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We take electricity (and internet—more on that later) for granted in 2023. Barring storms or neighbors trimming trees, the electricity is a constant. Of course, during the renovation, we have had no power to the kitchen-in-progress and bathroom. Today, the electrician took us back to the early 20th Century for the first time in four months:

And while we have had significant delays in tiling our new 3/4 bath, the lighting is on there as well:

Finishing the bathroom tiling is set for Wednesday, although with grouting, the work will likely seep through the week. The big news is that our kitchen appliances are scheduled to be delivered and installed tomorrow between 11 and 2. The electrician has installed the appliance electrics already so that we hope that goes smoothly.

And yet. As we celebrated actual light in our kitchen for the first time in four months, our internet went out. Again. A week or so ago, it was because our neighbors trimmed their trees and also our aerial cable connection. AT&T came out quickly and repaired the break, and urged us to install a new cable that could be buried at their expense. We readily agreed. They left a long, thin, sinewy cable in our back yard and we took care to warn the crews working on the house to avoid and worked to not trip on ourselves.

A few days later, AT&T sent a crew to bury the cable, but they did not mention to the workers that burying it would entail removing brick pavers and installing the (thin) cable underneath. The crew left with the cable snaking through the yard. I understand enough Spanish to glean their communications with supervisors: “WTF”?

We tripped over the cable. We warned people about the cable. Saoirse chewed the handy toy after two weeks of sitting there just waiting for gnawing. Now we have no internet except through cell phones. Dan relies on full internet access for his job. Perhaps we will find solutions in what is now common (and previously unthinkable) in public internet options.

Because this blog tries to take note of history, I did a tiny amount of research to learn that by 1925, more than 10 years before Glenn and Agda built our house in 1936, about 85% of urban households had electricity. It’s likely that the house they had before this one was at least minimally “electrified”. Their new house had electricity throughout, but with very basic cabling and outlets that we have been upgrading through the renovation.

I often wonder what our home builders, Glenn and Agda—who were born in the early 1880s, when electricity was a new invention—would think about our new(ingish) kitchen and what they might see about the opportunities of the internet should they visit.

Of course, now there is traffic, large airliners taking off and landing, and landscaping equipment droning daily.

I suspect their first reaction would be: how can you stand the noise?