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cold drive to snowy Rochester
Sunday, February 2 2025
location: rural Hurley Township, Ulster County, NY
Today I would be driving by myself in the Forester to our rental house in Rochester to both fix the kitchen stovetop (the sparkers weren't working) and to install any smoke detectors necessary for a certificate of occupancy. I left a little before 10:00am, bringing a variety of snacks and such. I managed to drive the entire four hour drive without stopping anywhere, except maybe at traffic lights. Temperatures ranged from 10 degrees Fahrenheit when I left to a high of 24 when I got to Rochester, though they'd fallen as low as 5 between Albany and Syracuse.
My mother's power-of-attorney Joy Tarder called a little before I needed to make a turn onto I-490, the highway that connects Rochester to the Thruway to the east, and I was sure that she was calling to tell me that my mother (Hoagie) had died. But she hadn't; all Joy was aksing was if she should send me some of my brother Don's trust fund money for spending on books and such that I order for him. I was so distracted by this call that I missed the I-490 exit and ended up having to take I-390 instead.
I drove directly to the rental house on Alliance Avenue and was greeted at the door by the new tenant, a woman with a young-looking thirteen-year-old. I immediately got to work on replacing the spark module in the stove, following directions I'd memorized from a YouTube video I'd seen. But this stove wasn a little different from the one in the video, and after removing all the torx screws from each of the burners, the top of the stove didn't want to lift off. Attempts to pry it loose just resulted in scratches and dings. I thought maybe it was being held in the front by a piece of aluminum sheeting around the stems of the front-facing burner knobs, so I removed a couple small bolts using a pair of needle-nosed pliers as a makeshift wrench. That's never the right tool for that job, and inevitably I pinched my left index finger with the plier's jaws, immediately producing a three-eights-inch-long blood blister. But ultimately I was right, that aluminum sheet was the problem, and with it pulled away, the top of the stove came up and I had access to the spark module. Replacing it was extremely easy once I could reach it.
After that, I went around with the tenant seeing what smoke/carbon-monoxide detectors were in place. There was exactly one, and it served both functions and was in the right location for such a detector. This meant I needed to install six more: one each in the four bedrooms, one on the first floor, and one in the basement. I'd brought some smoke detectors, but not enough. So I had to go shopping.
Using Google Maps, I drove to the nearest Lowes, which was further away than expected to the south. Once there, I decided to buy a six-detector contractor pack with detectors having ten year batteries so I won't have to think about them again until I am collecting whatever Social Security survives the Trump administration. I returned to Alliance Avenue and quickly installed all six smoke detectors. Then I did a few other little tasks, such as getting a broken unit of pull-down blinds installed and working well enough for the time being. (It involved fixing one complicated string spool mechanism while disabling another.)
With all that behind me, I could move on to a more relaxing part of the evening. The plan was to buy a pizza and go over to Maryann's house, where she would hopefully eat some of it with me. And then I'd go off to the guest room early and noodle around on my laptop while sipping from a flask of scotch I'd prepared. Initially the idea was to get a pizza at Squatcho's in Downtown Rochester, but it turned out they are closed on Sundays. So then Gretchen found me another vegan pizzeria: New Ethic. It was significantly north of the parts of Rochester we normally visit, but I didn't really care so long as I had directions on my phone. Interestingly, there was a fair amount of crushed snow on most of Rochester's streets, suggesting that little or no salt had been used to melt it. This made for traction issues, but so long as one drove with awareness of the situation, one could drive perfectly safely. (One imagines that dumbasses who tailgate or approach stoplights too quickly soon find themselves uninsurable, which serves as a Darwinian filter making most people driving on Rochester's streets competent at it.)
New Ethic is a vegan pizza "company" that shares a kitchen and staff with a traditional pizzeria called Two Ton Tony's, so it's not really as vegan as truly vegan pizzeria like Squatcho's. But if you order off the New Ethic menu, you get a vegan pizza, one likely cooked in an oven beside a true meat lover's. I ordered a mushroom & vegan pepperoini pie, and when I was told it would take a half hour to prepare, I set off on foot to explore the nearby strip mall. I had the idea that it might be fun to buy a bottle of sherry for Maryann. She used to not drink, a stance the first Trump administration caused her to abandon, so I didn't know if it would be bad form to bring her alcohol. But then the liquor store turned out to be closed, perhaps due to Rochester-only blue laws. So I walked further down the strip until I came upon a wonderous grocery store full of tempting prepared foods and other bounties bathed in a warm interior glow. There I bought four sesame bagels and bag of ground Finger Lakes Coffee Roaster's Jamaican Me Crazy coffee. As I was checking out using an automated machine, I learned the name of the store: Wegmans, which is a legendary chain founded in Rochester. When I returned to Two Ton Tony's, the guy at the cash register made a joke about how the pizza he was bringing out for me was some sort of beef pie, but then quickly let on he was kidding. He then wished me a good evening and said "drive safe," which is always good advice on Rochester's snowy streets.
At Maryann's house, I let myself in and asked if Maryann wanted some pizza. Initially she'd acted like she wouldn't want any, but with a hot pizza there ready to eat, she couldn't say no. She offered me a beer, which I gladly accepted. (It was some sixteen ounce IPA.) We ended up eating our pizza in the living room while watching a couple episodes of Will Trent, yet another cop show about a quirky protagonist, in this case a man who grew up in foster care who is haunted by numerous unpleasant memories. It's not really my kind of show, but I'm not too fussy when I have a beer and some pizza. Maryann and I also discussed Rochester real estate, including my adventures earlier today. She herself is becoming a landlord, having bought a condo over near Jasmin & Moore's place that she thinks she might move to some day when decrepitude kicks in in ernest. (Maryann is already well into her 70s, though she's doing great.)
Eventually Maryann took her dog Lulu for a walk and I slipped off to the bedroom upstairs. Since Gretchen and I are Maryann's only guests, we no longer have to strip the bed after we stay in her guestroom, since we're perfectly happy sleeping in each others' cooties.
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