Roofing Virgin

I normally like rainy days. Being outside in the rain is always fun for me, and unless it’s freezing rain or I’m wearing a nice dress, I don’t even use an umbrella. When I’m inside, I cuddle up with a blanket on the couch and watch the rain pouring down from the safety of my dry home.

Until the roof started to leak.

For the last year and a half or so, Ray and I have had to put out a bucket for the leaks that drip down between our bedroom and the sunroom. Apparently the geniuses that built the addition to our house didn’t install the flashing on the new roof where it abuts the old roof. Thus, the leak.

For a while, it leaked through the wall and down onto the first floor, which led to water stains on the ceiling of the living room, something that I never thought I’d have to ever think about, but now, as a homeowner, every little stain, crack, creak, and smell in my house I’m acutely aware of.

So now, after a year and a half, we, the ultimate procrastinators, have finally decided we didn’t want to spend another winter with a leaky roof, so we finally decided to interview contractors to get bids for the job.

Now, while Ray has some knowledge of how roofs are put together, he’s not a roofer himself, and I certainly had no idea what to ask for when talking to roofers. But now, after a week of interviewing contractor after contractor, I know exactly what to ask and what kind of presentations are sketchy.

We got bids of all types, from a guy who took measurements and left an estimate in our mailbox to the guy who spent two and a half hours to give a presentation complete with playing an infomercial DVD (which went over exactly all the things he had already explained). That last guy, by the way, got to our house at 8 PM and didn’t leave until 10:30, way overstayed his welcome, and would not take no for an answer. I tried hinting, I tried saying “no” outright, and I tried standing up and helping him pack.

We finally picked a middle-of-the-road price with a down-to-earth sales guy. I’m comfortable with our choice, although we’re still spending more money than I would like to, given that we’ve got a wedding to plan. However, I think most people would agree it’s good to have a roof that doesn’t leak.

When I was a little girl, my grandfather built the addition to the little house my mom and I lived in. He wasn’t a contractor, but he sure liked to build things. I don’t think anything in our house was up to code, though. When the roof started leaking in that house, my mom hired some guys (not contractors) to fix the roof. They never finished the job, so my mom had to hire someone else to finish it. Of course, those guys were so high the roof was too low for them, so my mom had to get someone else a few years later to redo the roof again (and do some other work on the house).

After those experiences, I vowed to myself that when I was a homeowner, I’d only get a reputable contractor. So here I am. I found a (hopefully) reputable contractor, and we’ll see how it goes. If they do a good job, I’ll be sure to let everyone know. And if they do poorly, I’ll let everyone and the Better Business Bureau know too.

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Random Ramblings

Our New Year’s Eve party went well. Josh & Jill ended up cleaning the house, which was great, because there was no way in hell I had any time to pitch in and help. The Masur New Year’s Eve concert (Beethoven’s 9th, of course) went well, too, and as I was walking back to my car after the concert, I got a call from JF. He was driving into New York, he said, and he’d heard the concert on the radio. He wanted to apologize for not getting back to me about coming to the open dress (I had a free ticket and had invited him), but apparently he had just come in from Canada (?!?) that morning, and wouldn’t have been able to make it anyway. Then he said, “What are you doing now?”

I told him that I was on my way to get my car so I could drive home. He said, “You should come down to Times Square and hang out with me!” I was like, no, my roommates are having a party, and besides, I want to be home by midnight to kiss my boyfriend. Then he said, “You are such a sentimental sap!” I’m like, okay, whatever, JF. Just because I don’t want to be mobbed by hundreds of thousands of people and I actually want to be with my boyfriend on New Year’s Eve I’m a sap. Oy.

Aida rehearsals have started. Of course, I’m frustrated with Elbows, who can’t count or speak Italian (remember, she couldn’t speak French for Faust?), and she has this really annoying habit of singing the solo parts badly and then forgetting to cue us in. Not only that, but she can’t hear where we’re messing up. Luckily, our accompanist rocks. She has taken over the job of singing our cues, and she actually can sing the Italian well, play the piano, and help us come in.

We’ve got 75 people in the chorus, which should be oh-so-interesting when we get on stage. The stage seemed crowded with 45 people for Faust. I’m not sure how they’re going to fit 75 chorus members and 40+ supers, as well as the soloists on the stage. They’re going to have to use the whole stage, which means that there’s not going to be any backstage, which will be tough when all 75 of us have to sing backstage. I’m just going to have to be very patient for the staging rehearsals.

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Garage Rocks

I wanted to tell you about how things are shaping up around the house. Surprisingly, Ray is actually doing a lot to help clean up his pinball stuff and put it in the garage. On Sunday, while I was at church, he and Josh took the rented van went to Sears and picked up a freezer that Josh has had his eye on for the last month (just waiting for it to drop in price, which it did). They organized the garage and found a home for all the leather. When I got home, I was still feeling kind of crappy, but I did a little cleaning, too. On Monday, though, I came home to find Ray being really industrious, moving his open pinball machine, guts and all, to the garage. And you know what? The freezer and two pinball machines miraculously fit in the garage alongside all of the leathercrafting stuff! Amazing!

That still leaves four pinball machines in the front room, but I was finally able to vacuum in there (which I haven’t been able to do for MONTHS!) and Ray is going to set the daybed up today. He even bought wood to make folding screens that I had suggested for privacy, since we’re putting the daybed in the front room with the pinball machines. This way, it’ll be almost another room, with the daybed, books, and fireplace on one side and pinball machines on the other side. Yay!

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Resurfacing for Air

Well, it’s been a whirlwind weekend (like I thought), but I managed to get almost enough sleep. It’s already Wednesday, and I’m still having trouble getting out of bed in the morning. I think I’m addicted to coffee again. Stupid caffeine. I’m having tea today (English Breakfast) to start weaning myself off of the demon coffee bean.

Faire is over (yay!) which means that I’m now in CLEAN-UP mode (boo!). Ray is being really helpful, surprisingly. I think I finally explained to him how important it is for me to have a special set-aside place for my dad to stay. He’s going to move the pinball machine he’s fixing, guts and all, to the garage. But first Ray and Josh have to clear a space in the garage, because now they have all the leather from the faire in boxes everywhere. They’re working on that while I’m doing cleanup in other areas of the house. Today is laundry day. Unfortunately, I still have to work this week, so I can’t start anything until this afternoon. But things are getting done, and that’s good. Ray’s even renting a truck for the weekend so we can go to New York and take Amy’s daybed that she’s been trying to unload on us for a good five months.

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Friday Pi-Day

I’m home right now waiting for the landscaping guy to come and give me an estimate on some work to be done to our yard. Basically, I didn’t have enough time or energy to take care of the backyard and it is now a big huge jungle. I’m going to try to get him to completely remove the shrubs on one side of the house so I can start from scratch next spring.

Yesterday was okay. I had church rehearsal, which went okay, but I’ll tell you, the altos are not doing nearly as well as they did last year. And V. doesn’t really rehearse us properly. His idea of rehearsing is to run through a piece, and then it’s rehearsed. Only the week that the piece is going to be performed does he stop and work on stuff, but by then everyone’s already learned the mistakes, which makes it too late.

I’m doing this gig soon with the Muse in Westchester County. She sent me some music and a CD that she had put together, and when I got it in the mail and listened to the CD, I was kind of confused. First of all, the music on the CD was just the alto part out of an SSA harmony (which, if you didn’t know, is not very melodious at all), and the music she sent me was, like most of the stuff she does, a piano/vocal score with only the melody written in. So I’m supposed to guess where my part fits in. I wrote to her and told her that this was a lot of work, because basically what I was doing to learn the music was transcribe my part into the music. Sheemailed me back and said that she never intended to make the music learning more work than we had originally talked about (what does that mean?). She insists that all I have to do is listen to the CD and memorize the words and I’ll be fine. She also insists that my notes are in the accompaniment and I should find them just fine, but she’s only about 80% correct. Dude, I don’t WORK like that. Argh.

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Episode XXIII: Middle Earth America

Hello, all you zany friends of mine!

Well, despite all my best intentions, I have waited another few months to crank this letter out. As you can see, though, I now have a much better (and cleaner!) format with which to compose my ramblings. I hope you enjoy it, and are able to navigate through the wasteland with not too much difficulty.

When we left our beloved heroine, she was in the midst of picking her life up (yet again), this time to move it into a house in the Garden State. The tree-hugging San Francisco vegetarian willingly placed herself in the state where the nearest nuclear power plant is expired but hasn’t been shut down yet; where there are more malls in a square mile than you can shake a stick at; and where GMO’s reign supreme. Despite (or perhaps because of?) her descent into Middle America, SuperMaren continues to have her adventures; after all, one does not have to be on the top of a skyscraper in New York to soar among the clouds.

I am now safely ensconced in my new home, which is absolutely wonderful. As you can see in the picture below, it’s rather picturesque and extremely suburban. The first person to welcome me into the neighborhood was Jack, the mailman. I kind of felt like singing, “Would you be mine? Could you be mine? Won’t you be my neigbor?” a la Mr. Rogers. I have become involved in the everyday tasks of keeping the house clean and maintaining the garden as well as the pond in the backyard (which has goldfish! I’m trying to train them to be attack fish…I may have to introduce some piranhas at one point or another). I also now have a car, thanks to Ray, who just bought a new car and handed his old Saturn over to me. I now think up menus to cook for the week and I listen to NPR in the car. I think I actually might be turning into a grown up! Either that, or Suburbia is really starting to grow on me. Should I be worried?

Ironically, as soon as I moved out of New York, I started to get calls for gigs in New York. These past couple of weeks, I sang at the Bard Music Festival in Annandale-on-Hudson, in the chorus for Mahler’s 2nd and 8th Symphonies. What a wonderful experience! Not only did I have the chance to work with some incredibly talented musicians, but I got to stay in a dorm aptly called “Ward Manor” (it was, literally a manor, with ivy climbing up the walls ) on the campus of Bard College, which is one of the prettiest campuses I have ever seen. Not only that, but while I was up there for the festival, I had a chance to go hiking down to the Hudson River and exploring to nearby mansions. Not a bad way to make a living!

Next month, I’ll be performing in the chorus with the New York Philharmonic doing Beethoven’s 9th Symphony and a John Adams world premiere. I got a call for that horrible High Holy Days gig, but I asked for a more money (to compensate me for all the hassle I knew I would go through) and he said that he couldn’t afford it…I’m rather relieved, since I really didn’t want to be singing with Rabbi Napoleon again. I’m still planning on having a recital this year, but the more I try planning it, the more obstacles are thrown in my way. I’m hoping to shoot for early winter, perhaps in November sometime; I’ll keep you posted.

So I am thinking about having a Halloween party here at the house…whaddya think? I’ll work carpools out with those of you in New York who have no cars, and we can have a rip roarin’ time. I really want to see you all, and what better way to show my new home off than with my friends?

I hope you are all well. Please take care, and let me know how you are doing! I miss you!!!!

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Episode XXII: Attack of the Homes

(okay, I deserve to be flogged for that subject header)

Hello, all you wild and zany people I call my friends!

It has been six months since my last installment of the Adventures of SuperMaren, and I have been hearing complaints from you, my adoring readers, because you want to know what has been happening in my life. First, let me apologize for not writing this sooner. As a result of my procrastination I have dozens of little stories to tell you all – side stories, if you will – which could be titled everything from “SuperMaren Does Voice-Overs” to “SuperMaren vs. The Psycho Composer” to “SuperMaren and the Boss’s Underwear.” None of which I could fit into this email before you all started skimming the page (which some of you have started doing already, I’ll bet).

So I have decided to do the following: I am currently writing these small episodes, and if you are interested in hearing the extra stories, please write to me and I will email them to you. Actually, I will probably end up putting them on my website and pointing you to the URL, but I have to wait until I actually get a computer of my own in order to do that…one thing at a time.

That being said, on with the big news. Many of you already know this, but for those of you with whom I only communicate every once in a blue moon, I am moving into my very own house. Ray and I have bought a house (closing date is May 17) in Willingboro, NJ. It’s about 2 hours away from New York and about 20 minutes away from Philadelphia. But I won’t be quitting my job in NY, I’ll just be shortening my hours to accommodate for the horrendous commute (long story short, I’m making the slow move away from the city, since I need to be a bigger fish in a smaller pond).

More on that later…this is mainly to let you know that my address will be changing as of this Friday, May 17. My new address will be:

Between Friday and Tuesday, I will be without computer, so I won’t be able to respond right away to your well-wishing emails and story requests, but rest assured, once I’m up and running again, I will take some time off from unpacking to talk to you, because I like talking to you! Besides, it will be nice to hear from friendly voices (read friendly text?) while I’m adjusting to my new surroundings.

Take care of yourselves! I miss you!

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