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Common sense

The Workman Waltz: Angie’s Dance

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So yesterday a guy who’s ecstatically recommended on Angie’s List came over to measure and give me an estimate on installing the three proposed sliding doors. And as experiences go, this one took the cake. It may be one of the most amazing episodes of the Workman Waltz to date. 😀

First off, he didn’t even want to be bothered with measuring…said he’d been in business long enough to know what the dimensions of sliding doors are. He just wanted to cut a deal.

When I insisted that he look at the door in the back bedroom because a previous owner built a wood frame around it, he was surprised to find it’s a different size from the other two doors (which themselves are not the same size, though at a glance they look like they are). He said it’s a nonstandard size. Then he opined that the original opening had been built for hinged French doors. Wrong on both counts: the original opening is the width and height it is because a happy handyman simply took out the window, cut the wall opening down to the floor, and framed the resulting opening to fit a standard small Home Depot sliding door.

Oozing into a chair at the dining-room table, he next tried to sell me a used door. His company just moved to new digs, and they removed doors they’d put into the place they were renting. So wouldn’t I like a FANTASTIC deal on a 13-year-old sliding door! No warranty of course.

Moving on, I asked what he does about lead abatement, something I learned about from the K&J Windows and Doors guy. As it develops, if a house was built before 1978, the federal government requires contractors who do any kind of renovation or replacement to test for lead paint and, if they find it, to jump through some nuisancey and expensive hoops. For example, K&J charges $100 for the lead test and $150 per window or door for the extra work that has to be done.

He now says he will not do an installation if there’s lead, because it’s too much hassle and the rule is too oppressive: the fine for getting it wrong is $37,500 and possible jail time. So, says he, the way to deal with this is I’ll give him a letter stating that I know the house has no lead in it. Then he’ll have his crew install the windows without screwing around with the lead abatement safety procedures.

“Well, I don’t know that,” I say. “The house hasn’t been tested.”

He says that doesn’t matter—just give him a letter warrantying that the house is free of lead and don’t worry about it.

In other words, instead of him paying $37,500 and going to jail, I can do it.

I say, according to the figures the EPA has published on the Internet, a house built in 1971 (the year mine was built) has a 24% chance of having lead paint.

He scoffs. “You can find anything on the Internet,” says he. That figure is wrong, he says: “I took the lead certification course, and I can tell you the chances of this house having lead paint are almost nil. Just give me the letter and we’ll install the windows.” I let this line of conversation drop, having found the figures from a chart published at the EPA’s website and recognizing a bald-faced lie when I hear it.

Now he demands to know how much others have bid. He emits an offer that underbids K&J, proposing not to install the Milgard or Simonton windows I’ve researched and specifically asked for but to substitute an off-brand. Then he says he’ll give me this SMOKIN’ deal only if I sign with him right that instant.

I say I have another contractor coming over to give me another bid, and I will decide which company to go with after I’ve gathered all the bids.

He now tries to high-pressure me, saying it’s pointless to get any other bids and that I’m being silly to ask for several estimates.

I say I’m not going to be pushed into signing a contract until I have all the bids I want.

He says unless I sign with him RIGHT THEN AND THERE, he won’t do business with me.

I say fine, good-bye.

He leaves, but drops his card on the table and tells me to call him if I change my mind.

Man! That was an experience.

The K&J guys are coming over this morning. So far, their bid, based on Freelite’s measurements, is a LOT less than Freelite’s. However, when I looked closely at their bid, I saw it did not itemize the 6.04% tax by each door, as Chip the Freelite owner had done in his bid. So I had to try to figure the tax on each piece, by way of deciding whether to buy all three or only two. But even with that added, they’re $1,461 less if I buy two narrow-rail doors and $1,835 if I buy three. That’s including K&J’s $150/window lead abatement charges, about which Chip said nothing. Yesterday I e-mailed Chip to ask if his bid includes the lead thing, but he hasn’t replied.

Calculating the tax is complex because it may apply to some things and not to others, and so I won’t know for sure what K&J’s bid will be until I’ve talked with an installer and asked him to provide the real, actual, final bottom line.

Freelight did nothing in the lead department when they installed the skylights and front windows several years ago, and I have yet to keel over dead. But that was before 2010, when this regulation went into force. So if there is lead in the house (which, this being Arizona, we can assume is the case), I was exposed to clouds of lead-laden dust. At the outset, the rule was supposed to allow a waiver for homes where no children and no pregnant women live; however, the EPA threw that proposal out before the law took effect.

If the required test reveals lead in the house, the hoops they have to jump through are quite dramatic. All the occupants have to leave the house and stay out until the job and the cleanup are done. They have to tape off your house with yellow hazard tape and put up those orange cones to keep people out. They have to seal off the work space by taping plastic all around each window, and the workmen have to wear protective gear (in 112-degree heat!). So as you can imagine, if there’s lead in the house, it’s unlikely the job is going to get done this summer.

Or at all…I’m inclined to skip the whole project, if that amount of hassle is entailed.

An option is to find out if there’s lead in the house and then just not do the work. However, it’s better not to know. If you do know, when you go to sell the house you’re required to disclose the presence of old lead paint, even though it represents exactly zero hazard if it’s been covered with latex paint and is not chipped or peeling.

Anyway, the crook described above has rave reviews at Angie’s List. He probably put people up to joining and entering cheery reports, no doubt by giving them even deeper discounts on the junk brands he’s peddling. I’m tempted to describe this story at Angie’s List, but if he gets nailed for violating the federal law, he’d probably hire Guido from Chicago to come do some serious damage to my house or me.

Image: Renoir, Bal à Bougival. Public domain.

Best $20 I Ever Spent?

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So the plumber came over on Monday to deal with the Memorial Day Weekend Fiasco. By the time he got here, the drain was running again, albeit slowly. He said that often the weight of water sitting in the sink will push a clog through; that was probably what happened. He applied some Magical Crystals, which fizzed their way through the drain and forthwith, presto-changeo! The drain was running just fine.

Asked what I owed him, figuring it would be about $65.

“Oh,” says he, “how about enough to cover my gas?”

So I gave him twenty bucks.

While he was here, we got to chatting about the late, great SWAT team adventure and I remarked as to how I wanted to change out all the sliding doors to get something more secure, because two of them don’t even latch.

He looked at me kinda funny and said, “Why would you do that? You’re already doing the best thing you can do to secure a sliding door: dropping a stick or metal bar in the slider groove.

“Doesn’t matter how good the door’s latch is. To get in, all you’ve got to do is take a rock or a hammer, break the glass, and open the door.”

Hm.

Well, one of the doors is extremely not low-E. Even on a reasonably mild day and even though no direct sunlight ever hits that door, the ambient temperature outdoors will make the glass feel warm to the touch. Explains a lot about why the bedroom is hotter than a two-dollar cookstove by about 4:00 p.m.

And the one that came with the house has a pane of something that doesn’t even seem to be glass. Plastic? Did Superlite make sliding tinfoil doors with plastic panes???? It’s cheesy and it looks cheesy and its decrepit and I’d really like to be rid of it.

The third, in the dining room, does possess a functioning latch. Though it’s not my favorite color or style, its glass doesn’t get especially hot in the summer and it works just fine. Sooooo….

Why am I doing this?

Why, instead of replacing all three doors with expensive fancy white wide-rail vinyl sliders, why not keep the narrow, dark-framed dining-room sliding door and then…and then and then…

Get two narrow-rail Simonton doors, which not only happen to be cheaper and better reviewed than Milgard but which also come in a wider range of colors. Order them in “bronze” on the outside to match the existing dining-room door and “tan,” which is the darkest interior color. This would come close enough in appearance to the existing door as to not be too annoying, I’d get low-E doors with the best cheesy latches available on any sliding door product, and it would cost ONE. hell. of. a. lot. less.

For the saving, I’ll bet I can replace that last bedroom window and still come out ahead. Or at least have enough to hire a painter to spiff up the interior.

That twenty bucks on the unnecessary plumber’s trip was probably the best twenty dollah I ever spent!

Spare Me EFFETE!

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The great little Braun coffee grinder gave up the ghost late last week. It had resided in my kitchen cupboard for the past ten or fifteen years and survived daily use. Literally: I grind coffee and make at least one, sometimes two, French press pots of brew every day.

This meant I had to whack up coffee grounds in the mini-food processor, which works OK but is not how I’d like to wear out that thing.

So when I noticed that Target carries coffee grinders, I picked up a Mr. Coffee grinder, the one that came closest in size and appearance to the reliable old Braun. I don’t care much for Mr. Coffee products—electric drip coffeemakers in general make terrible coffee, and this maker’s is no exception. And this little machine makes a coarse, clumsy grind that’s just good enough for government work. If you wanted the grounds very fine, you’d either have to grind it in several stages with some cool-down time, since it heats up  quickly, or just let the grounds get an extra zap of heat. Not that big a deal, but mildly annoying.

The Braun grinder and the KitchenAid grinders Target had were big, clumsy, clunky things that would never fit in my cabinet. When Satan and Proserpine took out the old cabinets that came in this old house, they didn’t replace the large cabinet that hung from the ceiling over the counter between the kitchen and the family room. Not doing so did open up the space beautifully–the living room/dining room/kitchen area is bright and open now—but it also reduced the amount of cabinet space so that there’s really not enough for a person whose idea of cooking extends beyond the microwave and the frozen pizza. The old Braun fit exactly into the single small spot that was conveniently at hand for it. Any of the newer models would require me to empty out another cabinet to find a space for it.

So when I was over at Biltmore Fashion Square to hassle with the Apple people fruitlessly (they no longer sell software in their store—you have to download EVERYTHING from the App Store, like I have nothing better to do than figure that out), I dropped by the Williams-Sonoma there and asked after the Braun.

They’re all huge monsters.

But, said I, don’t you have a model about so high and so big around (gestures)?

Well, no. Said she. Well, yeah, there’s one. But it’s (shudders) a blade grinder, not a burr grinder. You wouldn’t want THAT.

Oh. No. Of course not.

The reviled blade grinder was also too large to fit in my cabinet.

Spare me the goddamn fake gourmet effeteness!

And spare me the corporate schemes to make us buy things that we don’t need, whether we want them or not. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it!

The thing that’s particularly annoying about this is that to get things that were commonplace thirty or forty years ago—a decent pan, a real cast-iron skillet, a functional goddamn coffeegrinder that’s not the size of a baby elephant, a dinner plate that’s larger than a salad plate—you have to search all over creation and usually pay for the schnozzola for it.

If we’re gonna replace things for the sake of style (read, “for the sake of improving the corporate bottom line”), could we at least replace them with stuff that’s better?

What’s your least favorite “improvement” of the day?

How to Fight the Stay-at-Home Parent Penalties

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Lest you hadn’t noticed, stay-at-home parents face a new punishment: if you’re an SAHP, a 2009 change in credit-card rules means that you now cannot get a credit card in your own name, because, after all, what you do is not work.

Yeah.

This is just another of several rules and attitudes that devalue a type of work still done mostly by women. Some of the penalties for raising children and caring for a home and spouse have severe long-term consequences. Most notable of these has to do with Social Security: if you’re not spending your days in an officially recognized “workplace” and so having FICA withheld from your salary, you’re not eligible for Social Security. Never mind that you work 24/7 at humanity’s most important work: bringing up the next generation. If you take time out of a career to care for children and spouse, you’re likely to find your Social Security benefit significantly reduced come retirement age. This certainly was true for me—even though I worked steadily as a freelance journalist while I was married, my income was small and it mostly served as a tax write-off, leaving me with $0.00 taxable income during those years.

Graduate school didn’t help: pay for teaching assistants is even more exploitive than adjunct pay, and when I was overseas doing research my income came from grants and fellowships; thus during that period there were a couple of years where no taxable income appeared on the books.

Besides the insulting implication that the work you do is essentially worthless, the new rule means that as a stay-at-home mom or dad, you can’t establish your own credit history and build your own credit score. This puts you at a huge disadvantage should you divorce or be widowed.

Clearly there are ways around this. Most of them are infantilizing or degrading: they involve your having to beg your spouse to cosign or make you an authorized user (good luck with that, if you’re married to an abuser!), or to prevaricate by filling in the blank for your income with what is really household income—i.e., your spouse’s income.

However, over at Daily Finance, which is reporting on a protest led by one Holly McCall, a commenter comes up with a freaking brilliant idea:

Sit down and discuss with your other half how much you want for being a stay-at-home mom (which in itself is basically considered a luxury by society.) Form an LLC, maybe Holly at Home. Have your other half cut you a check. Don’t forget to take out tax, in case you become unemployed, need SS, or a tax write-off.

—theycallmeroy3

Wow. Think of that. Wish  my ex and I had thought of it, thirty years ago. (And, btw, notice the attitude implicit in “basically considered a luxury”: bringing up your children in their home instead of warehousing them in daycare is a luxury).

I spent a fair amount of my time as a corporate wife and SAHM…during which I did not rack up a salary and did not pay into FICA. If my husband had been paying a household budget to me as “salary” or into an LLC as contractor’s pay for housekeeping, child care, and public relations and marketing, possibly I could’ve claimed unemployment when we divorced. But more to the point, I would have been paying into FICA, and when I suddenly found myself laid off at 64, too old to get another job, I would have had a significantly higher Social Security benefit.

When you’re married to a heavy-hitting lawyer, doctor, or corporate executive who can afford to keep you at  home, you’re doing a lot more than scrubbing floors and chasing kids. You’re helping to build and maintain his public image and community presence by engaging in volunteer activities (as high-profile as possible), serving on nonprofit boards, entertaining clients and colleagues, and hosting social events. Basically this is marketing and PR. And it has a significant market value: PR people earn a decent wage in our culture.

Housewives generally don’t. However, the cost of replacing a housewife, should a stay-at-home spouse die or leave, reflects what that work is worth. In 2006, nannies were earning between $15,600 and $52,000, plus benefits. In my part of the country, a cleaning lady—who takes no responsibility for raising the kiddies—typically earns between $80 and $100 a day: that would come to between $20,800 and $26,000 a year. So, in Arizona a SAHP who does not spend a significant portion of her or his time doing PR for the working spouse would be worth $36,400 to $78,000.

This assumes the conjugal duties are unpaid. Try hiring a call girl or keeping a mistress and tell us what that would cost. 😉

Clearly, then, the SAHP’s work has objective monetary value.

So, it should be reasonable to pay that person through an LLC or an S-corporation. The implications are huge.

• First, as the person draws money out of the entity as salary, she or he pays FICA on it. That means s/he gets credit toward Social Security for work done for the household and the children. And it means that should the SAHP be widowed or divorced, she or he would not have to rely on the spouse’s Social Security credits—or be shorted if she spent some time working after the kids were grown but not enough to rack up the best possible benefit.

• Of course, it would also mean the SAHP would be able to claim, without having to lie on a credit card application, an income. Credit-card issuers could not deny a card by asserting that the applicant does not “work.”

• The SAHP might be able to create her own IRA or 403(b) through her corporation, allowing the couple to salt away a larger amount of tax-deferred savings.

• And of course, tax advantages always accrue around corporations. If the SAHP’s business entails schlepping children around town, driving to grocery stores, and attending charitable events, obviously the car and gasoline become deductible. If she is paid to clean house and she supplies the cleaning supplies and tools out of her pay, then the Windex, the Simple Green, and the vacuum cleaner should be deductible. If her duty is to represent her husband in the community by maintaining a public profile, then the cost of entertaining clients, serving on boards, and belonging to organizations such as Junior League, the art museum guild, and the zoo auxiliary should also be deductible, assuming she pays those costs with her income.

• Should the couple divorce, as some 50% of American newlyweds do, the implications could be significant. If the “working” spouse is paying a salary or contractor’s fee based on the market value of the SAHP’s work, it could limit the amount a court would award for support; or, on the other hand, it could serve as a floor for the amount to be awarded. That is, it could represent either a minimum or a maximum amount of alimony, depending on how courts viewed the arrangement.

Interesting idea, isn’t it? What say you, readers? Would you take a job as a stay-at-home spouse? How much do you think your services would be worth, objectively?

Image: Stay-at-Home Dad. BCantrall. GNU Free Documentation License.

DIY Paint Chips: How to Decide on a Color

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So as I was saying yesterday, among the several things the Funny Farm needs is a new paint job. Was feeling mighty proud of the Behr paint samples I got, and expected at least a couple of the colors to look swell and elegant on the walls.

As you know if you’ve ever painted a house, those tiny little paint chips you get at the Depot or the paint store are a cruel joke. There’s NO way you can estimate what the color really will look like, because the leap of imagination between the sample and a wallful of the paint is just too large for the human brain to traverse.

One strategy is to get paint samples in the coveted shades and paint splotches on the walls, in one- or two-square-foot patches. This works effectively, but it sure makes your house look funny until such time as you make up your mind. If you’re the finicky type, “until such time” can be a while. There’s a better way, though: Make your own paint chips.

Get a pad of low-end artist’s paper from someplace like Michael’s—don’t get the good stuff for this project—or, if you’d like sturdier samples, cut up a cardboard box into as many six-inch or foot-square pieces as you have sample colors. Then simply paint the sample colors onto the paper or cardboard. Allow to dry, and then you can tape the samples to the desired walls, leave them there, and watch how they look as the light changes throughout the day.

This is an effective way to see how a given paint color will actually look on your walls. It saved me a lot of time and probably some money. The shades I thought were gonna be just great turn out to be just ugly. Of the six I tried, the only one I really liked was “peach fade.” The other off-white, which judging by the Behr paint chip looked like an extremely pale beige, looks pink when a large enough sample is hung on the wall. A better name for “Adobe straw” might be “Necco candy chocolate.” The “flint smoke” is bluish-gray, a blah color—much duller than it appears above. “Blanket brown” has a grayish overtone that clashes with the kitchen cabinetry. And…a whole house full of off-white, beige, and brown? Bleyach! There’s a reason those brightly decorated houses in Mexico appeal to me.

After staring at the colorless “neutral” color scheme for awhile, I realized that dammit, I like the colors my friend and I put in the house when I moved in here, except that I’m mighty tired of the orange hall. That orange replaces a kind of tangerine orange that came with the Alexander Julian line we were working with, and I never liked that color. That’s why I put the terra cotta color in the hallway. All the other colors are just fine.

And the truth is, I know exactly where to get a much, much better shade to cover up that orange: at my son’s house. We painted his place a kind of…hmmm…what’s the word? It’s a mellow sort of beigey terra cotta—not a harsh orange like mine—that looks really, really pretty with the saltillo floors. He still has the paint can. All that’s needed is to trot over to Dunn Edwards, buy a pint of that, and test it on DIY paint chips. I’ll bet it would look really, really nice in that hallway.

See the teal in this image? That’s pretty close to swamp blue: the color of the accent wall in the living room, which has an archway through which one views the hallway. And that salmon color on the Mexican wall is a little brighter but not very far off from the color I have in mind.

If I’m right—that most of the walls can stay the same color they already are, with a little touch-up here and there—then those home-made paint chips saved me a great deal of money. Instead of repainting the entire interior, all that’s really needed is to repaint the hall (I can do that myself!), touch up the paint around the kitchen and front doors, paint the woodwork some shade of brown compatible with the cabinetry, and maybe repaint my office. Oh…and I do want that garage painted. Adobe straw would do just fine in there.

😉

 

 

Am I Going Slower? Or Is There Just Too Much to Do?

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Now, I know I’m not the first one to think this, because a lot of my friends say the same thing: It seems like the older you get, the harder it is to get to places on time, because it feels like you just can NOT get through all the stuff you have to do to get out the door. Objectively, it can’t be true that there’s just too much to do: after all, we raised kids without feeling that we couldn’t get through all the diddly little tasks on our plates, and nothing will slow you down in your effort to get out the door better than a kid! So, either we’re going slower as we age, or something else is interfering with our progress.

Hint: As I write this, I’m multitasking: trying to fix my breakfast so I can bolt it down before M’hijito gets here with his dog (not gonna make it: it’s already two minutes to eight) while writing a post while being pestered by my own dog while waiting for a video for the magazine-writing class to upload to YouTube.

***

And now that breakfast is done and Charley is here, I’m back in front of the computer where I find that MacMail is AGAIN demanding that I type, retype, and re-retype my password, a cycle that doesn’t stop until you crash out of the mail program. This, it develops, has been a known issue for quite a long time, though I didn’t experience it until upgrading to Lion and moving to the endlessly pointless iCloud. When it starts, thanks to flicking iCloud’s servers, where MacMail now resides, it affects all my computers. And now I can’t get my mail.

So, I’ll have waste some more time wrestling with that while watching the upload to YouTube and then, whenever that video goes online, posting it to the Eng. 235 site.

It’s now 8:27. I’ve been up since 6:00 a.m. and accomplished little more than to bolt down two pieces of toast, two pieces of bacon, and a handful of cut-up oranges. I haven’t been able to read the newspaper. I haven’t put the clean dishes away and loaded the dirty dishes littering the counter into the dishwasher. I haven’t made the bed.

I did at least wash my face and brush my teeth this morning…something I often don’t seem to be able to get at until I actually do have to go out the door.

The ordinary bits and pieces of what once was normal daily life get shunted aside while I try to cope with what looks like work on the computer (but, because it’s paid so little, isn’t real work, IMHO). So…what have I done in the two hours and 31 minutes since I rolled out of the sack?

• Checked on upload status of “Interviewing” video
• Retrieved  URL, opened video, checked it.
• Embedded video in “Lecturoids” section of the website
• Also embedded it in a new post, by way of bringing it to stoonts’ attention
• Uploaded “Query Letter” video to YouTube
• Answered several e-mails
• Discussed two projects with business partner, via e-mail
• Checked grades for two sections of 102 stoonts; observed great improvement over last fiasco
• Mentally blocked out a post for Adjunctorium
• Responded (again!!!) to confused Eng 235 stoont
• Fed and watered the dog
• Got the paper; watered a plant that got missed by the sprinkler system
• Fixed coffee; started bacon and toast
• Discovered I’d somehow uploaded “Interviewing” as “Query Letter” to YouTube
• Got into YouTube account; deleted video
• Re-uploaded the “Query Letter” video to YouTube
• Read another e-mail; framed answer mentally
• Retrieved bacon from microwave; retrieved carbonized toast from toaster
• Picked and sliced oranges
• Sat down to breakfast
• Almost finished when M’hijito showed up with dog; coped with dog bouncing activities
• Finished breakfast
• Responded to another e-mail from confused stoont
• Checked “Query Letter” video on YouTube
• Embedded video in Eng 235 post and in “Lecturoids” page; posted both
• Came back to this FaM post and continued writing it.

And now I’m about to go zap my cup of stone-cold coffee in the microwave. Gotta respond to that e-mail. Gotta sit down and study for real estate course. Gotta go see what that wacky pup is doing. Gotta check the pool chemicals. Gotta water the new plants. Gotta write a post for Adjunctorium. Gotta work on the client’s project. Gotta update client billing. Gotta work on edits for book-length piece of pseudo-lit-crit. Which reminds me…yes: pseudo can work on its own as an adjective. Did I forget to mark that in the middle of the night? Bet I did. Gotta search back pages of pseudo lit-crit; delete hyphen.

Gaaaaahhhhhhhh!

***

Well. The 50-ton digital elephant in the room is…what?

The computer!

• e-mail
• blogs
• iCloud
• YouTube videos
• more e-mail
• online courses
• still more e-mail
• {plink!} Facebook notice
• more e-mail
• Google calendar reminder: teleconference in 20 minutes

About 90% of this stuff wouldn’t have occupied time “back in the day,” because it didn’t exist. As for the constant onslaught of e-mail messages: People felt no great need to be “connected” and so refrained from blitzing everyone with their thought of the moment. More phone calls took place, probably, and those did take time; but nothing like as many phone calls were made as e-mails today. Business memos (up to 100 a day pour in from the community colleges) were distributed in hard copy, and because printing the things cost time and money, a lot fewer messages were emitted.

Look at the vast amount of my time that’s consumed with computer-related tasks. I’m squeezing my life in around them—barely finding time to wash up and get breakfast by the 8:00 a.m. deadline; barely finding time to gather what I need to do before I have to leave the house; dropping the newspaper before I’ve even read a page so as to get back to the chores waiting on the computer… Life has become nonstop gestalt: every single thing you do is interrupted constantly by demands from e-mail, online calendars, and work that didn’t even exist before life became digitized. In the Dark Ages, the work that did exist—say, publicizing your business—happened in discrete chunks. It wasn’t something you had to do unendingly over Facebook, Twitter, and WordPress.

Maybe it’s not old age. Maybe our lives really, objectively are out of control.