Tiles and Open Market

Open market was defeated. Now Liz's and my attention can turn to other things.

We went to Heart Lake on Friday and found Brad and his son just wrapping up in the kitchen. We were fairly wiped out when we got there and didn't do very much Friday night -- oh, I almost forgot about the water. Brad had turned on the water for us, but had discovered that the bathtub wouldn't shut off -- and I don't have shut off valves just for the tub, so he turned the water o.ff at the tank. I took a look late Friday to see if there was anything I could do. There wasn't, so we in effect camped out, but at least we had water to fill pails. My main task Saturday was mowing the lawn -- it's a big lawn, the grass was very high -- and it took me four or more hours. After that I didn't feel like tackling the water system.

We decided to leave the tiles as they are for now -- so we have ten extra tiles.


For several reasons we did not stay at Heart Lake for the entire weekend. We drove back to NY early Sunday morning so as to get to church for the 10 AM service. Earl preached and Luis Barrios celebrated.

Now it's Tuesday so I'll post this.

Open Market and Tiles

Liz was very caught up in the campaign to defeat the proposal to go to open market pricing here at Morningside Gardens. I supported that effort, but there were a couple of reasons that I felt unable to take an active role in the campaign.

On Wednesday, the day before the vote, however, I did help in flyering one of the buildings -- I doubt whether the flyers distributed that late had much of an effect on the vote -- and they certainly didn't change the outcome.

I'm not saying what the outcome was, because I am writing this before the results have been officially released.

On Thursday evening, as I was looking at my calendar as the Personnel Committee tried to select a date for our next meeting, I realized that once again I had missed the Wednesday night Bible study.

This morning, Liz and I are going to Heart Lake for part of the Memorial Day weekend. We have not yet decided when we will return, but it will probably be on Monday -- in part it depends on what we find there and in part on how anxious we are to get back home.

The campaign against open market pricing has had a significant effect on our domestic life -- things have bee n put of that we are eager to get back to. Also, we are leaving for Vermont and then Hamilton in just over a week, so there is pressure to be here in New York and not off in the country.

We have been having work done at the cottage. One of the biggest pieces was tiling the kitchen -- we used tles that had been left over from our kitchen at home. There is no clear demarcation between the kitchen and a downstairs study, but we want one more row of tiles to make the kitchen area a lttle larger. Both on Monday and yesterday, we went looking for more tiles that would blend in with those already on the floor. Finally, we found some and we will be taking them with us for the contractor to use in the next few weeks.

I have no idea what state the kitchen will be in when we get there -- we expect it at least to be usable for cooking -- and we will probably be able to start putting things away -- that is, if the countertops are installed. We'll see.

I'm posting this even though i have more to say.

Trinity Eve

I mentioned a couple of weeks ago that I was running for the Board of Directors here at Morningside Gardens. Well, I was elected as I foresaw and there was also an effort on the part of some board members to persuade me to run for president of the coop. Luckily for me, there weren't enough votes to elect me, so I escaped. I was nominated at the organizational meeting, but I declined. If it had come toa vote and if I had voted for myself the result would have been a five-five tie, which would have launched the year on a note that I think would have been singularly unfortunate.

In addition to real life, which we have had a little time for, Liz and I have been very engaged in the current debate here at Morningside Gardens over open market pricing. I hope it is voted down and I have been helping those who are actively campaigning for its defeat. I have not felt able to actually campaign publicly against it myself -- for a number of reasons I won't go into here. But my opposition is no secret.

The engagement with Morningside Gardens affairs has been enormously absorbing and even distracting. For example, this past Wednesday I completely forgot to go to the next to last session of a Bible study series using Crossan's God and Empire as a basis. Oh well, there's one more session -- I hope nothing keeps me from that.

My 50th college reunion is coming up in three weeks. Liz and I are going to Vermont to visit Amanda and her parents Jane and Scott at the beginning of that week and then we'll drive to Clinton on the Thursday for the reunion.

I think I have only been on campus once since 1958, and that was only to drive through without stopping shortly after Liz and I were married. My memories of college life are not entirely happy -- but I am glad to be going back this year. So far, none my particular friends from that time have indicated they will be there --- I haven't kept up with anyone, so I have to check the alumni web pages to see who's coming. Anyway, it will be interesting.

Also this spring, Liz and I are having work done on our Heart Lake cottage kitchen, and we have visited the cottage twice -- each time was a day trip. We'll have to get up there next week to mow the lawn.