Icy New Year

I pulled up last years Times Square ball drop and played it at 6:30. My kids were none the wiser and my new years party was surprisingly quiet.

That may also have had something to do with only one person showing up. Either way, I'm glad I didn't have to open my front door more than twice. Whoever stood in front of the door to open it would lose a few degrees in their core. It's the kind of temperatures that can cure a fever by checking the mail.

I'm not certain why new years diets always start on January 1. I mean I get the calendar date, but we're all so chock full of leftovers that it just seems wasteful. Even my wife and I are planning something different, but giving it another week.

Ah January... Everyone packs up their decorations (if they haven't already) and tries on a new flavor of living for a few weeks before going back to their sedentary sugars. Meanwhile, my wife disappears into a tax vortex, only to reappear sometime in mid April. I lack enough black clothing to display my mourning period, so I have to settle with baggy sweaters and not shaving.

I already do that because of the cold, though.

Anyway, a lot of people always complain about the previous year. "Oh wow, 20XX was so horrible, next year is gonna rock" etc ad nauseam. Happens every year without fail. Some years have noticeably more whining, but it's persistent. Well I had a good year, and I'm gonna have an even better one.

Twenty seventeen point oh

Star Wars
Blade Runner

Wait, I already did this one.

I finally finished my basement. It was yesterday when I did, but I'm done. Until I decide to do more, then I'm never done.

It's extremely cold. Cold enough to where I'm thinking of growing a face blanket a.k.a beard. My wife purrs at the idea. I just think she's jealous. Then again, I can't get away with wearing fleece leggings as pants during the day.

I'm not complaining.

The clock

Here it is:

Mirari OK to Wake! Alarm Clock & Night-Light

It worked on the first day, but Christmas morning was too strong for them. I suppose my next plan is a time lock on the door, but I'll have to look into the legality of that.

The furniture

Have you ever found a piece of furniture that you can honestly say brings you joy? Like you look at it and you're glad you have it. When you use it, you're genuinely happy at how well it fits.

The house I bought is right next door to my grandfather's house. He doesn't live there (dude owns two houses, he lives in the one by a river, not the one by my four screaming children. I can't blame him), but it contains artifacts from a life well lived. One such was his sisters table.

I knew of that table. I first saw it when I visited my great aunts house decades ago. It's a coffee table, cut from a single piece of wood and left with its original shape. Engraved in the surface is a checkerboard on one side, and cribbage holes on the other. It's a unique piece that caught my eye even when I was a kid.

When she passed on, the table found its way into my grandfathers home. It collected dust, and occasionally served to hold random odds and ends in his detached garage.Once my basement was finished, (and a good opportunity arose) I wasn't shy about telling him that this beautiful thing was going to waste sitting there.

He let me take it.

The finished half of my basement is divided into two rooms. One is distinctly an office, the other I made into a lounge. I found myself a very large couch (the kind you can effectively *hide* in, as I've proved to my dear wife already), and while I'm quite pleased with myself on finding that big soft blue thing, that table has history.

It's strange how I'm drawn to things like that. Like my house. I could have bought any house, but I bought the one my mother grew up next to. The two families knew each other since the 60's (the house stayed in their family from when it was built until I bought it), and selling it was apparently a hard thing. But since I was no stranger, it was a lot easier emotionally.

But I digress. I know the history of this house. I have relatives that had sleepovers here when they were kids. I keep hearing stories about the place, and I relish it. The table has the same appeal.

I'm starting to wonder if I'll ever be able to take myself away from it.

The subterranean spot

My basement is, I would say, 99% done. The trim got weird in some places (the places where I forgot what I was doing), but I 200% don't care about that, so it's still a victory.

The dank 70's era carpet is long gone. The moldering ceiling tiles are gone. The walls have a fresh coat of paint. The new ceiling is raised up so it doesn't block half of the window. The new floor is *not* carpet.

When I had time, I had no supplies. When I had supplies, I had no time. When my other half finished the tax season, I suddenly had both. That was about a month ago. Now the work is just about done.

Feels good. This basement is, on average, 10-15 degrees cooler than the rest of the house. So I was really hoping to have it done and ready *before* summer decides to go full sauna on us.

Now if only I had some furniture down there.

The city dream

Ok, dream time.

Jerusalem, instead of being a city on a hill in the desert, was instead on a high cliff by the ocean. Only for some reason, the ground underneath it had been carved away, and now the top was crumbling into the water below. Like they dug too deep or something. Either way, the foundation had eroded. Also, there was a small army approaching it.

Someone I work with (Let's call her J) brought in a professional photographer and was bent on getting some real good shots of everything as it happened. In the dream, it didn't feel out of place. Meanwhile, there were people on boats under the city investigating what happened. I was on one such boat, and so was Terry Crews. Apparently, he made the boat go faster.

I have the weirdest dreams sometimes.

Twenty seventeen

Things I'm looking forward to this year:

Not moving.
Finish working on the basement.

I have a bunch of other stuff, but most of that is fairly private. For now, moving twice in as many years was more than I cared for. (I typically gain a bit of fondness for a place I live, and having lived in my previous home less than a year I developed none. It was strange being somewhere so briefly)

I type this from the as yet unfinished basement in the house I* own. Four separate rooms in the basement. A workshop, (work benches and everything), laundry room, what was a bedroom, and a craft room of sorts. The bedroom and craft room were finished. Horrid wood panels, a pinkish carpet that was older than me, and an aging drop ceiling. Had to be dealt with. Carpet torn out, walls painted, ceiling worked on. New lighting. I'd say I'm halfway done. My goal is to make an office out of the craft room and a lounge/library/study out of the bedroom.

This whole wife/kids/house thing has really taught me how to split my time up. I used to play a lot of video games. Now I feel like I'm curating other people's lives. Very fulfilling, more than I expected. I sat down and played Uno with my two older boys tonight. I used to play massive online games with dozens of people coordinating all sorts of strategies, and it was wildly entertaining. But playing an age old card game with a six and seven year old just warmed my soul.

*The bank owns it, really