Homeward Boundaries
It’s sunset here at Casa Moonstruck, one of the loveliest times of day with the sun setting out over the Hills of Fallbrook and the Pacific Ocean. A few weeks ago I decided to note that about a month after the summer solstice, the sun set just north of the right hand hill of the three hills I face in that direction (note to self – figure out if there are names for those three hills or just name them myself). Today I see the sun’s trajectory and it looks to want to set decidedly south of that spot, sort of on top of the middle hill. I really must get in tune with all of nature’s boundaries if I am to live here forever.
Back at my house in Ithaca, a place I called Homeward Bound, my daughter and her family are enjoying the hell out of the place (especially the pool from the looks of the Snapchat files). Today was a momentous day at Homeward Bound. After 24 years of trying and a full-court press for the last three months, I have finally gotten cable installed. Thank you Spectrum. What started as a desire for HBO has turned into a must-have for internet broadband. I’ve been through Hughes satellite internet, Verizon DSL and Verizon Wireless home hotspot hub and they have all been badly flawed. Who knew that in the era of wireless, cable would be so important. Finally, after paying big bucks to have the cable run 639 feet to my house, we waited four weeks, one week deadline at a time, to get the green box out by the curb.
When the Spectrum truck appeared, my daughter (who has been living there without good internet for six weeks) found the event worthy of a Snapchat photo with a heart drawn around the truck. Praise the Lord! When my daughter called to say the Spectrum guy, who was complaining from the get-go that the return of students to Ithaca was his least favorite time of year, could not figure out how to open the green tower at the curb. Something about it being a new model. Once that problem was solved, he needed to talk to me so I got on to tell him where to bring the cable into the house (about a dozen feet from the box, so pretty easy). Nothing was easy for Mr. Spectrum today and he asked if he could just drill it into the basement and drill it up through the floor. It’s an old farmhouse so I said OK. My cousin Pete, who knows the house better than anyone says there were already holes there to do that….so we probably have two holes in each at this point. Pete tells me not to worry, there are lots of other holes in an old house like this. So much for varmint boundaries.
When my daughter called and told me the internet was working great (so far over 110 mbps download) she explained that Mr. Spectrum was too tired to bury the cable the twelve feet and that he would have to send another crew back “sometime”. He warned that we should tell the gardeners not to mow through the cable that is simply running in the grass. Pete says he’ll handle that and to humor me he will caulk the holes into the house as well. So after spending $5,100 for Spectrum Construction to run the cable from the nearest other customer (the Cornell Robert Trent Jones Golf Course clubhouse) and waiting more than 90 days, I got a low grade installer that had little or no sense of pride in his work. Oh well, at least the broadband is nice and broad.
When I told my youngest son about the installation he was momentarily relieved because he’s heading up for a week next week once the grandgerms go home, and he and his girlfriend need broadband to work from home and allow themselves to escape Brooklyn for a week in August without it costing the PTO. Then he remembered that he tends to work in the Carriage House, where there is a lovely large desk with a view. He asked if the new broadband carries to the Carriage House, and the answer is……no clue. I did suggest that this might allow him to go to Best Buy for me and put a WiFi booster on the porch aimed at the Carriage House. Good idea, right?
I love that my children are able to make use of the Ithaca house and that they really enjoy the summers in Ithaca. It’s a bummer to be COVID-absent from one of my favorite spots in the summer. Don’t get me wrong, I’m loving my first summer in Escondido and if I had to choose one over the other for the summer, I would still vote with Escondido. I guess all this cable work on Homeward Bound just makes me wish I could spend some time there. We are discussing taking a road trip East in October or November, so maybe I’ll get my wish even though the Fall would have to suffice. It would be interesting to see how the Campus will function in a COVID world. The question for us will likely be whether we feel the COVID situation is sufficiently under control to justify the risks. We do not want to be cavalier and then suffer the consequences of an irresponsible life without sufficient boundaries.
Tonight Kim is playing a clip with Barrack Obama from five years ago talking about the importance of making the investment in the guardrails to keep a global pandemic from running amok in the world. This was a pragmatic discussion of why establishing such protocols and boundaries would be good for public health and the economy. I hope every Obama-hating, Trump-loving Republican pays attention. That is what true leadership looks and sounds like. It’s just a shame that the Russian Roulette wheel stopped on Trump just when the Coronavirus chose to rear its ugly head. An enlightened world would have us thinking beyond our noses and making contingency plans regardless of the turn of the political cycle. That is what non-politicized agencies and career staffers do for us. They are not the “Deep State” that Trump loves to denigrate, but rather the guardrails that keep us on track without the need to worry about the next election.
These are the “Homeward Boundaries” that I hope and pray the world will provide for my darling granddaughters. A world where the national leadership is thinking long term and not penny-wise and pound-foolish. A world where the interests of the people (all the people) are top-most in every decision and adequate norms and boundaries are seen for the value they provide. It’s like my investment in getting cable for my Ithaca Homeward Bound. The long term is about my kids and grandkids. So my son can compose Tik-Toks from the Carriage House and so my four-year-old Evelyn can tell me she’s watching AGT on cable. I am barely sure I get the whole Tik-Tok thing (I’m guessing Bill Gates and Microsoft have figured it out), but now I know AGT is America’s Got Talent. Those are edges of my personal Homeward Boundaries.