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Hello, my name is Judas Gutenberg and this is my blaag (pronounced as you would the vomit noise "hyroop-bleuach").



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   anti-mold jihad in Powerful's room
Monday, November 22 2021

location: rural Hurley Township, Ulster County, NY

Diane the Cat growled at something she saw out the laboratory window this morning, so I knew someone unfamiliar had arrived. I went out to see and it was Eric the Painter, whom Gretchen had hired to repaint Powerful's room in the basement using every anti-mold measure in his arsenal. The anti-mold jihad began over the weekend when Gretchen bleached away any visible mold on the walls and ceiling. The hope is that once the room has a fresh coat of paint and a replacement for the carpet, Powerful will be able to resume living down there despite the compromises to his immune system inherent given his recent heart transplant (and the medications necessary to keep his body from rejecting it). Until that jihad is complete, he lives on the couch in our living room.
Gretchen worked her usual Monday shift at the bookstore in Woodstock today, meaning that when Powerful suddenly learned he needed a coronavirus test today, I was the one who would have to take him.
As we were getting ready to leave (in Powerful's Prius), Andy the Carpet Guy arrived. Andy is the guy who installed the hardwood floors in our first floor nineteen years ago, and I think he (or his crew) installed the flooring upstairs as well (about ten years ago), and his crew may have also been the one who installed the carpet in the basement and upstairs (also nineteen years ago), nearly all of which has been subsequently replaced. The one place where that nearly-two-decade-old basement carpet remains is in Powerful's room. That carpet has seen a lot; for a time it was the preferred pissing and pooping spot for the dogs when the weather was nasty outside, and more recently it appears Powerful dropped a big gulp or some other massive stain-producing drink near the door. Andy would be removing the carpet and measuring for replacement material, hopefully the vinyl faux-wood that works best in that damp environment. After showing Andy down to the room, I added Neville to the coronavirus test outing, since I didn't want him barking at (or possibly biting) Andy, something he occasionally does to strangers inside our house.
We had trouble finding the coronavirus testing facility on Grand Street near the hospital. Powerful thought it would be some sort of outdoor testing place with a tent, which would make sense given that testing facilities tend to concentrate the infected. But no, the testing facility was indoors and the waiting room was cramped. For my own safety, I waited in the car. As I did so, I saw several grim-looking people walking into and out of the building. And of course Powerful himself isn't exactly the picture of health these days. After seeing all that, I urged Gretchen never to have Powerful get a coronavirus test at that facility ever again, as it is the place he is most likely to contract coronavirus. (Since he needs a coronavirus test before every heart biopsy, which he is still getting weekly, there will be many more coronavirus tests in his future.)

When I went to check the snailmail today (which arrives in a mailbox 150 feet north of the end of our driveway), I saw a letter addressed to me from Gretchen. She'd actually mailed it from our mailbox with a stamp and everything (though it had taken an additional note to the letter carrier to actually process it and cancel the stamp). It a card featuring two cats and the message "I'm glad we're in this together." It was just Gretchen saying she was happy I was in her life during these stressful times, what with Powerful moving back into our house in his precarious medical condition, the crazy political environment (she didn't mention the Kyle Rittenhouse verdict, but that was the implication), and the how the Earth's environment is rapidly being destroyed.

I later learned from Gretchen that Andy had done some research and determined that the specific vinyl flooring we'd installed in our basement has been discontinued, meaning that whatever we put in Powerful's room will have to be different. Hopefully it will have the same form-factor and edge connections.


For linking purposes this article's URL is:
http://asecular.com/blog.php?211122

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