Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

We still have time to mess this up!

The choice is between normal and crazy.

Somebody needs to explain to DeSantis that nobody needs to do anything to make him look bad.

No offense, but this thread hasn’t been about you for quite a while.

Marge, god is saying you’re stupid.

“When somebody takes the time to draw up a playbook, they’re gonna use it.”

We are builders in a constant struggle with destroyers. let’s win this.

The Supreme Court cannot be allowed to become the ultimate, unaccountable arbiter of everything.

We are aware of all internet traditions.

Even though I know this is a bad idea, I’m off to do it anyway!

Let me file that under fuck it.

They were going to turn on one another at some point. It was inevitable.

Balloon Juice has never been a refuge for the linguistically delicate.

White supremacy is terrorism.

It’s not hopeless, and we’re not helpless.

I’m more Christian than these people and I’m an atheist.

They’re not red states to be hated; they are voter suppression states to be fixed.

I desperately hope that, yet again, I am wrong.

if you can’t see it, then you are useless in the fight to stop it.

We’re not going back!

A thin legal pretext to veneer over their personal religious and political desires.

I’m sure you banged some questionable people yourself. We’re allowed to grow past that.

The Giant Orange Man Baby is having a bad day.

The frogs are rarely mistaken.

You are here: Home / John Cole Presents "Stories from the Road" / Wednesday Night Open Thread

Wednesday Night Open Thread

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Time zones suck.

Been a busy couple of days as I am wrapping up all the repairs and getting everything finished that I started so that I can do a proper cleanup before leaving. Joelle has to go to her friend’s funeral and is flying out Friday morning and coming back on Sunday, so I have delayed my departure until Monday. One room is finally complete, though- the sun room/room, and we got all the tiki furniture that we had been temporarily using in the living room moved in there:

Wednesday Night Open Thread 4

We finally got a couch- Joelle found a couch on fb market for 800 bucks that was two years old and was originally $3-4k, did some background and the owner was in one of the wealthy neighborhoods, talked them down to 500, and we now have a couch in the living room, which is nice. Apparently Joelle says you can get steals like that all the time depending on where the people live, because they have so much money they just throw shit away. I’m relieved because we went couch shopping a couple times and the sticker shock gave me chest pains.

Wednesday Night Open Thread 5

I gotta go get Joelle and we have to put the living room together, so I wanted to get this up early before I forget.

Reader Interactions

133Comments

  1. 1.

    WaterGirl

    The sunroom looks awesome.

    It will be interesting for you to have 2 days alone at the house before Joelle returns on Sunday, and then you leave on Monday.  Maybe give you time to wrap your head around everything.  All the changes, the return to WV, etc.

    And yes, time zones do suck.  And I suck at time zones.  Did you say you are now 3 housr behind blog time?  So you’re on what I think of as CA time?

  2. 2.

    Martin

    “Apparently Joelle says you can get steals like that all the time depending on where the people live, because they have so much money they just throw shit away”

    Yep. If you are hunting for used stuff, the zip code matters a lot. You can often talk them down on the spot because it’s not really worth their time to haggle – they just want the thing out of their house and you’re standing right there offering to do that.

  3. 3.

    TaMara

    Wow, the sunroom looks great! Love that furniture. And that couch is a steal because I know what I paid for mine and it is definitely not as upscale as that one.

  4. 4.

    Tom Levenson

    @Martin: This is true. We picked up a pair of excellent kayaks for $500 this winter–serious 16′ ocean boats that new were much, much more. Got the car rack carrier for a song and then the seller started loading us up with life jackets and all kinds of other stuff.

    The reason for the deal: it was past time for him to clear out his garage. Happy to help!

  5. 5.

    eclare

    Best of luck getting everything done and congrats on the new couch!  That is going to be a big adjustment, to go back to living alone.  I assume/hope she can take a long break this summer to visit WV?

  6. 6.

    TaMara

    @Martin: Agreed. When I used to drive back and forth to LA, I’d come back with the coolest stuff because of this.  Just had to know the neighborhoods…

  8. 8.

    Dangerman

    This is likely a rant repeat. Apologies in advance.

    I’m an LA Boy. Born and raised. Go Bruins. The LA I knew had GREAT drivers. Bad drivers had to move. Couldn’t afford the insurance I would guess.

    So, rant: When did Angelenos start becoming such shit drivers? Aggressive moves. High speeds. High speeds and aggressive moves.

    I know, get off my damn lawn.

    I guess I’m spoiled. I live in the land of patient interactions at 4 way stops. “You first”. “No, you first”. “No, I insist, YOU first.” “I’m in no hurry, please, you first.” And on it goes until someone comes up behind us.

    I can’t wait to get out of LA when I visit. A shame. I used to love it.

  9. 9.

    sab

    One of my SILs lives in an upscale little city that only lets you dump big trash on one day, once a year. Hilarious to watch the day before. Everyone driving around in big pickups looking for that one perfect couch or set of chairs on the curb. So many sofas in transit!

  10. 10.

    eclare

    @Dangerman:

    From what I’ve read drivers have become more aggressive and have driven faster since the pandemic started.  In Memphis we have some of the worst per capita rates for accidents/fatalities in the US.  I no longer drive on the interstate because when I have the inevitable accident I want to be driving 40-50 mph, not 70-80.

  12. 12.

    frosty

    @Dangerman: SoCal traffic anecdote: In the mid-70s I was living in Huntington Beach, a block from the water. My brother, living in Manhattan, came for a visit. We decided to check out the beach. I stepped out into PCH and he looked panicked. Six lanes of traffic stopped for us, because of course. That’s what they did then.

    I’m not sure that would still happen.

  13. 13.

    dlwchico

    Our AC and furnace are original with this house, which was built in 96.  Supposed to have a lifespan of about 20 years so they are about 10 years past that.

    It still works but we want to replace it now, when we can take our time as opposed to it going out in July in 115 degree temperatures.

    The old one is a Lennox and we are going with that again, but a heat pump and a higher SEER rating.

    Bill is going to be about $20k  :(

  14. 14.

    cain

    @WaterGirl: It does look nice!

    But the room is screaming “I need plants!” when I look at it. Some spider plants or ferns might give it that extra bit of pep to an excellent room already.

  17. 17.

    sab

    @eclare: It was and is. Nobody fights. Just all these trucks cruising around, half of them with sofas on board.

    We in our neighborhood do that with just general household stuff, like lamps or chairs or golf clubs  but sofas are a bit more than most of us can adopt or transport.

  19. 19.

    WaterGirl

    @cain: I think they just finished it, like, yesterday, so give ’em a chance to add the finishing touches.

    I bet Joelle does that after Cole is back in WV as she settles in to her house again.

  21. 21.

    NotMax

    Picked up an almost new 3-cushion couch similar to the one in the sun room some years back at the Habitat ReStore for 75 clams.

    Also there’s a store here with, shall we say, bold signage.
    ;)

  25. 25.

    Steeplejack

    @WaterGirl:

    “CA time?”

    Yes, because (most of) Arizona did not change to DST. So Cole basically went from Mountain to Pacific time.

  26. 26.

    trollhattan

    Anti-vaxxing is considered au courant in some settings and I’d like them all to take a moment to think (heh, as if) about the life of Paul Alexander. Mr. Alexander lived an exceptional life under exceptional conditions and you lot, evidently, would like to create as many new Paul Alexanders as possible, because bootstraps only a nurse can reach?

    The polio survivor known as “the man in the iron lung” has died at the age of 78.

    Paul Alexander contracted polio in 1952 when he was six, leaving him paralysed from the neck down.
    The disease left him unable to breathe independently, leading doctors to place him in the metal cylinder, where he would spend the rest of his life.

    He would go on to earn a law degree – and practise law – as well as publish a memoir.

    “Paul Alexander, ‘The Man in the Iron Lung’, passed away yesterday,” a post on a fundraising website said. “In this time Paul went to college, became a lawyer, and a published author. “Paul was an incredible role model.”

    His brother, Philip Alexander, remembered him as a “welcoming, warm person”, with a “big smile” that instantly put people at ease.

    “He was just a normal brother to me. We fought, we played, we loved, we partied, we went to concerts together – he was just a normal brother, I never thought about it,” he told the BBC.

    Philip said he admired how self-sufficient his brother was, even as he dealt with an illness that stopped him performing daily tasks such as feeding himself.

    “He was the master of his domain, helping people to help him,” Philip added.

    Paul’s health deteriorated in recent weeks and the brothers spent his final days together, sharing pints of ice cream.

    “It was an honour to be with him in his last moments,” said Philip.

    In 1952, when he became ill, doctors in his hometown of Dallas operated on him, saving his life. But polio meant his body was no longer able to breathe on his own. The answer was to place him in a so-called iron lung – a metal cylinder enclosing his body up to his neck. The lung, which he called his “old iron horse”, allowed him to breathe. Bellows sucked air out of the cylinder, forcing his lungs to expand and take in air. When the air was let back in, the same process in reverse made his lungs deflate.

    After years, Alexander eventually learned to breathe by himself so that he was able to leave the lung for short periods of time. Like most polio survivors placed in iron lungs, he was not expected to survive long. But he lived for decades, long after the invention of the polio vaccine in the 1950s all but eradicated the disease in the Western world.

    He graduated from high school, then attended the Southern Methodist University. In 1984, he gained a law degree from the University of Texas at Austin. Admitted to the bar two years later, he practiced as a lawyer for decades.

    “I knew if I was going to do anything with my life, it was going to have to be a mental thing,” he told the Guardian in 2020.

    That year, he published a memoir which reportedly took him eight years to write using a plastic stick to type on a keyboard and dictating to a friend. Paul’s brother Philip said it was following its publication that he realised how much of an inspiration his brother was to people across the world. Advances in medicine made iron lungs obsolete by the 1960s, replaced by ventilators. But Alexander kept living in the cylinder because, he said, he was used to it.

    He was recognised by Guinness World Records as the person who lived the longest in an iron lung.
    –BBC

    They will return us to those dark days, because only the weak and sinful get sick and that’s how you thin the herd, mate.

  27. 27.

    TaMara

    @sab: OMG, BIG TRASH DAY! We used to have that every year until the city decided to stop. Shame. Because it was a great way to recycle – you wanted new patio furniture and then someone got your old patio furniture…etc.

  29. 29.

    CaseyL

    The sunroom looks absolutely darling! And I am hoping it has windows, which are just not in the shot. (Hard to tell with hot weather homes: on the one hand, of course people want to let the natural light in; on the other hand, people do not want to be roasted in their homes and big windows can turn a room into a giant oven..er, terrarium.)

    Who is going home with you? I understand Thurston is staying with Joelle, but what about Steve and Maxwell?

  32. 32.

    Hoppie

    @frosty: I remember as a visitor in ’81 having that happen at (tourist, remember) Hollywood & Highland, when I stopped to consult a map.  Scared the coprolites out of me!

    No, it doesn’t happen any more.

  33. 33.

    NotMax

    @trollhattan

    “But it’s a dry time.”
    :)

    Actually one of the reservations in Arizona (Navajo?) does change their clocks, while another (Hopi?) some of whose borders are surrounded by those of the first, does not.

  35. 35.

    satby

    My favorite furniture has always been resale furniture. My dining room table now is a nice reproduction traditional that cost me $75 and included one armchair and three regular dining chairs, all recently reupholstered. Also from a Habitat store.

    Same time, I also picked up a solid wood desk with a chair for $35.

  37. 37.

    Suzanne

    Facebook Marketplace is fantastic. I will note that I find way better stuff here in PGH and the rest of the Northeast than I did in Phoenix, because there were more homes here back when there was actual good furniture.

    White Dove, which is the thrift store run by Hospice of the Valley, has four locations in the PHX area and it is excellent.

    My latest FB Marketplace steal is a large brass crystal chandelier for my formal dining room. Cost me $200, and more than that to get it rewired!

  38. 38.

    BeautifulPlumage

    WOW, love the sunroom, turned out great! The lamp and rug really tie the room together.

  39. 39.

    satby

    @cain: if you recall from the previous pictures, Joelle has lots of pictures still to hang. I think the tiger one especially needs to go in that room.

  40. 40.

    trollhattan

    @NotMax: Sounds about right. IIRC the Hopi live in an enclave surrounded by Navajo land. I’m sure they all get along famously, as the movies inform us.

  41. 41.

    Jackie

    @WaterGirl:

    I bet Joelle does that after Cole is back in WV as she settles in to her house again.

    I wonder what changes Joelle will “undo” once it’s her space again…😉

     


    Just kidding! Just kidding! 😂

  42. 42.

    Ohio Mom

    @Hoppie: Yes, that’s an interesting story about how the railroads insisted that time be made consistent everywhere. I try to imagine living in an era when noon was when the sun was at its highest point — which changes throughout the year — and I can’t. Time must have had a different meaning when what hour it is was so loosely defined. It had to be a different culture, one that is now lost forever.

  43. 43.

    Another Scott

    Nice work++ and Good Deal++ on the couch.

    We’ve slowly been getting rid of the inlaws’ furniture that we’ve had in the basement.  Local thrift stores generally don’t want furniture because it takes up so much space and is hard to get rid of and they’d have to pay someone to pick it up.  Paying people to come and get it (the various “2 guys and a truck” junk haulers) just seems wrong on so many levels.  And fighting to get the stuff out to the curb on a predicted nice weekend day for scavengers to pick up is a crap shoot (will the birds poop on it before someone picks it up??), and that’s if you can do so without injuring yourself.

    Under those circumstances, $500 for a couch is a great deal for the seller too!

    Thanks for the Travelogue / Life with the Coles stories.  Best of luck with the trip preparations and the drive home.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  45. 45.

    Jackie

    @CaseyL: Ordinarily sunrooms have lots of windows to let the sun flood in…

    Not sure if that applies to Arizona? Maybe their idea of a sunroom is windowless to enjoy the coolness without the 120 degrees cooking the interior?Or only used winter months?🤷🏼‍♀️

  46. 46.

    mrmoshpotato

    @sab:

    Everyone driving around in big pickups looking for that one perfect couch or set of chairs on the curb. So many sofas in transit! 

    LOL!

  47. 47.

    Kayla Rudbek

    I should go check out Facebook marketplace or the thrift stores and see if I can find a replacement couch. We love the configuration (padded arms) and the reclining features (it’s great to fall asleep on) but we don’t like the flaky vinyl (I found a cover set on Amazon but it does tend to come off).

    I should try to get to bed early tonight as we’re going into DC tomorrow and so I need to be signed off of work and ready to go by 5 pm.

  51. 51.

    John Cole

    @dlwchico:  Make sure you get a reputable person because a lot of the furnaces and AC units put in before the 2000’s were just too big for the house and the cycle would never finish and it made them inefficient. You might need a smaller size than the one you currently have.

  53. 53.

    Ohio Mom

    @satby:

    @Suzanne:  My house and my wardrobe are also filled with finds from thrift and consignment stores, rummage and yard sales, Craigslist (back in the day) and FBM. I love the serendipity of it, and feeling thrifty. And not having that feeling new car owners have, where they live in fear of the first scratch or dent — my stuff tends to already have a “patina.”.

    i also have a dining room chandelier (Craigs List) that cost more to rewire than to buy.

    I sometimes feel for the suckers who buy new stuff, but I don’t feel too sorry  because if they stop buying new stuff, there will be no castoffs for me to buy.

  54. 54.

    Suzanne

    @Jackie: They don’t call them “sun rooms”…..they’re typically referred to as “Arizona rooms”. Most of the time, they are separated by a sliding door from the rest of the house. Usually they do have windows, but often have separate a mini-split system so they’re not on the main house’s HVAC.

    AFAIAC, they only belong in the north side of a house.

  57. 57.

    trollhattan

    @John Cole: Truth. And subsequent insulation upgrades can move the bar further. Oversized to oversizeder.

    We’re 1+ year into the great central heat pump experiment and holy cow, is it ever an improvement over the old system.

  59. 59.

    delphinium

    @NotMax: Nice! A former coworker gave me his old sleeper sofa for a loaf of banana bread. Thing was heavy as hell so bet he was just glad to get rid of it.

  61. 61.

    Quadrillipede

    @trollhattan: Paul Alexander

    Stephen Hawking had motor neurone disease rather than polio, but nevertheless is one of the most inspirational people to me, with what he managed to accomplish. I might have to add Paul Alexander to that list as well. Interestingly, Hawking had the opportunity to get a better voice synthesizer later in life, and he declined as he had gotten used to the one he’d been using…

  62. 62.

    Quadrillipede

    That couch looks nice. I’m looking for a new one as well, the current one (from Ikea) is 25 years old at this point and is mostly held together with duct tape, surplus MDF, hope and desperation (although my wife is still fond of it).

  63. 63.

    Suzanne

    @Ohio Mom: I have a mix of stuff I bought new (Eames chairs I got at a charity auction, $500 for the pair!), stuff that got passed down to me (a Chickering piano, an antique mirror by Thor Engmann), and vintage stuff I’ve found (matching Dixie dressers, Drexel chest in entryway). I am snobby about furniture.

    The next purchase I make is probably going to be a new couch. The one we have now is from FB Marketplace. I bought it when we moved to PGH, and it was the pandemic, and furniture was taking months to get if you bought it from a store. It fit the room, and its color was not obnoxious. I figured the Spawns would stain it up. But Spawn the Youngest starts kindergarten this year, and I may celebrate with a better couch.

  64. 64.

    Quadrillipede

    One of the weirder culture shocks of moving from London UK to Vancouver BC is that in Vancouver, drivers will stop if you’re in the road (or even look like you want to cross). In London (at least in 2005 when I last lived there), drivers usually accelerate…

  65. 65.

    Chris T.

    @Quadrillipede:

    One of the weirder culture shocks of moving from London UK to Vancouver BC is that in Vancouver, drivers will stop if you’re in the road (or even look like you want to cross). In London (at least in 2005 when I last lived there), drivers usually accelerate…

    That was my experience in moving from the DC area (“oh a pedestrian, jam the accelerator to the floor”) to the Berkeley area (“oh a pedestrian, stop!”)…

    I remember thinking that if I ever got used to this, I’d have to be very careful when revisiting the east coast. (I eventually did get used to it, and I was careful.)

  66. 66.

    Ohio Mom

    @Another Scott: I know from experience that outdated furniture is hard to get rid of. I’ve gone through the, “No we won’t take it” dance myself.

    But the DC area has lots of needy people and someone will be glad to have your old stuff.

    We have a nonprofit in Cincinnati that collects furniture for people coming out of homelessness. Maybe there is something like that near you? A church that works with immigrants? Keep googling, you’ll come up with something.

  67. 67.

    NotMax

    @Quadrillipede

    Thus came into being the zebra crossing.

    First visit to bustling Honolulu in ’83 I was struck by people paying attenti9on to Don’t Walk signals, patiently waiting on the sidewalk. Polar opposite to the NYC experience.

  68. 68.

    Ohio Mom

    @Kayla Rudbek: This is the season for FB Marketplace. People are getting ready to move and are deaccessioning their belongings, including sofas.

    One tip for finding a mover: Visit a local furniture consignment store. They will have  a list of reliable and trustworthy freelance movers that they give to their customers (these places do not deliver, customers must arrange that tnemselves).

    Enjoy DC! I wonder if the cherry trees will bloom in time for you. Seeing them is a cherished memory of mine.

  69. 69.

    Jackie

    @Suzanne: That makes total sense! In SE Washington, we love our west facing covered patios in the winter months, then roll down the massive bamboo shades in the summer when our temps hit 90 to 100+ degrees lol

  71. 71.

    Jay

    @Quadrillipede:

    In BC, pedestrians always have the right of way,

    right up until they get run over.

    Given that ICBC has moved to “No Fault” insurance, the Courts are going to have to redefine a bunch of stuff.

  73. 73.

    Quadrillipede

    @Jay: This is probably due to my experiences in the UK, but I’m still wary of putting myself in the path of several tonnes of moving metal, even if the driver does appear to be aware of me.

  74. 74.

    Ohio Mom

    @Suzanne: Yeah, I have my share of hand-me-downs too.

    One of my neighbors, a hapless decorator herself, once looked at my living room, sighed and said, “Your house has so much more charm than mine.” I replied, “I’m older than you and have more dead people in my life who left me things.” She gave me the weirdest look for what she took as too cavalier a comment. But it’s true.

  76. 76.

    Ohio Mom

    @WaterGirl: Our ReStore does too though I’ve noticed they are getting pickier about what they will accept when we deliver things to the store. They definitely no longer accept so-called “project pieces.”

    They have always required whatever furniture they are picking up to be in tne garage or otherwise easily retrievable. They have never gone into the house to haul stuff out. I never blamed them, just happy they carted away what they did.

  78. 78.

    Jay

    @Quadrillipede

    @WaterGirl:

    I always wait until traffic has stopped. Too many bad drivers and bad road/ visibility conditions.

    Under the previous “At Fault” insurance regime, ICBC and the Police would investigate  cause and blame, and the “At Fault” driver would pay out of their insurance, (basic is always ICBC if they are registered in BC, but you can top up liability and other stuff through cheaper private insurance), all costs

    Now under “No Fault”, no matter if it’s your fault or not, both drivers insurance pays each vehicles costs.

    So right now, it’s unclear what happens if a car runs over a pedestrian, hits a house or runs over a cyclist.

  80. 80.

    Suzanne

    @Ohio Mom: SuzMom lives with me, and she is deeply sentimental about stuff that belonged to her parents. They had some nice things, and I inherited a few (the aforementioned mirror, my grandfather’s retirement clock, a piece of papyrus art). She is a pack rat, though, and it makes me crazy. She also loves to buy cheap stuff, and that also makes me crazy. It’s so much more difficult to get rid of things than it is to acquire them. My basement is currently full of stuff belonging to her that, AFAIAC, should go straight to recycling or the dump…. or kids toys that the various grandparents couldn’t stop themselves from buying.

  82. 82.

    wjca

    @Steeplejack: “CA time?”

    Yes, because (most of) Arizona did not change to DST. So Cole basically went from Mountain to Pacific time.

    More accurately, Pacific Time came to him.

  83. 83.

    Suzanne

    @Anoniminous: They are the Eames molded plywood lounge chairs in walnut, currently available at DWR for $1395 apiece.

    Mr. Suzanne plays video games in them.

  84. 84.

    Jay

    @Suzanne:

    when we were visiting our friends in AZ, last November, every east, west and south facing windows had inside shutters to block the sun. None of the north facing windows had shutters ir even curtains.

  87. 87.

    wjca

    Drivers here seem very aware that pedestrians have the right of way.  If I want them to move on (get out of the way), I sometimes have to back away from the corner and turn my back.  Bit of a pest, actually.  But better than the shooting gallery others describe here.

  89. 89.

    Suzanne

    @Jay: The best thing is to put those foil “blankets” on the outside of the window. We put them over the window screens. Really cut down on the amount of heat that came through the glass.

    It was such a beautiful day here in PGH that I took the pupper for a long walk after work. Like 70 degrees and sunny. I declared that crockpot season has officially ended and we are now in pasta salad season.

  92. 92.

    CaseyL

    I *love* trawling thrift stores, yard sales… I love getting high quality used items for less than I would pay for new. Looking around my house, very nearly every piece of furniture is second hand. I have a big ol’ 8-drawer wooden dresser and a bunch of bookcases that I think are the only things I bought new.

    My sofa is getting up there in age, but is still an awesome piece of furniture. It’s one of those massive things from, I think, the Aughts: contrasting brocade upholstery, rolled arms, and a nice deep seat (a requirement, since it might need to do double service as a guest bed).

    I honestly do not need any more furniture or housewares, so I now actively avoid thrift stores and yard sales, because I know there will be some item that insists I take it home and I simply do not have any more room!

  94. 94.

    Another Scott

    @Ohio Mom: @WaterGirl:

    Made me look again. HabitatDCNoVA.org:

    Furniture:

    Upholstered furniture (must be free of stains, rips or excessive pet hair); Sleeper sofas (less than 15 years old); Bookcases (assembled); tables with chairs

    The most recent stuff I put on the curb was a couple of end tables and a sofa table. Before that, there were coffee tables and end tables and lamps. We’ve got several Ikea “Billy” bookcases that have been taken apart that may end up in the trash eventually. :-/

    The Habitat page says that they can pick stuff up for free, but scheduling can take 2-3 weeks, and it’s up to the driver whether they will actually take the stuff.

    On the whole, it’s the usual problem of matching supply with demand at the right time. Lots of people who need furniture have no good way to pick the stuff up if it’s too big.

    :-(

    I’m very happy when someone is able to pick up stuff we put out so that it doesn’t end up in the landfill. I would feel better if a woman’s shelter or something similar could take it, but that never seems to be the case.

    Thanks.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  95. 95.

    SpaceUnit

    I would never buy a second hand sofa just because I don’t want to wonder about what unholy acts of depravity may have been committed on it.

  96. 96.

    mrmoshpotato

    @SpaceUnit:

    I would never buy a second hand sofa just because I don’t want to wonder about what unholy acts of depravity may have been committed on it. 

    Oh baby!

  97. 97.

    Another Scott

    @SpaceUnit: But what about all the bugs crawling around on the cotton plants??  And who knows what nasty things the cows were doing??!

    Take your favorite blacklight flashlight with you when you’re shopping or checking into a hotel.

    [ muahahaha ]

    Sorry.

    ;-)

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  99. 99.

    BeautifulPlumage

    My 4’8″ tall sister had large furniture when I inherited her place. So happened that a valued neighbor’s mom was moving in close by but didn’t have furniture. It was several weeks after she looked and said yea. Then, one Saturday, a bunch of strong young men were coordinated to move almost all of it out in one swoop. Almost everything I didn’t want to keep disappeared & I so appreciated that could send it to a good home with mininal effort. Still wondering at the serendipity of it all!

  100. 100.

    Jay

    @Suzanne:

    Where we were, and the time of year, about 2 hours after sunset, it actually cooled down quite a bit. We were in the south facing guest bedroom and would open the windows at night. In the early am, on the back porch, having my first coffee, I would have to wear a fleece.

    When we lived in the hills south of Kamloops, we had stiff fabric accordion shades. In the summer we used them to block heat during the day, and insulate certain windows in the winter. We were high enough that in the summer it cooled off right after sunset, so windows would be opened, because of the hill and site, in the winter, we could only get solar passive heat on the western side in the winter, in late afternoon.

  104. 104.

    Quadrillipede

    @different-church-lady @Suzanne: Most homes in Taiwan are designed and built to keep as much sunlight out of the living areas as possible — maybe only a few windows at the front, and it’s actually quite common for bedrooms to have no windows at all. I’d imagine Arizona has a similar  climate and similar building concerns.

  107. 107.

    Suzanne

    @Quadrillipede: Yes. In the US, a bedroom has to have a window (and there’s a minimum size and maximum sill height) to legally be a bedroom. But, from a efficiency-of-building-envelope perspective, it would be better to not have windows.

    About a decade ago, the code requirements around continuous insulation got much stricter, and concrete block and brick veneer houses are now much more difficult to build.

  108. 108.

    Quadrillipede

    @eclare: That was well worth the read!

    What Paul [Alexander] remembers most vividly about the ward is hearing the doctors talk about him when they walked through on their rounds. “He’s going to die today,” they said. “He shouldn’t be alive.” It made him furious. It made him want to live.

    I mean, I once overheard my mom telling my dad that she thought I’d end up just like my uncle/her brother who never moved out of his parent’s home (or got married). That motivated me to find a job and move out just to prove her wrong, so I fully understand this sentiment, although maybe not to the same extent.

    According to the historian David Oshinsky, some people refused to talk on the phone out of concern that the [polio] virus could be transmitted down the line…

    Before the arrival of a vaccine in 1955, what made polio so terrifying was that there was no way of predicting who would walk away from an infection with a headache, and who would never walk again.

    In the present day, that all sounds… more familiar than I would like to admit.

  110. 110.

    Ruckus

    @Dangerman:

    I was born in downtown LA. On of my parents was born in the same hospital. Sure it was a long time ago but I’ve been here, owned a business here, the family used to drive across the county to see relatives and it was 2 lane roads. In elementary school we had a dairy next to the playground, one chainlink fence away, got to watch cows being cows, being milked, soiling the yard they lived in. Not exactly like living on a farm but pretty damn close. OK actually too damn close if your nose worked correctly.

    Los Angeles county population has well over doubled in the last 70+ years. And it grew very dramatically after WWII. It’s over 2 1/2 times the population since I was born.

  113. 113.

    Jay

    @Suzanne:

    Has to have a second exit.

    Had a client want to put in a basement “bedroom” for “homestays”* in his Condo.

    Pointed out that it needed to either have it’s own door and staircase, or a window well, fold down ladder,  36″ x 28” single frame opening window to meet code, and the Condo Board would never allow those modifications.

    *homestays are ESL students whom are supposed to live with a family, learn the culture, learn english at school, practice at “home”, get breakfast, lunch and dinner, and it pays the homeowner very well, $1200 to $1600 a month.

  115. 115.

    thruppence

    Snow coming down like a mother hugger. Big fat flakes already accumulating in the streets. Wish me luck getting home in my little Corolla.

  116. 116.

    StringOnAStick

    @NotMax: That place is located a couple blocks from the condo we rented last October but it wasn’t open when we were there. I really wanted to go in there just to check the premise!

  117. 117.

    Ruckus

    @trollhattan:

    Two of my neighbors, school mates mothers had polio. Both had iron lungs in their front rooms. On of my school mates had polio, she walked with elbow crutches. She had few friends. We knew what it was, we didn’t know much more than it debilitated a person badly.  At our HS 10 yr reunion she walked in without crutches and it really amazed me that she didn’t flip off the entire class. We were young when the polio vaccine came out and many people knew someone who had polio or had died from it. On of my neighbors is a victim and lives in a wheelchair. We are the same age. It was amazing when anyone with it in the upper body lived, that someone could live till now in an iron lung is absolutely amazing.

  119. 119.

    Quadrillipede

    @wjca: And what would be holy acts of depravity?

    In unrelated matters, I just did a search on “catholic church scandal”…

  120. 120.

    StringOnAStick

    Good used furniture is the way to go, if you can find it.  Most of our living room and all the dining room is stuff I inherited, except for the narrow wooden plant shelves I made to match the window sill height.  We bought a nice leather couch and chair from a downsizing neighbor; 20 years old but high quality and lightly used.  We’ll never need to replace it and we’re satisfied with it.  I think I’m done buying furniture, especially new.

  122. 122.

    Soprano2

    @sab: I can get rid of most things by putting them out by the trash. In this neighborhood the couches by the street are worn out. For some reason people take the cushions, though.

  124. 124.

    Ramalama

    @Ruckus: MFK  Fisher, one of america’s best writers, grew up in what I think is LA but long ago. Wrote stories about LA back when there were no highways and farm animals nearby, like what you experienced. Have you read her?

  126. 126.

    Ruckus

    @Ramalama:

    Can’t really say one way or another. Her book, The Art of Eating sounds rather familiar but it would have been a few decades ago that I read it. I may look it up to see if it rings a bell.

  128. 128.

    eclare

    @HumboldtBlue:

    One of the front pagers, I think it was WaterGirl, commented that Betty had been in touch with all of the front pagers either yesterday or the day before.  But no further info, which I understand.

  129. 129.

    Ramalama

    @Ruckus: might be Among Friends where she talks about her Quaker in California upbringing. I have cheffy friends who tried reading her more foodie works, didn’t like, and so closed the door on her. But I devoured The Gastronomical Me, Among Friends, and another book whose title I can’t recall just now. Love love love her work.

  130. 130.

    Sherparick

    @WaterGirl: I second the vote on the sunroom. Looks great John . Also, appreciates tip on where to get 2d hand stuff next time (I hope never) I need it.

    Sorry to hear about Joelle’s friend & have a good trip back to WV.

  131. 131.

    Paul in KY

    My wife and I went furniture shopping a couple of years ago and walked into a place called ‘Arhaus’. Jeezus, you wouldn’t believe the crap they had in there that they wanted $3000 and up for.  We just about ran out of there.

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