get started until October, which made us very anxious. It’s very hard for people to work on our back porch because we have no driveway. So he had to try to park his vehicle on our front lawn before the school traffic made it impossible. One of his workers had injured himself in the weeks before he started working on our project, so it was a one-person job.
Phase 2
Then, we had to get the city to say it looked OK. Finally, we could contact an insurance company to ask them to look at the house. “Please insure our house and our car.”
It was tedious because the new insurance company seemed to need bits and pieces of information. What is my non-driver’s ID number? What is my daughter’s driver’s permit number? When were they issued, and when did they expire? Then, the expected questions, such as our bank account number, so we could get the money pulled out.
Finally, on December 26th, five days before the old policy expired, the new documents arrived at our house. They are full of words that make my eyes glaze over. The new policy costs about 30% more than the previous one, and the deductible is greater, but I guess this is what you need to own a house in America. Because I had never owned a house until I married, and it had been hers before that, this is an area I know surprisingly little about.
Phase 3
The new insurance was supposed to be paid automatically through our bank, but for some reason, it didn’t work out. They threatened to cancel the new policy, but paying the money was swift.
They seemed more annoyed that they wanted all these photos of our dwelling, something my wife worked on before we applied for the policy. Somehow, they didn’t get the info from the intake person to the person writing up the policies, so we seemed to be out of compliance with their process.
As a result, my wife spent four hours taking photos of under our bathroom sinks, under the kitchen sink, the pipes downstairs, and whatnot. Finally, we got our insurance reinstated as long as we signed an agreement to get rid of some moss on our roof—not the primary roof but the roof over our porch, which we couldn’t do in February. They insisted that we get a contractor to agree to remediate this problem whether the weather improves. What a royal pain.
My wife and I saw two musicals in six days at Proctors Theatre in Schenectady: Come From Away and Shucked. We have been waiting to see Come From Away for half a decade. Our subscription had us attending the show in September 2020, which obviously did not happen.
For the past few weeks, I have received these wonderful missives from Bethlehem Indivisible labeled Today’s Actions. As a citizen who’s lived long enough to know voter suppression when I see it, the first item is particularly meaningful to me.
It’s always helpful to know one’s strengths and weaknesses. One of my weaknesses is that I am no good at April Fools. Every April first, I think about writing something humorous. I’ve thrown up some groan-worthy jokes, but creating a fictitious narrative? I got nothing.