My wife is retiring from her job

Taxing

The big news is that my wife is retiring from her job as a teacher of English as a New Language at the end of the school year.

You’d think since I retired three years earlier, I would have had time to get used to the idea of her being home too. Well, not exactly. Of course, she’s often home in the summer, though last summer she taught in August.

I was home alone from September 2019 until early March 2020. Then my wife and my daughter were doing the education thing at home for over a year because COVID.

I’ve mentioned this before, but I believe it’s vitally important: early on, she converted the spare bedroom into her office, pretty much at my insistence. Previously, she was teaching from the dining room table, which meant I was invading her teaching space regularly. That was not working AT ALL.

Money

Am I anxious about the economics of her retiring? Er, yes, since she had been making more than I had been – I was grossly underpaid – for a number of years. But she does have a pension and other resources.

It’s impossible to know whether she would have left at this point if COVID hadn’t happened. No doubt, students suffered educationally but, at least as important, socially and emotionally from remote learning.

Now she’s musing on what the next phase of her life will be. I’m hoping that she’ll not take on another job for a time. Recently, she suggested we do “spring cleaning.” I’d be happy just doing something with the boxes and bags that have cluttered the living room and dining room, some since my mother-in-law moved from Oneonta to a place near Albany last summer.

Taxman

It’s our 23rd wedding anniversary today. I’ve determined that there are certain actions that help us to get along. One major one is not trying to decipher her filing system. When we get documents she believes are important, she files them away. And she retrieves them because, for whatever reason, I can almost NEVER find them.

This became an issue when she emailed me that the accountant needed to know how much I made in 2021 from Social Security. She emailed me, “I think those forms are in the tax file folder. Look in the drawer in the kitchen under the toaster for the folder.”

OMG, no, no. I know had received the document, and had promptly put it in her mail drawer. The document was NOT in the folder, which I, remarkably, located.

Now, I was able to find the amount of interest we paid in 2021 on our home equity loan, a paper we had likewise received. But because I’m the one who tends to access the electronic info from our bank’s online system, I could recreate the 1098.

Deductions

I called the accountant and told him I could find the monthly net amount I received, but not the gross. We’d been working with their firm for several years since some debacles my wife and I had in filing on our own. He said that he thought this was the first time he had spoken to me, and it was probably true.

(Prior to being married to her, I NEVER itemized our deductions. I still find it exhausting but it’s important to her, so I keep track electronically of my charitable contributions.)

I always found the title of a Paul Simon compilation album a true path for keeping a marriage intact: Negotiations and Love Songs.

Thanks, dear, for the full-body hugs every night.

Changing up the morning ritual

Quordle

Daily Quordle #51
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I’ve been changing up the morning ritual in the past, lessee, two years. Formerly, I would get up, check the email, and perhaps work on the blog, But at 7 a.m., my wife and I would go downstairs and watch CBS This Morning, now CBS Mornings, to watch “your world in ninety seconds.”

When the headlines were unrelentingly about COVID – the spread of COVID, the death toll of COVID – I sometimes passed on the opportunity to start my day with misery. Presently, I’ve been feeling similarly about Ukraine. I guess I’m more equipped to deal with distress in the evening. Besides, I tend to get enough news from various news outlets during the day.

Instead, I do the daily Wordle. I should note that my wife is MUCH better at this than I am, just as she’s better at Boggle. My daughter is better, too. Wordle has become an odd family bonding experience.

I’ve repeatedly told my wife she’d rule on Wheel of Fortune. We actually have the home game, a consolation prize from when on JEOPARDY! and our comparative scores prove my point. But at least we all still have our Wordle streaks going, unlike some people.

FOUR words

Then I attempt Quordle. The first several times I never got the four words in the nine tries. My mistake was to work it like I played Wordle. I know now to try to expose as many letters by finding three or even four words that hit most of the consonants. I’ve been much more successful.

After wishing my wife goodbye, I go back into the office. The cats want to be fed. I HAD been giving them nourishment at 7 a.m. and 7 p.m. But with the stupid time change, if I attend them at 7 and 7, when we “fall back”, they’d be caterwauling to get food at 6 and 6.

This is just one reason that I’m OK with the idea of changing to permanent Daylight Saving Time, even though it’ll be dark on December mornings. I’ve made my feelings about changing the clocks quite clear here. (I’m essentially agreeing with Marco Rubio; this pains me.)

After finally feeding the felines, I take my blood pressure and my pulse to make sure I’m not dead. THEN I eat. The rest is the usual alternating of email/blogging to music, riding the stationary bike while watching TV (JEOPARDY, 60 Minutes, Finding Your Roots, Trevor Noah, et al), washing the dishes/reading the newspaper to music. This may be altered by a medical appointment, Bible study, grocery shopping, or the eternal “something else,” that unexpected task that sucks up hours in the day.

The cement-like storm

ice floe

ice tire The snow/ice storm of February 3/4 was a serious pain. The local newspaper wrote afterward: “While areas to the north enjoyed fluffy snow, the communities around Albany received a ‘prolific’ dose of sleet that kept the inches [1.6″] down but left residents digging through a heavy, cement-like mixture to clear streets, sidewalks, and cars.”

Th, Feb 3: I need to pass out kudos to the Albany City School District, which had decided to cancel classes for the 4th on the 3rd before 12:45 pm. And not just have a remote day, but no school at all. Perhaps it was the concern for ice disrupting distance learners. At 7 pm, there were only three major school districts that had decided to shut down, but by 10 pm, EVERYONE was on board.

Fri, Feb 4: As the storm bounced back and forth among rain, snow, sleet, and freezing rain, I decided the previous evening that shoveling would be counterproductive. But the dry snowpack covering the ice was all but impenetrable. Two of my neighbors told me the same thing. And it was cold enough to maintain the status quo.

But one neighbor was slowly chopping through the ice on the sidewalk. How is he doing that?

Sat, Feb 5: My neighbor lent me his tools. One was a pole, a little thicker than a broomstick, but it must have weighed 30 pounds. I tried that briefly but it was too much like Mjolnir.

The other tool was much easier to use. It was a shovel, more like a spade, with what looks like the serrated blade of certain knives. It worked well in cutting into the tightly-packed snow, leaving a layer of thick ice that I could treat with rock salt.

Meanwhile, my wife was working on digging out her car. She couldn’t move it – the tires spun – but we figured we could work on it more the next day.

Ice station zebra

Sun, Feb 6: After church, I was determined to finish up the sidewalk. Then I tackled the walkway towards the house.

But before I could finish the walk, my wife called me over to her car, which was parked on the street. The entire driver’s side was caked in ice like waterfalls that had frozen. There was a large puddle/pothole near where she was parked. The water splashed on the vehicle and then froze over. And as bad as it was on the body of the car, the tires on the driver’s side were even worse. I poured some salt around the tires.

My wife called various entities, including the non-emergency police number. That person suggested we call AAA. She had – she’s a member -but they couldn’t help, because… I’m not clear, actually.

Mon, Feb 7: My wife got a ride to work, but took two buses home. Fortunately, she lives with a resident expert on getting around via the CDTA.

The icing of the driver’s side repeated, not quite as severely as the previous day. [The photos were from the second day.] In the afternoon, I broke off the coating on the car. Then I return to chipping more ice, pouring more salt, and cat litter. I was aided by a neighbor, and eventually, my wife, my daughter, and even a total stranger. The neighbor tried to move the vehicle. It’s a four-wheel drive. It looked like a large feline attempting to pounce except that its rear legs were stuck on the ground.

That evening, my wife noticed that her insurance allows for towing, so she got them to send a truck, It kept telling her it was coming soon: 18 minutes, 10 minutes, 5 minutes…12 minutes, and it turned out to be an hour later than we expected. The guy couldn’t use the winch because there wasn’t enough clearance underneath. But he was convinced he could drive the vehicle out of the space. He couldn’t.

Same as it ever was

Tues, Feb 8: The daytime temperatures were getting warmer, which made other people’s sidewalks that would melt and refreeze more treacherous, as my wife, who took the bus to work both ways, could attest.

Meanwhile more digging. The imperative now is that there is alternate-side parking coming up so they can plow the streets to the curb. But despite our efforts, nada. My wife called the parking enforcement, and she left a message to tell them her plight.

Wed, Feb 9: Sure enough, the ice floe that her car was on was even more inaccessible, with the plow pushing even more ice under the car. And my wife got a $50 ticket, although the two folks from the parking authority called to tell me that they would take her situation into “consideration.” I do not know what this means.

My wife took two buses to a mall to get picked up by a colleague so she could go to a conference.

When she got home, pretty much in desperation, she called John, our contractor. He came over with a jackhammer to break up the ice. Then he put down a 50-pound bag of salt.

Free at last

Th, Feb 10: John broke up more ice with the jackhammer. Then he started the car. It sat there spinning for about 90 seconds. I’ve seen this rodeo before. But then it MOVED. But there was nowhere to repark it so when my wife returned from her roundtrip bus commute, she could tell the vehicle had moved to the top of the ice mountain. John came back after the school let out, and reparked.

I’ve lived in Albany for over 40 years, and this may have been the worst one. Twenty-six inches of snow in March 1993? No big deal; just keep shoveling.

Lots of people gave us suggestions for our auto problem throughout. Call AAA (did that). Use cat litter (did that). Our failing was that we didn’t use our jackhammer (which we don’t own) and that we used salt when we needed to use…

SALT!

Meeting my wife; hometown hangouts

Spring Forest Cemetery

Amy is looking forward to hearing my replies to two questions:

Where did you meet your wife? Always wanted to ask that one!

Meeting my wife was not that interesting a story, actually. Now getting back together…

I was going to my former church, the Methodist one, and sang in the choir. I was also chair, at different times, of the Administrative Board and chair of the Council on Ministries, which essentially provided for “planning and implementing a program of nurture, outreach, witness, and resources in the local church.”

When I was COM chair, I recruited her (I think) to be chair of the Membership Committee, even though she was a fairly new member herself. So when my previous relationship went south, we went out for about a year and a half. Then we broke up, for good and understandable reasons.

But we were still friends, even though we went out with other people. I even attended an intense 34-week Bible study called Disciple at her house in 1996-97. that was the last time I read the Bible all the way through, BTW.

It was a strange time. I was in her brother’s wedding in September 1996. Eventually, around August 1998, I decided that we should get back together, though she was apparently unaware of this until October 1998, when I kissed her; I think we were at Five Rivers.

Apparently, she had sought the opinions of her family that she should get back with me. And right after my win on JEOPARDY, we did. And since we were, er, older, we got married six months later, with her late brother John, who had always been a Fan of Roger, in the wedding party.

In my hometown

Also, what were your favorite places to go to in Binghamton when you were a kid?

Spring Forest Cemetery was very close to my grandma Williams’ house and only a block from my K-9 school. Sometimes, we would go sledding there, on the roads, not near the headstones, thank you.

And cutting through the cemetery was the shortest way to Ansco field, where we played baseball. I loved baseball, but I wasn’t that good at it. I didn’t even get to be almost competent until I was in college. As I mentioned, Valley Street Park and miniature golf were very near my home.

Movies! I went mostly to the Ritz on Clinton Street, and the Strand and Riviera on Chenango Street, very close to where my mom worked, at McLean’s department store. Occasionally, the Crest on Main Street. BTW, these are all defunct.

Museum of Natural History

day trip to NYC

Natural history Museum My daughter wanted to visit the Museum of Natural History before she started her summer job. So we, including my wife, did.

I’m not crazy about day trips to New York City, which is too much a compression of time. But what tipped the scales for me to go is that my daughter’s beau, Tee, had never been on a train. In fact, he’d never been to The Big Apple, only 150 miles away.

I tied ordering the tickets online. But the Amtrak site, which I’ve successfully navigated several times before was cranky. So I ordered by phone, which involved leaving my phone number until I got an automated call 90 minutes later. I was able to finish the transaction EXCEPT that they were to call me back in “15 minutes” to get my email. They needed to send me not just the tickets but information about COVID protocols, such as wearing a mask in the station and on the train.

OK. This trip meant getting up at 5 a.m. That’s five in the morning, not my natural habitat. Check my blood pressure, then feed the cats earlier than they were expecting; felines, it’d better last you for a while. Pick up Tee, go to the train station, which is not in Albany, but in Rensselaer, just across the river.

The train station is decent, WAY better than the hovel that existed on the site little over a decade ago. As for the trip between Rensselaer and NYC, this article, which I happened to get in my email after the trip. “Winding its way along the pretty Hudson Valley, you’ll appreciate why so many people choose to commute to Manhattan rather than live in the city.” It is a lovely trip, the only civilized way to go to Manhattan.

Oh, the OTHER station

We arrived at Penn Station. Apparently, the brand-new Moynihan Train Hall was across the street, but we never saw it on this trip. For sure next time.

Walking up to Times Square, some vendor guy, unsolicited, put a bracelet on my daughter’s wrist, then wanted her to give him $5 for it. This was a good lesson in negotiating the fact that she did NOT have to buy something just because a stranger foisted on her. A few minutes later, she and Tee were talking at the location where we believe the ball drops on New Year’s Eve.

We take the B train to the Museum of Natural History, west of Central Park. I’m quite good at the subway, even though I use it infrequently. My wife had made a reservation for a noon entry, and we got there at 11:30. It was already a long line when many of us were directed to an alternate entrance because that line was “full.”

We’re in line for nearly an hour, wearing masks. Those zigzag lines give one the false impression that you’re closer than you are. Here’s the really weird thing, though: even people with both a reservation and paid-for tickets STILL had to stand in this interminable line to get a physical ticket.

There were lots of cool displays, though some required an additional fee. We did see the North American mammals, dinosaur fossils, and the forests. The Teddy Roosevelt display is recontextualizing the role the 26th President played in the environment and the culture.

The large whale had a band-aid, maybe a reflection of the COVID vaccine campaign taking place while we were there.

Le deluge

The others in my party decided to return to Times Square. But I headed directly to 34th Street to get back to Penn Station. I’m only two avenue blocks away when I got caught in the pouring rain. The umbrella I had kept in my backpack was of little use. Then the lightning started.

Fortunately, at 34th and 7th, I could go into the entrance for the LIRR, Long Island Railroad. The walk is just as long, but it’s drier. Eventually, I meet up with the others, and we returned home.

The trip back took longer because Amtrak has to share tracks with Metro-North (train from Poughkeepsie to NYC, among other routes) as well as freight lines. Having finished my reading, I pulled out my laptop and checked my massive amount of email. The Wifi was occasionally spotty but generally usable.

After dropping off Tee, we went home after a very long day. I’m glad we went, but I hope not to take another day trip again for a while. And even more happy that we left when we did, for the subway system flooded later that afternoon.