Meanderings

The spa is working again -- it had worked for a few days and then every time I started it, it would immediately turn itself off. It was like one of those novelty boxes where you flip a switch, causing a hand to come out and flip the switch back.

Months ago, the spa guy suggested I reverse the heater and I thought that was stupid: It was a pass-through heater and had no indicator for water flow so surely it didn't matter. Last weekend, I finally tried it and the spa started running again. It still shuts itself off at odd times, but not immediately, and I got it to heat up to 38C/100F. (I ordered a replacement heater several months ago and am still waiting for it.)

The spa cover continues to deteriorate and leaves Styrofoam everywhere. I finally ordered a new one; hopefully it will be here this week.

The solar panels went on the roof today and I am now generating my own electricity, which is cool. My electric bill was $480 this month, but it's the end of winter here so I expect it to drop back to about $100 in the summer. However, my "good energy loan" will be $430/month, every month, for the next three years. (And at best it will cut my electric bill by half. I calculated a nine-year recovery period, so I won't start benefitting financially until 2034.)

The kitchen skylight was installed last week and honestly I'm not sure it was the right move. On a nice day, it's lovely, but I'm not usually in the kitchen to enjoy it.

And I guess that's where the issue lies: The improvements to the house are what my wife and I talked about before she passed away. She loved the spa. She loved being in the kitchen. The solar panels are best when someone is home during the day -- if you're doing laundry at night, it's still drawing off the grid.

(I'm also questioning my decision to upgrade to a heat pump dryer last month. Yes, it uses a lot less electricity, but it takes a lot longer to dry things. Now I've got all this "free" electricity and a slow dryer.)

Meanwhile, at the same time I'm doing these things to make the house more comfortable for my late wife, I'm also getting rid of her stuff. If I had the guts, I'd rip off that plaster (band-aid) and donate it all, but instead it's a constant drip-drip of melancholy.

I had my first Airbnb guests on Saturday. They arrived about 7pm on Saturday and departed 9am on Sunday so I barely saw them, but I made NZ $95 so I can't complain. Someone has booked 1-2 Nov but that's it. I thought there would be more interest. Meanwhile, I'm expecting one or two children to be visiting for the holidays but they haven't given me dates so I haven't blocked them off in Airbnb, and if someone does book then I guess I have a child sleeping on the sofa...

I did make one decision recently that I think will make me happy: I decided to get some discus. I haven't kept discus in nearly 30 years -- they were too hard to keep in Los Angeles because the water was too hard, but Wellington water is quite soft. I just have to get rid of most of my existing fish because they would be too aggressive. I just sold my red-tailed shark and next to go is my bristlenose pleco. (I will keep the upside-down catfish, even though I hardly ever see them.)

I still need to get the balcony finished and then I'm going to have a conversation with the neighbours. We have a duplex and a couple of weeks ago they mentioned they were looking for a bigger house. I spoke to a mortgage advisor who said I would have no problem buying their house as a rental as long as I had NZ $240,000 for the down payment. It just so happens my UK pension is almost exactly that amount, and I can withdraw it at 55 (i.e. now). Wellington is also in a housing slump - my property value has gone down $10-30,000 since I bought two years ago, depending on who you ask - so it's probably a good time to buy. I never wanted to be a landlord but being able to control who lives next to me is quite appealing. (Plus NZ has no capital gains tax, provided you own the property for five years, so that's a tax-free gain when I sell.)

What else? I replaced the lights in the front of the house with motion-sensor lights. I had them on a motion sensor until they power-washed the roof, which somehow filled the motion sensor with water and gave me a nasty shock when I touched it. I wasn't thrilled with the motion sensor in the first place because the way the house is built, there's a light downstairs, a light at the top of the stairs and a light over the door. Having them all controlled by one motion sensor meant you actually had to be on the stairs before they all went all. On AliExpress I found outdoor lights with built-in sensors, so now the lights come on at appropriate times. (Or they will - one of the lights isn't working and one of the lights requires me to balance a ladder on the stairs, so I'll wait for the weekend to tackle that one.)

The garage gets worse by the day. I really need to pull everything out and then put back just the things I want to keep, but then I'm not sure what to do with the rest. (Some of it can go in the shed, but I had to move the shed out of the way when they were working on the balcony, so I cant put anything in until that's finished.) My son is not helping because he knows as soon as my car can fit in the garage, his motorcycle has to go on the street.

The last thing I'll mention is the garden. My wife planted celery and chard, and I'm not a fan of either, so I've been ignoring them all winter. I had no idea celery plants could get that big! I finally pulled up one and half it when straight into the compost, but that still left me with way too much celery. Maybe I'll make a soup or something. I think I should be planting something - my wife even bought poly tunnels - but I have no idea where to start. Maybe I'll ask for help on one of the online gardening groups.

That's about all that is in my head right now. Work is ok; I'm on two big projects, neither of which I care very much about. If love to look for another job but Wellington is just in the doldrums (as reflected by the housing prices) so I need to stick it out. I still think I may be able to retire at 59 1/2, although I'm not 100% certain if I've got two mortgages! (I estimate I'll have to get NZ$900 rent per week [$3900/month for you yanks] to cover my costs, which is at the higher end for 3-bed houses in the area, but I think it could work.

P.S. I think I've been in the spa for an hour and a half. Just making up for lost time... 

Drasha Ki Tavo

 Devarim 27:11 - 29:8 (third triennial) 

Today’s portion includes one of the most visual and downright bizarre sections of the Torah: The Blessings and the Curses. Moses orders that, after the Israelites have crossed the Jordan, six tribes will stand on Mount Gerizim and six tribes on Mount Ebal, with the Levites standing in the valley between them. When the Levites shout a curse, the people on Mount Ebal respond “Amen” and when they shout a blessing the people on Mount Gerizim respond “Amen.” It’s a striking visual, but what does it mean?

The first eleven curses are actually laws, and the twelfth is a curse for those who were already cursed by breaking the first 11 laws, so really its a double-curse. This is followed by 15 verses of blessings for those who obey God and faithfully observe the divine commandments and 52 verses of curses for those who do not.

And some of these curses are really disturbing, such as: 

• “And as יהוה once delighted in making you prosperous and many, so will יהוה now delight in causing you to perish and in wiping you out.” 

• “יהוה will afflict you at the knees and thighs with a severe inflammation, from which you shall never recover.”

• “You shall offer yourselves for sale to your enemies as male and female slaves, but none will buy.” 

• “And she who is most tender and dainty among you, the afterbirth that issues from between her legs and the babies she bears; she shall eat them secretly, because of utter want.”

• “The life you face shall be precarious; you shall be in terror, night and day, with no assurance of survival.”

"Deuteronomy" is derived from the Greek term for "repetition of the law" and this portion reflects Leviticus 26, which includes: “If you follow My laws and faithfully observe My commandments, I will grant your rains in their season, so that the earth shall yield its produce and the trees of the field their fruit. You shall eat your fill of bread and dwell securely in your land. I will grant peace in the land, and you shall lie down untroubled by anyone. But if you do not obey Me and do not observe all these commandments, if you reject My laws and spurn My rules, so that you do not observe all My commandments and you break My covenant, I in turn will do this to you: I will wreak misery upon you—consumption and fever, which cause the eyes to pine and the body to languish; you shall sow your seed to no purpose, for your enemies shall eat it. I will set My face against you: you shall be routed by your enemies, and your foes shall dominate you. You shall flee though none pursues.”

In 1943, a German scholar named Martin Noth argued that Deuteronomy, along with the books of Joshua, Judges, Samuel, and Kings, formed a unified "Deuteronomic history" which were written during the Babylonian exile in the 6th century BCE to explain successes and failures as the result of faithfulness or disobedience. These blessings and curses can be applied to a person or to an entire society. They are also reflected in the story of Jonah, which we will read on Yom Kippur.

Walter Brueggemann notes that curses were often used to bind treaties in the ancient world: if you break your promises, these are the bad things that you can expect. Here, the curses are transformed from a political context to a theological one. “A self-conscious Israelite community may have borrowed a covenant form deliberately to offer its covenant with YHWH as a radical alternative to alliance with Assyria.” In other words, even after being defeated, with no land and no power, Deuteronomy was a middle finger to the victors, showing the Israelites would worship no one but God.

Amy Frykholm notes that in the middle of the curses, verse 47 provides a completely different interpretation: “Because you would not serve your God יהוה in joy and gladness over the abundance of everything, you shall have to serve—in hunger and thirst, naked and lacking everything—[your] enemies.”

“When we don’t live in joy and gratitude, when we become stingy and mean, the goodness of God becomes blocked and distorted—in us, through us. From the simple failure to heed joy comes deprivation—and deprivation spreads. The slavery from which you were delivered, the text says, will return to you along with all that came with it: the labor, the plagues, the suffering.”

She also notes that some of the first things to be blessed (and cursed) are “your basket and your kneading bowl.” “Humans took the elements of earth, water and fire and created civilisation…so if your blessings start with bread and the implements of bread, then you are very close to the essence of your civilisation. Such a blessing draws our attention to the mundane, to the basic work of survival within the human family. Daily actions and daily choices have consequences far beyond their seeming simplicity.”

The book of Joshua, the first book of the prophets, immediately follows Deuteronomy. In Joshua 8, after he slaughters the entire town of Ai and impales the king on a stake, he builds an altar on Mount Ebal. He then gathers the Israelites in the valley, half facing Mount Gerizim and half facing Mount Ebal, and reads the words of the blessing and the curse from Deuteronomy. I feel like Moses would have been disappointed.

https://www.walterbrueggemann.com/2001/10/01/deuteronomy-abingdon-old-testament-commentary/

https://www.christiancentury.org/article/features/blessings-and-curses