...or Deconstruction continued

Entropy—you know, the thermodynamic principle that order always proceeds toward disorder? Well, entropy and I became intimately acquainted in the broad sense in the autumn of 2024, as our little addition got snagged by one problem after another.

I should say that not all of it was the contractor’s fault. There was the electric company, who decided the previously overhead line had to be buried because it couldn’t be relocated a safe distance from the addition. This necessitated the installation of a small tower in the back of our yard, which would be shared by all the properties abutting ours, but which we would pay for in entirety. Not fair, but try to win an argument with a utility company. We stated our case, and after a delay of two weeks, grit our teeth and paid.

Then there was a misunderstanding over where the new concrete patio would end. Somehow, our contractor didn’t account for the fact that we would need a walkway from the addition’s back porch to the patio, which led to more arguing, my husband handing the contractor and landscape “artist” a rough design of how the new walkway should look, and, you guessed it, additional costs.

Meanwhile, our healthcare system assigned my husband an oncologist, who seemed nice enough, but not fully invested in treating lung cancer in an octogenarian. Luckily, the tumor was confined to one lung, and, before retiring, our primary care doctor had given us the name of an excellent thoracic surgeon. Within a week, my husband was in the surgeon’s office, and a date was scheduled in early January, 2025. for a lobectomy. There were the usual concerns about a major surgery like that on someone my husband’s age, but all the pre-op tests indicated he was a good candidate for it, and should do fine. We held our breath, and said nightly prayers they were right….

***

It’s odd, but sometimes you have to be grateful for annoying distractions. People kept asking me how my husband was dealing with his cancer diagnosis and impending surgery, whether he was depressed or upset or anxious, and I would say, he seems too irritated by all the craziness and incompetence surrounding the construction to think about it. And in those difficult, uncertain days, there were plenty of truly bone-headed ideas, roadblocks, and annoyances to distract both of us.

Remember the leaking ceiling in my office? There were two days (and extra money) allotted to repair and paint it, which meant a day in which I had to move everything out of my office and drag my massive desk into the center of the room.. Only two days after it was “fixed,” and I had everything back in place, a giant bulge appeared under the fresh paint….

So, I got to haul and schlep everything out of the way again, then haul and schlep it all back into place.

It was decided that a new SpacePak system had to be installed to replace our ancient one. Because the contractor decided we needed air conditioning in our new addition (a mudroom/laundry room and ADA compliant bathroom with a curbless shower), and we needed additional tubing into the addition to provide it, he was all set to knock a series of holes in my office wall to run the tubing through the wall behind my built-in bookcases, and asked me to clear out all the books so he could do it.

Again, I schlepped, while relaying the information to my husband who said, “He wants to do WHAT???”

As I said, if my husband wanted to be despondent about having cancer, he didn’t have much time for it. Instead, he had to concentrate on creating a set of drawings detailing how the balloon construction of our house extended into the attic, allowing for electrical lines to be dropped from there down through the walls and where they could be routed into the addition. He also had to insist, repeatedly, that we did not need AC in the addition, and did not want the hassle and expense of trying to put it in.

The contractor thought we were crazy, but he shrugged his shoulders and stopped pursuing the matter. There were still inspections to pass, now that the foundation was set, exterior roughed in, and insulation sprayed, and the cold weather and holidays looming.

To be continued….

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