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post-Amazon mall in Syracuse
Tuesday, October 29 2024
location: rural Hurley Township, Ulster County, NY
Today Gretchen and I would be driving to Rochester in the western part of New York to look at a house we'd found and bought entirely remotely. But for some reason Gretchen wanted us to begin our drive late in the day, perhaps because our housesitter Fern wouldn't be coming until 5:30pm. It didn't take me long to pack all the things I needed and do the other things I wanted to do before we left, and then after that I spent the hours before we left with an unusual feeling: boredom. This was because I have difficulty starting on something unless I have a long unbroken runway of time stretching out before me.
We left the house at around 3:00pm and took the route that maximized our use of the Thruway (as opposed to a scenic route through, say, the Catskills, where we would've seen many more Trump/Vance signs). Fairly early in the drive, Gretchen was coordinating with a HVAC company to have the boiler at our Wall Street property tuned up, something we'd never had done in the ten years we've owned it. (Gretchen hadn't initially been sure what the procedure was called, and, before I leapt in to set her straight, had originally been ordering a "sludge removal" from the house's oil tank, a procedure that would've cost $600 instead of $200.) But it wasn't long after the HVAC guy showed up at that he called to say that he couldn't do the tuneup because the boiler was in such bad shape. The guy's English wasn't great (he sounded Hispanic) and said there was "too much combustion," which didn't sound like a real problem boilers could experience. He then quoted a figure of something like $600 as the cost of what needed to be done. This sounded suspicious to me, as the boiler had been working fine last season and the only reason we'd called an HVAC company was to have routine adjustments made. While the guy was on the phone, I said that I would have to look at it myself before we could proceed with anything, that we'd just hired him and had no idea whether or not what he was telling us was even true. Gretchen reacted to this with horror, immediately apologizing for what I'd said. (It seems I've watched a few too many YouTube videos where contractors find fake problems as a means of making easy money.) Unfortunately, the HVAC guy said he "had" to turn off the boiler after seeing what he'd seen, which meant that now our tenant wouldn't have heat until it was turned back on. The tenant could turn it on, of course, but what if there really was something wrong with the boiler? Fortunately, the weather was predicted to be unseasonably warm until Saturday, which meant we could still have our trip to Rochester. But it meant we'd be spending less time at the Adirondack cabin on the way back. This called for a new rule: to never have a contractor visit one of our houses when we are not in town.
At around sunset, we arrived in Syracuse and charged at the Electrify America charging station at the Dewitt Marshall Plaza, a sprawling post-Amazon mall, the kind built around sprawling parking lots (instead of indoor pedestrian-only spaces). Electrify America has a deeply fucked-up system, and one is lucky to find a working charger at one (which, fortunately we did). More surprising, though, was that when the machine started charging our car, it referred to me using someone else's name, and the electrictity that was put into it never appeared in my charge history. Either they'd experienced a weird database fuckup or I was somehow charging using the account of the person who had last used the charger.
While the charging was happening, we strolled around the mall, looking in the storefront in a amazement at the crap people will willingly buy. I'd never heard, for example, of a chain called Five Below, but evidently it's a big favorite with Powerful, the guy who used to live in our basement. They sell big bags of candy, Christmas decorations, and cheap electronics, all for $5 or less. We also spent some time in Dick's Sporting Goods store, though there was nothing there either of us wanted.
As always, we stopped for a meal at Strong Hearts Café, where I enjoyed an excellent mushroom po'boy with a side of macaroni salad. Gretchen got something with fries, that I helped her eat. I also had an oat milk cappuccino, which is one of the few beverages I get when there (the other being black coffee, which I got for the road).
There were fairly heavy rains west of Syracuse, and it was cold enough that condensation accumulated on the inside of the windshield, though Gretchen (who was driving) mostly ignored it, because running defrost ate into our range. She'd roll down the window a little now and then to hit it without outdoor air, and that worked okay.
As we approached Rochester, temperatures rose into the low 60s, perhaps due to all the summer heat still stored in Lake Ontario. We made it to Maryann's place with 30 miles of range to spare.
We didn't stay up too late talking to Maryann after we dragged our bags into her guest room. One of the things we had to agree to was not to discuss the presidential election, as it has been a source of stress in her life and it's not something she can do anything about anyway.
Maryann's adorable cat Fox peeking into the guest room a little before we fell asleep.
Click to enlarge.
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