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Mid-January, Rain - January 13, 2012
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Saturday, Noonish, Sunny - November 05, 2011
October, White - October 31, 2011
October, 2011 - October 04, 2011


April 08, 2004

4:27 p.m.

An Atypical Day

Woke up before my mandatory 8 hours this morning. I was excited about something... made one copyright phone call before putting on the decaf, and then continued with the Great Computer Journey. I have almost everything in it now. I knew I had limited time, so I was powering through doing the band newsletter which is late, and finally it was time to shower. I still had some work to do, and the apartment was a wreck, having been neither cleaned nor tidied for more weeks than I can remember. And what with my guest of slight acquaintance coming by later, I thought I'd better clear out all the new computer and gadget boxes and detritus, the unfiled filing, and everything else. But first, a nice shower, and maybe even color my hair.

We've had a little recurring problem with the hot water in this building this winter. It's been okay for a while now. Well, granted I've mostly been gone, but when I've been home, the water has been hot.

Except today. No-o-o-o dice.

I called the office, as I always do when this happens, and I got the machine. I left a nice message that the water was cold again and it would be great if, etc. Then I went back to work for an hour.

Tried the water. Not only cold, but brown now.

I phoned the office again, and reached my buddy there. She said they were working on it, but there wouldn't be any decent amount of hot for a while. I suggested, "Do you ever think of just getting a new boiler?" It turns out it wasn't a boiler problem; the boiler is firing just fine. They're now looking into some electrical problem. Okay. I hung up and checked the clock.

Well, it was only 12:30. My friend isn't coming til late afternoon sometime. I decided to go over to my sister's house and take a shower. She's only 15 minutes away, and she'd be home for lunch right then, so I called and sang, to the tune of "The Water is Wide:"

The Water is Cold,
I canno-ot shower.
That's why I'm coming
over to your house...

Well, it doesn't scan right, but it was the best I could do in the moment. The humor was lost, though, as she was having a frazzled day and her doggie with the tumor is now declining and having the "D" word all over the floor, so she'd come home from lunch to find a big mess which she was now having to clean up instead of eating lunch. It looks like my favorite little black dog is really on the way out now. But she said, come over and shower, so I did.

She was gone by the time I arrived. Black Dog was gated in the downstairs bathroom with newspaper on the floor; other dog was crated downstairs, because she was also having the "D" word, but from other circumstances. Lucy Dog was at Doggie Day Care. Basement Dog barked the entire time I was there, even though I went down and scritched her for a while. Black Dog was happy to see me though she's losing weight and not jumpy any more. I went up to take my shower.

While showering I was musing on the fact that I hadn't used that shower in several years. There have been periods where I lived at Rose's house for a while, in between jobs or apartments. What is now their upstairs office used to be my bedroom. It's hard to believe that, as it was so long ago -- we're talking maybe 12 or 13 years now -- and using that shower brought back a memory of another time when I was in there and the lights started acting really funny. The bathroom light is on a panel switch -- touch on, touch off. Touch and hold, and it acts as a dimmer. So in the middle of my shower the lights started going on and off, then dimming up, then down, and that was shortly after the bipolar ex-boyfriend died, and I wondered if he was coming back to haunt me. There was no one else home, and I thought it was a burglar so I looked out of the shower stall to see who was playing tricks on me -- but there was no one there. It was creepy. Later my brother in law said it was something in the wiring, and it happened sometimes. Anyway, I've used that bathroom and light switch innumerable times since then and it seemed to be fixed.

So I was thinking about this very incident today, in the shower, and ONE minute later the lights started blinking on and off, then dimming up and down, playing their little silent serenade. My flesh crawled just a little bit, but no burglars came in and no ghosts appeared. When I got out I couldn't turn the light off. The touchpad wouldn't respond. Finally I noticed a little bitty left-right switch underneath, and turned it off with that.

A couple of errands later I was home, and went back to work. In a while the office called me back (VERY courteous of them) and she asked me to try the hot water again. Voila, piping hot, and the brown was disappearing. It turned out there's a coil thingy next to the boiler which the water has to go through before it gets to the pipes. It was so corroded with calcium chloride they had to give it an acid flush, after which the water temp increased about 50 degrees. That may have solved the problem once and for all. I'm not unaware that, if it were my house, I'd have paid for that. While I had her on the phone I asked if my leaky shower head could be replaced. She arranged it for tomorrow. Meanwhile I cleaned up the apartment and vacuumed, and I feel ever so much better about being here. Flowers everywhere; lilies and big fourth of July mums. Smells good. I love being home.

So Chase hasn't called yet and I don't want to do any more work today, so I'm nervously making brownies and absently wondering what I should wear, and listening to Norah Jones which is comforting without being distracting. I'll probably stay in my cordeuroy pants. They're also comforting without being distracting.

Ooh. Brownies are done. Good.


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