Windows, weddings, and another trip around the sun

You may recall that we began considering the replacements back in late winter, after dissatisfaction with our noisy neighbors drove us in desperation to find something to help shield us from their wild night time parties and karaoke serenades. The search went on hiatus this spring after an initial consultation with Lowe’s made us realize that the budget we had in mind for the job was significantly smaller than the figure quoted, in addition to the fact that most of the specs we sought couldn’t be accommodated without concessions in price or quality. And then we shifted our focus to taking down the pine tree in the front yard.

But despite the fact that our neighbors have been on better behavior lately regarding volume, the same can’t be said for Mother Nature. Call it climate change or our own lack of tolerance for temperature extremes, but it has been darned hot here this summer, and with drought and wildfire smoke becoming the norm in our state, it doesn’t look like that situation will change anytime soon. And so the quest for new, energy efficient doors and windows resumed.

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T IS ALWAYS a good idea to get multiple quotes on home improvement tasks before signing a contract, and so Roni decided we should check out Home Depot since we had put out feelers to them initially and found their prices to be much better than Lowe’s. Not that price was our only consideration, but it was important to know what we were getting for our money, and frankly Lowe’s hadn’t been specific when we talked with their consultant Justin back in April.

So on a particularly hot weekday afternoon, we got a visit from Mohamed. Unlike Justin, he came to us with samples of the products Home Depot offered and was able to quickly work up the cost with installation for the Milgard Tuscany vinyl windows and doors with everything we wanted.

Our initial plan was to replace the two back patio doors in our dining room and master bedroom, as well as the two windows in our front bedrooms and one in the living room. We’d previously ruled out replacing the kitchen window because Roni feared it would ruin the tile work Glenn had done when he remodeled the kitchen a couple of years ago. But Mohamed assured us that it would be no problem at all; he explained that we were ordering replacement window inserts, which don’t require removing the existing frame, so there would be no harm done to the tile. And since there was a deal going on if we bought four windows, it actually made sense to order one more. And so we said what the heck, why not?

Justin had told us we couldn’t manage a double-hung window for the living room because it would be too heavy at the size we needed it. But Mohamed said we just made it at that size and it wouldn’t be a problem. And the laminate glass we wanted to help reduce sound? No worries at all. A little more expensive, yes, but not prohibitive. And so we ordered it on everything — windows and doors.

About the only thing Mohamed didn’t recommend to us was our idea of going with French patio doors. We haven’t been happy with sliders because our sandy soil blows into the tracks and interferes with the roller bearings, making opening the doors like an Olympics strength test. But because of the way they are designed, French doors have much thicker frames and would thus limit the amount of light we get in the living room, which is already too dark. Besides, he assured us, if we ever have problems with the new sliders they are under lifetime warranty and Home Depot will fix them for free. He even showed us how the tracks on the doors are designed to easily be removed and replaced if necessary, unlike our current junky aluminum doors.

And best of all was the price: around $13,000 for everything including installation, with an expected delivery date sometime in mid-September. Proving again that everything in life is relative to something else. This was still more than we originally estimated for the project, but still several thousand cheaper than Lowe’s, so it looked great by comparison. Maybe we’ve just been conditioned by inflation. At any rate, we took a couple of days to think things over, then Mohamed returned to our house on July 3 to finalize the contract and set up our interest-free financing for the next two years.

It will sure be great to get new windows and doors, as the ones we have are nearing 34 years old and were shot at least 25 years ago. We still think of the ‘80s as if they were just yesterday, but technology has changed greatly since then, and even the cheapest off-the-shelf windows and doors you can find at the big box stores would run circles around our old aluminum-framed clunkers that conduct heat and cold better than some of our kitchen cookware. The Milgard Tuscany line comes with good reviews from other customers, so we’ve got our fingers crossed that we’ll be able to join them.

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EW WINDOWS AND doors probably won’t be the answer to our ongoing pest problems, at least where ants are concerned. We’ve been at war with the little beasts for months as they launch almost daily invasions of our bathroom, kitchen and bedrooms, on a relentless search for water and food. They receive no mercy from us when we spot them exploring our floors or counters, and although we’ve sent them more than a few hints in the form of liquid ant baits and squirts of Raid, still they arrive in long, black trails leading back to… where?

If only we knew, we’d take out the colony at its roots.

Meanwhile, we have turned our attention to things we can control, such as the temperature in our house. Glenn hasn’t been much interested in home improvement projects these days, but he was more than willing to take on the task of installing a ceiling fan in the den/office, which has been baking more than before we removed the pine tree from in front of the house. That tree, as dangerous as it had become to the safety of our roof, cast a broad shadow over asphalt shingles that absorb the afternoon sun like a sponge during the summer months, superheating the attic.

The den (formerly the Writing Sanctuary) was the only major room in the house that had yet to receive the fan treatment. Given how cheap they are to purchase and easy to install, the time was right to complete our collection. We bought a 44-inch Hunter unit from Home Depot, and Glenn spent the better part of a weekend afternoon cutting a hole in the sheetrock to install a bracket and assembling the parts. We got a unit with a light kit, so it replaced the old broken swag lamp we’d been using for years. We cut the power cord to the swag light and used it to power our new fan, guessing as to the polarity of the wiring and fortunately choosing correctly.

The fan is a three-speed unit and reasonably quiet, although Roni says it blows her paperwork around if we leave it on the high setting. Once the new windows arrive in September, the room’s makeover will be nearly complete; we still need to finish off a permanent installation of the desk and tweak the mounting of the TV, perhaps add another rack of bookshelves to accommodate the hundreds of titles we have stacked precariously in the closet. It will probably always be a work in progress, knowing how these things go.

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E EXPERIENCED BOTH the highs and lows of family milestones during the month of July, celebrating a wedding and mourning the loss of one of Roni’s siblings, Vicki Welton.

Vicki was Roni’s eldest sister and not one we’ve been close to during our 33 years of marriage; in fact, Glenn had never met her. She had been living with a boyfriend in Las Vegas at the time of her death, which doctors said was caused by a heart attack related to complications from diabetes. We learned the sad news on Friday, July 23, when Roni received an unexpected call from her sister Donna, who lives in Virginia.

At the time, Vicki had been declared brain dead and was on life support at a Las Vegas hospital and it was unclear if anyone knew she was there, including her two daughters. Who would handle the unenviable decision of whether to take her off of the machines so her organs could be donated, as per her directive on her driver’s license? Donna had been the last person to speak with her, which is why the hospital called her first, and she was hard at work piecing together what information she could as she tried to reach other family members.

As for Roni, it fell to her to break the news to her youngest sister, Jacki, since she and her husband Kevin live in Antioch just a few miles away from us. If anyone had been close with Vicki, it was Jacki, and considering that Jacki has battled her own health issues for many years, we were unsure how she might react to the difficult news.

Roni first contacted Kevin and arranged for us all to be together that afternoon when we drove over to their house. It wasn’t easy for Roni to be the bearer of bad news, but she did it delicately and Jacki took it pretty well despite the predictable shock. We stayed and visited for a couple of hours, during which time Donna kept us updated on the situation in Las Vegas: they had reached her daughters and arrangements were being made.

It is unclear at this writing whether there will be a formal memorial service for Vicki, but given that she was estranged from most of her family and no one lives close to Las Vegas, it seems unlikely. We’ve reached out with condolences to her daughters.

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T WAS ON a much happier note that we began the month, when we were invited to attend the July 4 wedding of Roni’s niece Kristy Coughlin and her fiance Derlin Mendez at the Windsor Golf Club in Sonoma County. 

It wasn’t all that long ago when Kristy said she thought she might never be married. But life has a way of surprising us, and she met Derlin through her job working at the Walgreens pharmacy. They had talked about getting married in Hawaii, but the pandemic has complicated a lot of plans, and so when Windsor came available they were happy to book the country club setting for the afternoon.

Originally they planned to hold a virtual ceremony, broadcasting the proceedings live on Facebook. But when California’s COVID-19 restrictions eased last month and in-person social gatherings were permitted again, they invited a few family members to attend the nuptials. A few, as in a few more than a hundred.

The golf club offered a beautiful venue with a small stage set under a grove of majestic trees. Kristy’s brother Robert and his wife Becca served as deejays. The pastor gave a spirited blessing that concluded with a spray of red, pink and white confetti — just in case the promise of real fireworks later that Independence Day evening wasn’t enough. There was no cake or reception afterward, so once the vows were exchanged and photos all taken, the newlyweds headed out with Derlin’s young daughter for a honeymoon/family vacation in Hawaii.

And for us, it was back in the car for the two-hour-plus drive back to Oakley to hang out with the crazies shooting off illegal fireworks like they were going out of style, despite fire marshal warnings about the dangers posed by drought-stricken hillsides and neighborhoods.

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HE FUN NEVER ends in the stock market these days, it seems, as July served up another punishing reminder that not all investments are created equal. While the major indices all reached new highs despite threats of inflation, corporate crackdowns in China and the resurgence of the coronavirus pandemic in the form of the so-called Delta variant, we continued to battle through sector weaknesses that only worsened as the month progressed.

The good news is that we are adding a lot of shares to our taxable portfolio — names that this month included Rocket Companies (RKT), ReWalk Robotics (RWLK), SunPower (SPWR) and QuantumScape (QS) (for the second time.) The bad news is that we had to buy them at prices substantially higher than their current market price, which means we are likely to be stuck with them for a while until market conditions improve. Is there hope of that happening soon?

Options trades that looked solid weeks ago have mostly ended up as losers during July, meaning that we’ve had to roll them weeks or months into the future for little or no additional premium. Only Apple (AAPL) managed to buck the trend, as we successfully caught the wave up into earnings and made a few hundred dollars. Call options have worked well this month while puts have led to mostly heartache and frustration.

We finished the month with about $7,100 in cash flow, but that is deceptive because more than half of that came in from a single put option sold on AAPL that expires next January and does not account for the $8,700 we spent on the aforementioned shares we acquired. In effect, it is an interest-free loan for now.

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E CELEBRATED GLENN'S 56th birthday on July 1, and while he may be another year older he jokes that he doesn’t feel especially wiser. He celebrated by spending the afternoon at his part-time gig working on the Local News Matters website and taking a walk around the neighborhood, as per his every-other-day routine. Dinner was to be take-out from Lumpy’s Diner in Brentwood, but when we discovered that the place was closed on Thursday evenings, we switched our pick to HD Burger & More in Antioch. When you gotta have a burger and fries, you just gotta!

Among the gifts he received was a pretty nice solar-powered wind chime, a Virgin Galactic logo T-shirt, books by Tami Hoag and Gregg Hurwitz, and a promissory note to replace the windshield in the Ford F150 once we find a place to do the work.

Although not a birthday gift specifically, Glenn picked up a couple of silver dollar proofs from the U.S. Mint this month that included the Christa McAuliffe commemorative coin and the 2021 American Eagle with its redesigned back. The latter was a highly anticipated release, and following the debacle a couple of months ago in which the Mint’s website crashed on release of the Morgan Dollar centennial coins that left thousands of people without the ability to make a purchase, the Mint had delayed its release schedule to address the problems.

Glenn signed in at precisely 9 a.m. July 23 and was able to complete his order with only the slightest difficulty. It was a good thing, too, because the new Eagles sold out in a matter of minutes. His coin arrived in the mail on July 29, and it certainly is a pretty specimen. He hopes to have similar luck in the coming weeks when the next opportunity arises to purchase the centennial Morgan and Peace Dollar releases.

If there was one wish we had this month that didn’t get fulfilled, it was to return to the Pear Fair in Courtland. Although there had been hope this spring that the fair would be a go as COVID-19 restrictions were easing and people were receiving their vaccinations, there remained enough uncertainty that the organizers decided to cancel again. In light of a recent uptick in cases and the likelihood of the return of mask mandates, it is looking like their decision was for the best.

But no fair didn’t mean we had to be without pear pie, thanks to Ben. He took it upon himself to bake his own, using ingredients purchased from his store and pears contributed by one of his coworkers. The result was a tasty, flaky pastry that satisfied our taste buds and left us just a little less saddened by another year’s loss of tradition. Here’s hoping for a full return to normalcy next year.

 

Glenn, Roni and Ben