Grandma's boogedy boiler redux

Dear readers: I'm in Atlanta today for the Life@50+ Expo. Considering my inability to provide a new post today along with the fact that the temps at home in Colorado today are in the 80s yet lows for the weekend will be in the 20s — meaning it's time to turn our heat on — I'd like to share with you a fitting (slightly updated) post from the archives, one you may have missed. Enjoy!

Grandma's boogedy boiler (first published Sept. 24, 2009)

 

The first cold snap of the season has hit the mountains, bringing with it snow, the need for jackets and the kicking on of the heating system. In our house, that means it's time to brace ourselves for another season with the boogedy boiler.

I love my house. We bought it in 2007, after having lived in the same basic tri-level for 20 years. One of the main draws of the place was that it was clearly an ideal grandma and grandpa house. We didn't even have grandkids at the time of purchase, but Jim and I knew little ones (and big ones) would love to explore the many nooks and crannies inside and the secret (overgrown!) garden outside and that they'd look forward to spending time with Gramma and PawDad if for no other reason than the wild and wacky home in which we lived.

To put it mildly, we love our house ... everything but the heating system. I absolutely HATE our heating system. We have a boiler, and if you've never lived with a boiler, be thankful for what you're missing.

We first moved here in the winter so we were introduced right away to the clanging and banging of our home-heating contraption that looked like something straight out of Willie Wonka's factory. The noise was so alarming that we had a heating company look at it for us — three or four times in the first couple months! It was brand new, thanks to the red-flagging of the old boiler the week before we closed on the house, but I still envisioned explosions that would not only ruin our new home but take our lives in the middle of the night.

Again and again the heating guys assured us that it's safe, that boilers just take a little getting used to, that they add personality and character to the home.

Well, our boiler has multiple personalities, a few of which aren't too pleasant to be sharing space with.

Because our house is relatively large, there are five "zones" for the boiler, each zone taking turns coming on at different times to warm different areas of the home. Three of the personalities zones are pretty quiet and their heat cycles go unnoticed. And when the boiler kicks on in the fourth zone — which covers the downstairs family room where we watch TV — it likes to pretend it's a massive military jet taking off from our rooftop but we've learned to accommodate it, muting movies and conversation at times as we wait for the jet to be in full flight and out of hearing distance.

But it's the fifth zone, the one that covers the study just below our bedroom, that freaks me out the most ... every night ... while I'm falling asleep. This is the zone where the boiler's worst personality makes its presence known.

Each night as I finish reading, set my book aside on the nightstand and settle in under the covers, it starts. There's a bit of a rumbling, a wheezy, heavy, asthmatic monster-like breathing sound ... that gets louder ... and louder ... and LOUDER.

"I'll huff and I'll puff and I'll blow your house down! Mwahahahahahaha...!" it threatens ... and drones on ... and on ... for several minutes.

Then comes the loud, "Boogedy, boogedy, boogedy! Bang. Bang! Clang, clang. Bang. BANG!! click."

Just like that, the boogedy boiler stops. Instantly.

Just as I'm reaching near hysteria and considering waking Jim (who doesn't even notice!) to shout that he HAS TO go see what's happening with the boiler, there's a simple "click" and it's quiet. And I breathe easy ... and I think I must be crazy for worrying that my house is going to explode when all the expert HVAC guys have told me it's nothing to worry about.

Things are quiet ... and I start to fall asleep.

Then Mr. Boogedy Boiler decides to warm things up a bit again, and the whole show starts over. And I hold my breath and long for hot summer nights when my only complaint is that air-conditioning sure would be nice.

And I think about what a good thing it is that the grandkids will likely spend more time at Gramma and PawDad's house during the hot and sweaty nights of summer — considering summer vacations and all — than they will in the winter. 

For if they were to visit in the winter, this grandma's boogedy boiler would surely scare the holy bejeezus out of them.

It certainly does me.

Today's question:

When will you turn on your heating system for the season?

What I learned this week: Reason No. 11 why I won't live near my grandsons

As many of you know, I live more than 800 miles away from my grandsons. When my daughter and son-in-law first told my husband and me we'd be grandparents, it broke my heart. I was certain I'd not survive unless they relocated to live near me.

They never did.

Of course, there was the option of my husband and me moving to live near them. A lot of grandparents do that, but it's just not in the cards for me. I wrote about my reasons for not doing so in this article. At the time I wrote it, one big reason I noted for not moving to be near my grandsons is the fact I have a life here in the mountains — a life that includes my (yes, adult and out of the nest) oldest and youngest daughters who live in the mountains, too, despite my middle daughter and her family preferring the desert.

There are other reasons why I won't live near my grandsons, and another I hadn't originally thought of became crystal clear this week.

I like to take photos. I'm not the greatest, though I'm working on getting better. Here are two I took of nature in all its glory while looking out the sliding doors to my deck this week:

 
A butterfly enjoying the dianthus.

A squirrel relaxing in the tree.

Compare those two photos to two my daughter took of nature in all its glory around her place this week. Keep in mind that this is my daughter who, along with her husband and my two grandsons, lives in the desert. Here are the photos she texted me:

A scorpion lodged inside the honeycomb window blinds.

A lizard in the garage — just outside the door to the house.

I'd say nature in the mountains (my place) is far easier on the eyes — and nerves — than nature in the desert (their place), wouldn't you?

The bottom line/the moral of the story being that if getting to see these two adorable kids...

 

... on a regular basis means seeing those two frightening critters on a regular basis, too, I'll take being a long-distance grandma any day. I'm not proud to admit that... but it's true.

And that is what I learned this week.

Well, I also learned that my daughter is far more brave than I ever thought she'd be, that little Meggie of mine who once (as a teen!) captured a spider in our family room late one night by placing a heavy bowl over it, then taping a note to the bowl asking me to take care of what was trapped inside once I awoke. Now look at her — taking photos instead of screaming and running!

(Now I hope I'll be just as brave and not be completely freaked out about icky desert things when I visit my daughter, son-in-law and grandsons in 10 days!)

Best wishes for a critter-free weekend, wherever you may be! I look forward to seeing you all again on Monday!

Today's question:

What did you learn this week?

What wine drinkers do on long weekends

Let me start by saying that Jim and I are not lushes. Fact is, 90 percent of the wine bottles you'll see in the photos below came from our youngest and oldest daughters — and their friends, too, to be fair.

My daughters aren't lushes, either, they're just always happy to lend Mom a hand whenever asked. Let's just say they were extraordinarily zealous in their assistance this time.

Here's the thing. About a year ago, I saw the following on Pinterest:

I thought it was a creative way to upcycle wine bottles and add a bit of whimsy to our unusual back yard. So I asked my daughters to start saving their wine bottles for me.

Boy, oh, boy, did they save wine bottles, unloading them at my place each time they'd visit.

This past weekend, Jim and I put all those wine bottles to use, creating a border similar to the one I'd pinned on Pinterest.

We did bury our bottles deeper than those in the pinned photo. Plus, we chose to stagger rather than line them up perfectly — perfection is something that just plain doesn't fit our wild and wacky back yard.

I planted wildflowers several weeks ago in the area the bottles border. Now we just have to wait for those flowers to grow. And for the bottle labels to weather away. (Note to self: Soak off the labels next time I do such a thing. And consider convincing Jim to dig up these bottles then rebury them after I remove the labels. My money's on labels weathering away sooner than exhumation.)

I'll share photos a few months down the road, once the flowers have grown. Stay tuned. And feel free to enjoy a glass of wine while you wait.

Just keep the bottle to yourself, when you're through. I've had more than my share, as you can see. Of bottles, that is.

Today's question:

What did you do over the long weekend? And was drinking wine involved?

Long live Grandma's hoya

I've never been very good at growing houseplants. Because of that, I felt quite nervous and unduly obligated when the care of an elderly houseplant was informally included in the deal when we bought our current house nearly five years ago.

The sellers told us upon our agreement to buy the house that they were leaving the plant they had inherited when they bought the house, a plant started by the original homeowners when the house was built in 1975. Story was, according to the sellers — who had no information on what the plant was, only a stern warning to not let it die — that the plant bloomed only once a year and "thrived on neglect." I'm pretty good at neglecting plants, yet I still worried about my ability to make it thrive.

Soon after we moved into this house, Jim and I hosted an open house for our previous neighbors so they could see why we left them and the street where we thought we'd live forever. While explaining the plant story to one of the former neighbors, an older German woman who always had interesting stories to tell, informed us the plant was a hoya. She seemed rather excited about it, but not being much of a houseplant person — and definitely not knowing a darn thing about hoyas — I smiled, just happy that we finally knew what the plant was.

Our first couple years living here, the hoya never bloomed. It did stay alive, though, growing like mad. (I apparently neglected it correctly.) The darn thing stretched across our dining room window with tendrils offering nothing more than creepy fingers that reached farther and farther toward the far wall. I eventually had to cut back those wild fingers that had overtaken window and wall. I was fairly certain I had done the poor plant in.

Soon after my over-zealous trimming, the elderly wife of the now-deceased builder and original owner of our home arranged a visit with us. She, sensing her mortality, hoped to see one last time the one-of-a-kind home she (a concentration camp survivor) and her former husband had built after immigrating to the U.S. from Poland. When she visited us, she was escorted by a couple of her adult children and her 20-something granddaughter, all of whom had lived in our house for many years, all of whom had cherished memories of the home their family patriarch had built.

Two of the daughters, both older than I am, exclaimed upon seeing the flower-less but still very much loved (by them, not me) hoya in the dining room. They asked to please take clippings of it, and I, of course, encouraged them to. The granddaughter excitedly clipped a bit of her grandmother's hoya for herself, too.

Then, not long after they visited, the hoya bloomed for us for the very first time. It was just one lone bloom that I noticed one day while sitting in the dining room talking to Jim. We couldn't believe it. The flower was lovely, the scent intoxicating. Within a week, the bloom died.

A year later, the plant bloomed again, this time with a few flowers. Again, they soon died.

This year? Well, that photo above is our hoya right now. This year it has bloomed better than ever, bursting forth with not only incredible flowers, but literally dripping with a luscious scent that fills nearly all three levels of our house, especially come evening. (Look closely at the photo in the lower left of the collage and you'll see the sticky liquid scent oozing from the blooms.)

This plant is amazing. I'm now in love with it. I love its story, its blooms, its scent. I love that the previous owners took clippings of it for their homes, for their granddaughter's home, that it's tendrils have stretched far beyond this house.

On Sunday, when Brianna and Andrea will be here for Mother's Day, I plan to give them cuttings of the happy hoya for their home. Eventually Megan will get a piece of it, too.

The abundant blooms this year lead me to believe the hoya will continue to thrive, that one day I'll be able to share cuttings from it with my grandsons, just as the granddaughter of the original plant owner carefully clipped from Grandma's hoya to cherish in her own home.

I hope that granddaughter's hoya clipping has thrived, that it has bloomed and made her smile as she remembered her grandma, who had passed away less than a year after the visit to our house. Perhaps the cuttings I share with my grandsons from Grandma's hoya will one day do the same.

Long live Grandma's hoya!

Today's question:

What memories do you have of your grandmother(s) and plants?

Gizmos and gadgets: Impress grandkids with how things used to work

Take a look around the library or a bookstore and you'll see there's no shortage of books based on the theme of “How Things Work.” Such books, most often written for elementary age kids, explain — and sometimes show with brilliant illustrations — how science, the body, our government, and everyday gizmos and gadgets of a dazzling array work.

Those types of books are always fun to peruse with grandchildren. While they learn how things work, we grandparents get to see how our grandchildren's minds and imaginations work.

Even more fun, though, is showing grandkids how things really work. More accurately, showing them how things really used to work, things that you — and possibly your children, parents of the grandchildren — once upon a time used on a regular basis.

In fact, grandparents may have what may seem to some an outdated home, yet to a grandchild, Grandma and Grandpa's house could serve as the ultimate museum on just how things used to work.

Take telephones. Some of us still have rotary phones. I do. I don’t use it, as I’ve gone high-tech with an iPhone and no longer even have land-line service. I do, though, still have that old rotary phone around, a style of phone my oldest grandson has likely never seen and surely has never used.

Next time my grandsons visit my house, I'm going to pull out that old rotary phone and show them both how telephoning friends and loved ones used to work.

Consider music, too. My oldest grandson is used to accessing Mom's and Dad’s smartphones, iPads, iPods, computers and even the television music channels for listening to music. Some days my daughter does go old school with my grandsons and plays — gasp! — CDs. But records? I'm pretty sure my grandsons have never seen a record, never heard a record.

Well, I have records. Albums and 45s. And I have a record player. I even have records that I used to play on that very same record player for my daughters to dance to, sing to at the top of their lungs. Next time my grandsons visit my house, I plan to play a few records for us all to sing and dance around to together, the way enjoying music used to work.

Maybe we'll even bust out the cassette player and cassettes for a real party atmosphere! Yes, we still have them.

Cameras are another biggie, another gadget most of us have on hand — and not just on our smartphones. One of my hobbies is taking photos, and I’ve taken literally thousands of photos of my grandsons in the four-plus years I’ve been a grandma. All have been taken with a digital camera. I do, though, still have a camera that requires film, results in photos and negatives.

I can just imagine how intrigued my grandsons will be when I buy a roll of film — they do still sell it, don’t they? — and load it into my old camera, then click-and-advance to show them how photos were taken in the old days. (Of course, the oohing and aahing will have to wait until I get those photos developed. They do still have one-hour photo centers, don't they?)

Now if only I still had that 110 Instamatic from my early years of photo taking, just after shelving the Polaroid camera. Even my daughters might be impressed with my old 110 camera and its film cartridges, my weapon of choice when my girls were wee babes.

The ideas for sharing with a grandchild how things used to work are endless once you consider the changes in just the past few decades to all things electronic.

Think televisions. Turning a dial to change channels? How bizarre that might seem to a child used to using a remote.

Or typewriters versus computer keyboards … and iPads.

What about transistor radios versus Pandora on iPhones or iPads?

And the one we all lovingly remember, possibly still have: crank-style ice-cream makers. The ones you (or your own mom or dad) had to pack with salt then all the kids took turns cranking and cranking until the creamy goodness was ready.

Pretty amazing gadgets we grandparents once used, if you think about it. More impressive are the Jetson-like advances in just our short — yes, short — lifetimes. Imagine the jaw-dropping advances our grandkids will see in their hopefully long lifetimes.

So take a look around your home. One need not be a hoarder to have all the equipment on hand for entertaining — and educating — a grandchild for hours.

And when you run out of ideas, simply consult your encyclopedia. Not the one you access online, but the one on your bookshelf. You do still have one, right? I thought so, for we grandparents know printed encyclopedias are the way accumulating knowledge used to work.

Every once in a while those old encyclopedia volumes still work, at least when it comes to entertaining a grandchild with our antique accumulations. Plus, they work in grand ways for pressing leaves and flowers inside the pages, too — something newfangled online reference sites will never be able to do.

photos: stock.xchng

Today's question:

What are some of the outdated gizmos and gadgets you still own? (And, no, your spouse doesn't count!)

Water woes

On Saturday, I got an infinitely small taste of what some of those affected by Hurricane Sandy have gone through and, in some cases, are still going through.

The day started as most any other Saturday, meaning I had a huge to-do list, especially considering the many gifts I'm making for Christmas. I did a little here, a little there, and by about 10:30 that morning, I went out to the garage to do some painting projects I had lined up for the day. I figured I'd get the painting done then clean the cats' litter boxes before taking my shower for the day.

So I painted away. Around noon, just as I headed into the house  to wash off the black and brown paint covering my hands (and the lubricant I'd sprayed all over them to help with removing the paint from my hands), Jim met me halfway to say water was flowing like a river in the street in front of our house—and there was absolutely no water on tap inside the house.

Apparently a water main had burst. Jim and I—both of us unshowered—joined the neighbors in the street to hem and haw about the wasted water that could have gone to good use on our drought-stricken trees. Water that would have done a world of good for my paint-and-lubricant-covered hands, too.

As the wait for utility crews to arrive and repair the broken main was long and uneventful, I headed back inside to do what I could to clean my hands and eliminate what I could from my to-do list. Soon Jim followed and we set to work putting up the majority of our Christmas decorations.

Time ticked on and by dinner time, still no water. With no way to make dinner without water, Jim ventured out to pick up Taco Bell. We used wet wipes to wash our hands before touching our tacos, but at least the repair crews had arrived and were hard at work. Even as daylight was gone, they toiled away.

Time continued ticking on...and on...and on.

And the utility crews continued working...and working...and working.

By 9 p.m., the big guns had arrived. Big trucks with big equipment, including big lights. They dug big holes and carried big pipes.

All the while, I sat on my big butt in front of my big window with my big camera in hand, documenting their work late into Saturday night.

 

Soon after midnight, the clean-up crews were scooping up the last of the dirt. The water was on. Hallelujah!

By 1 a.m. Sunday, everyone was gone.

Until Sunday afternoon, that is, when a few of the neighbors dropped by to check out the street repairs.

I think they were impressed. I know I certainly was. Not only with the repair crew, but even more so with the folks affected by Hurricane Sandy now that I'd had an infinitesimal smidgen of a sampling of what they endured for many, many more hours than I did.

Today's question:

When did you last endure a utility service outage (water, gas, or electric)?

One-word Wednesday: Frustration

Today's question:

What's your greatest frustration of late?

Photo replay: Now showing

Now showing at my place:

Today's question:

What's showing at your place?

Photo replay: Can it be?

Can it really be that this year, our fifth summer in this house, our plums will finally, finally survive the heat and drought and bugs to reach their full and edible glory for the very first time since we've lived here?

Yesterday, one of our many plum trees.

I sure hope so.

(And I sure hope I didn't just jinx it.)

Today's question:

What tips do you have for preventing bugs and other critters from ruining plum—and apple and peach—trees?

Black feet, black bears, and getting back to normal

Last week was a week I will never forget. A week so surreal, a week so not my normal.

My normal is as quiet as I want it to be, with time to do what I want, what I need, with all of that time punctuated with varying degrees of missing my grandsons.

Not last week, though. Last week my grandsons were at my house, and I was their primary caretaker. The house was blissfully loud—interspersed with occasional loud moments not so blissful, too, I must admit. I had little time to do what I needed for myself, but also no time to miss my grandsons, for they were by my side while their mom and dad attended a conference nearby. Time with Bubby and Mac was the very best part of my not-normal week.

My normal is relatively mild in terms of temperatures. Not so last week. Triple-digit heat, record heat, historically high heat literally never before felt in Colorado Springs marked the temperature gauge in unprecedented fashion. Day after day after day. It’s just heat, some might say. Stay in the house and turn on the air. It's no big deal. In a house—in my house—that has no air conditioning, though, it is a big deal. It’s hot. It’s hell. A hell I didn't want to deal with myself, much less impose upon my grandsons.

And then, well, then there was the Waldo Canyon Fire. The horrific part of the week. The heartbreaking part. The surreal part.

Tuesday evening rush hour, driving with my grandsonsSurreal in that on the west side of my city, hillsides, landmarks, homes were burning. People—families—were evacuated from their homes. Smoke and ash filled the sky, reaching as far as the city’s east side, my side.

Surreal in that every local television station went to 24/7 coverage of the disaster, the devastation. While my grandsons played nearby, I tried to watch. When they slept at night, Jim and I did watch, far into the night, especially on the most horrific day, on Tuesday.

Surreal in that I continually, obsessively checked Facebook, Twitter, email for news on friends and family, their safety and their homes. That I regularly received reports and texts from Megan and Preston as they tried—yet often failed—to enjoy their mountaintop conference and festivities while homes and Megan’s hometown burned within clear and heartbreaking view.

Surreal in that our health department warned residents to stay indoors, with windows shut and air-conditioning on, so as to not breathe in the ash and the soot. Having no air conditioning, we opted for taking the boys to various indoor play areas. We did our best each day to have a good time with them while the west side of our city burned. At night we wrestled with choosing between opening windows to let in cooler air to lower the hellish temps in the boys’ upstairs rooms or keeping the windows closed to avoid the soot and ash we were warned to keep out of our homes, our respiratory systems. Especially respiratory systems with itsy bitsy lungs the likes of Baby Mac’s…or even Bubby’s.

Wednesday afternoon, heading to an indoor play placeSurreal in that access to my mom, my sister, attractions we’d planned to visit with the boys was shut down, impassable for the entire week, as fire raged and firefighters needed to protect the highway, use the highway. That shelters, like refugee camps, were set up around the city for evacuees. That the state governor, the United States president visited to view my city’s disaster and devastation firsthand, to offer support.

We watched each day and each night—as often as we could while still attending to and enjoying our grandsons—as not only local news but national broadcasts revealed burned areas that looked like war zones, yet were neighborhoods I had visited, places friends lived. We and the rest of the city anxiously watched news conferences at 8 a.m. and 4 p.m. each day for updates on the status of the fire and evacuees, the successes of the firefighters.

All this while I and every other resident not in the line of the fire worried about, prayed about, cried about those who were.

All this while my grandsons visited and the hellish hot temperatures continued.

Even after the initial shock and awe of the fire and its horrific trail and toll, strange things, things so very not normal, continued. Expected things like subconsciously searching the sky for new plumes of smoke and endlessly tossing about with others the figures related to homes burned, evacuees remaining, fire containment percentages.

Bubby's soot-covered feetUnexpected things, too. Such as realizing that going barefoot around my house—which my grandsons and I usually do—resulted in black soles thanks to the soot and the ash coating my home despite the miles between the fire and us. Black soles that required me to scrub my grandsons’ little piggies at bath time and scrub my own big piggies before bedtime to remove the grime. And the unexpected sound of packs of coyotes howling as they roamed my neighborhood, of having a black bear amble down my street. The coyotes and the bear, along with elk spotted in the center of town and countless other wild and displaced animals searched for a home that, like the 350 homes of local human residents, burned, is gone.

So strange. So sad.

This week I’m still sad about the displaced animals, the displaced people, the burned homes and trails and landmarks. Yet, this week, I feel a little closer to normal. The air and sky are clear of smoke, the ash and soot have been cleaned from my house. My grandsons have gone home, television coverage of the fires has been reduced to a crawl at the bottom of the screen. The pass to my mom has re-opened. The fire moves ever closer to containment.

I do still scan the sky for new smoke and for rain that would lower the still-hot temps and dampen the still-burning fire. And I make sure to watch the evening news and check #WaldoCanyonFire on Twitter throughout the day. I also continue to be on the lookout for lost and frightened animals in my neighborhood. Overall, though, it’s been relatively easy for me to get back to normal.

I’m fortunate, blessed, and thankful. For many others in my city, getting back to normal hasn’t been so easy. My heart, my thoughts, my prayers go out to them—to those who are still reeling, who must build new homes and new lives, who have yet to create a new normal.

Today's question:

The Waldo Canyon Fire evacuees had mere hours, sometimes less, to gather personal belongings from their homes. What would you grab first—other than people and pets—in the event of evacuation?