You can't take us anywhere — at least not to Hobby Lobby without expecting us to find a photo op in the craft section. You may note that we aren't wearing our COVID masks, which is because the county's public health order has been lifted and they are no longer required indoors in most situations. Photo by Glenn.
February 27, 2022: It’s the shortest month on the calendar and this might end up as the shortest newsletter of the year, thanks to time getting away from us as it usually does. But we’ll endeavor to make it a good one nevertheless.
It's Super Bowl Sunday and we aren't rooting for the Rams or the Bengals. Phyre appears to be bored with the whole thing. Photo by Roni.
Work on the fireplace remodel project cintinued during February with the addition of the side panels on the upper wall. We've also got the wiring in place for connection to the overhead lights once we get them installed. Photo by Glenn.
At last, it's time for some tile work. We've got the mortar troweled onto the top row of the backer board and ready to receive the heavy 12x24-inch tiles. Photo by Glenn.
Glenn works on installing the first tile. We taped off the edge of the fireplace with lovely neon green tape to prevent it from being damaged. Photo by Roni.
Most of the tiling was completed in one afternoon. We have yet to remove the green spacers or the pine ledger board near the bottom that are keeping things in place while the mortar dries. Photo by Glenn.
On Feb. 26, Glenn installed the final row of tiles. Next up is the grout. Photo by Roni.
Roni's Valentine's Day gift to her hubby was a resin-coated heart. Photo by Roni.
This is the first clock that Roni has produced with resin. She received the molds and the clock mechanism for Christmas. Now this is keeping time in her office. Photo by Roni.
A beach scene looks inviting in the middle of February. Roni used a heat gun to create the effect of foamy waves washing ashore. Photo by Roni.
This forsaken place is the Richard E. Arnason Superior Courthouse in Pittsburg, where Glenn has been summoned for jury service. Photo by Glenn.
At least there is plenty of parking available in the back 40. The Ford isn't our preferred mode of transportation for city driving, but it does come in handy for getting to and from court. Photo by Glenn.
Let's all go to the lobby... The jurors are on a break outside Courtroom B while the judge and attorneys discuss a motion behind closed doors. Photo by Glenn.
While Glenn awaits a decision on whether he will be empaneled as a juror, Vladimir Putin is launching an all-out assault on Ukraine. Looks like it's going to be a bloody day in the financial markets... Photo by Glenn.
...Or maybe not. Stocks staged one of the biggest rallies of the year on Feb. 24, the day of the Ukraine invasion. This is just a partial list of the stocks we follow, the biggest movers being up more than 12 percent. Ten of this group we currently own or have an active interest in. Photo by Glenn.
It's a peacock party outside our front window. The stump of the old pine tree makes a great platform for a meal. Photo by Roni.
Spring has sprung, at least as far as our ornamental plum tree is concerned. Photo by Glenn.
Do you ever have one of those days when you just wanna zone out and watch the world pass by? That's my day every day. Photo by Ben.
Glenn has taken on a new identity for at least the next couple of weeks: Juror Number 20. Yes, the random draw of the computer served him with a summons to appear at the Pittsburg Superior Court on Feb. 23, and so he went down to the courthouse that morning with 49 other luckless souls to play the waiting game in hopes that all the pending cases would be plea-bargained away and he might get to head home that afternoon a free man.
Such wasn’t the case, however, when the jury pool got called upstairs at 1 p.m. and the process of jury selection began for a child molestation case. Glenn’s number came up quickly after members of the original 18 panelists were excused for various reasons, and because he chose not to be dramatic and make excuses for why he couldn’t serve, he was easily admitted to the club as one of the 12 jurors.
So it looks like he’ll be there for the duration starting this week and through at least March 11 — his second criminal trial and first since 2013. The difference this time around is that he now works part time for a nonprofit organization with few benefits, so whereas he had the luxury nine years ago of not having to go to the office while doing his civic duty, this time he’ll need to cram in four hours a day for his regular job after sitting at the courthouse for more than eight hours.
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A
FEW THINGS have changed since Glenn’s last visit to the Richard E. Arnason Justice Center for jury service. In 2013, the big news event was the bombing at the Boston Marathon. Today, it is the Russian invasion of Ukraine. While Glenn was being polled about his views on crimes involving minors, racial stereotypes and comfort level discussing body parts with potential fellow jurors, Vladimir Putin was sending tanks and missiles across his western border into a sovereign nation.
Is it difficult to focus on allegations of a stranger’s lewd conduct while we may be watching the beginning stages of World War III? Perhaps just a little. But in reality that was not the biggest distraction from the legal matters at hand. These days, in a climate where Americans are worried about inflation, rising interest rates and spiraling energy prices, how such geopolitical strife affects the financial markets is always a major concern — particularly when one has a considerable sum invested in companies that may or may not fare well under such conditions.
The major indexes responded to the shelling of Ukraine in a perhaps unexpected fashion, staging their biggest one-day rally of the year. And while it would be easy to get excited about that from a purely financial standpoint, it is unfortunately one brief flash of green in a sea of red that began in November and has continued mostly unabated now that we are two months along in the new year.
To say that our trading account is on life support right now would not be an understatement. It has lost about a third of its value since January, a good portion of which won’t be coming back. We have incurred more realized losses in two months than all the profits accumulated during 2021, yet despite it all we remain invested as we await definitive word from the Federal Reserve about what will happen with interest rates going forward. Will that announcement help stabilize a market that has been rocked by endless volatility? Or will it contribute to a further decline in equity prices? And what of the threat of war?
We are a bit insulated from rising gas prices, thanks to the fact that none of us drives often or very far these days. Roni has continued to work from her home office during much of the pandemic, and even though masking requirements have been loosened recently, no one seems intent on reopening the sanitary district to the public, so she continues to conduct meetings online as well as writing her newspaper column remotely.
For Ben, he is barely two miles from work and can go months between fill-ups at the pump. Glenn has mostly been car-less since leaving his full-time job nearly five years ago, but in a pinch he has the pickup truck and that has come in handy with his recent call to jury duty. In fact, he hasn’t put gas in the Ford’s tank since November 2020, so seldom do we take the vehicle anywhere except for an occasional run to the dump or Home Depot for supplies. It sure feels funny driving that hulking machine to the courthouse.
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L
ESS PROTECTED FROM rising energy costs are we when it comes to electricity, as we painfully discovered upon receipt of our January PG&E bill. You will recall that in December we purchased an electric fireplace that we continue to be in the process of installing in our living room. We had only a couple of weeks to use it around the holidays during the December billing cycle, so we had no idea what impact its use might have on our bill.
Such was not the case in January, when we used the fireplace (or heater, if you prefer) nearly every day and for perhaps 16 hours at a stint. All those watts add up quickly, and combined with recent price hikes… well, you get the picture. Our January bill set an all-time record of nearly $350, and while that seems cheap still compared to some of our neighbors who have complained online about bills that were double that or more, it is nonetheless a big bite when we were rocking bills around $150 before that.
Will that stop us from using our new fireplace? No, but it does make us think a bit more before turning it on. Our cold weather season usually runs from the end of November to roughly the start of March, so soon we will be away from the need for artificial heat. We can and likely will continue to run the fireplace in lights-only mode to enjoy the ambience without the need to run the heating element. Much like we only use our portable air conditioner for a few months during the summer, we can endure the higher electricity bill in the months when we need the heat. A small price to pay for comfort as our bodies age and become less resilient to the effects of microclimate change.
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A
ND WHILE WE'RE on the subject of that new heater, the fireplace makeover is about to continue into its fourth month. If it seemed as if things were progressing slowly before, toss in jury duty and it is likely they will grind to a halt until at least the middle of March. Still, Glenn has managed to make some headway on significant aspects of the job.
Earlier in February he installed the upper sides on the frame — two 6-foot, three-quarter-inch slabs of primed MDF that he had to screw into place while standing on the top rung of our little stepladder. Despite being fiberboard, panels that size are still very heavy and required a couple of strong assistants to help hold them in place while Glenn drilled holes and added wood screws. The bottom halves of the sidewalls will be installed soon, after the tiling project is finished.
The good news is that the last of the tile was installed this week, marking the most dramatic change in appearance of the fireplace since work commenced in the middle of December. You can no longer see the brick facade of the original fireplace if you look at it from across the room. Glenn used a couple of weekends to cut and mortar the large 24x48-inch tiles to the cement backer board, finishing the last cuts Feb. 26 just as this newsletter was getting ready to go to press. Grout is expected to be in place by the time you read this, and that will mark the completion of one of the most challenging parts of the project.
The remaining steps include completion of the valance that will contain the LED lights at the ceiling, connection of electrical hookups, installation of the lower sidewalls, creation of the new mantel, attachment of trim boards, painting, and installation of baseboards around the hearth. Yes, it does sound like a lot, but at least we have the steps mapped out.
The tiles are really beautiful and they have inspired us to keep the project rolling along. Will it be done by next month? Don’t hold your breath on that.
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W
E HAVE ALL been very lucky during this pandemic to have not caught COVID, and for that matter none of us has had to stand in line for hours at a testing site to be swabbed or self-quarantine while awaiting results. That is, until this month.
Ben, working at the grocery store where he and his colleagues are constantly exposed to the public, has had several close encounters with the virus in the guise of coworkers who have had to call out sick because of COVID-like symptoms. He personally hadn’t experienced any issues until early this month when he came down with the sniffles and complained of nausea that made him decide as a precautionary measure to stay home and go have a test done.
Kaiser Permanente, despite being our regular healthcare provider and an advocate for members getting their shots and boosters this past year, has been less than helpful when it comes to actually administering those shots. We have had no luck scheduling any of our vaccine appointments through them, and so it was again with Ben as he tried to find a testing site. Fortunately he was able to make an appointment at the county-run site in Brentwood, where he went to get swabbed without too much of a wait.
The good news is that Ben’s test came back negative, which naturally relieved the rest of us when we heard the news. None of us wants to be sick with COVID, and despite being fully vaxxed and boosted, there have been enough examples of folks in our situation who have still contracted the virus that we won’t be fully comfortable until this pandemic is finished and our world returns to whatever passes for normal.
There is some good news in that our state and county health officials have eased masking requirements, and it looks like by the middle of March students in the public schools will also be able to ditch their masks while in the classroom. Since Feb. 15 we have been allowed to not wear masks indoors except in places that still require them, so as odd as it has been going to the grocery store maskless, it is refreshing to know we have a choice in the matter.
Well, as we mentioned at the outset of this newsletter, this is going to be a short one. Hopefully we’ll have more to say — and more time to say it in — next month.
