When I got off the plane, the Flyaway bus to Van Nuys was waiting outside baggage claim. I hopped on it rather than sort out a Lyft, and I’m sitting in Van Nuys now awaiting a Lyft to Burbank. (The Flyaway gets me most of the way home, but not all.)
A guy who was on the bus is expressing dissatisfaction.
“I didn’t know you had to pay to get on the bus! No one told me!”
Good morning.
This is where we’d come in as immigrants back in the day. We’d take ferries from Ellis Island to the railway terminal to my left, then head out into the heartland by train.
Not the Hungarians who bought my house.
They didn’t even get a mile away from where the ferry docked. They took good care of the house from the forties to the seventies.
Bad news: The roofers had to stop by to add a "gravel stop" to the roof because water was coming off improperly.
Good news: They rescued my drone from the tree.
The upstairs bathroom wall has bubbling paint, and the roofers came over with their drone to take a look. They found a corner where water spills over and said they need to come back and put on a "gravel stop." I had to look that up. It's like a guardrail for water and diverts the rain into the gutter. (This is what I was trying to get a photo of when I steered my drone into the tree and lost it until it comes crashing down with the autumn leaves.)
My bedroom also has bubbling paint down on the ground floor. Is this related to the roofing or is it a coincidence? That's anyone's guess, but the roofers and their drone pointed out a lot of cracks in the stucco on the bay window and said "There's your problem."
They're happy to caulk everything with masonry caulk but it'll take a full day and cost $2,500.
I politely declined, but they'll still do the gravel stop. That's part of the roofing job.
For the caulking, I fretted a while and nearly went to Tsigonia for DIY masonry caulk. Tsigonia is the nearby hardware store where my new name is "my buddy." I guess I've gone there too many times. Michael Kraiger always made me laugh when he'd call Tsigonia "Tsongas," like Paul Tsongas, and I still call it that sometimes.
