Domestic Crashes
I seem to kind of alternate here between the profound and the ridiculous. Our stake Relief Society Institute class is done for the summer, so the study and preparation time I need for that is set aside for now, though I have to speak in church this Sunday. The last big push to clear everything out of the house has been survived, but the boxes here are piled high because it was not possible to sort and dispose of everything there within the deadline. The only advantage is that we're not under the gun on a timetable, so we can just keep plugging away.
Trouble is, rooms that were mostly organized at the beginning are now overwhelmed with stacks of stuff needing attention. Hubby was actually feeling pretty well yesterday and tackled several hours' worth of boxes. Some of the things which belong to our children have been sorted and shipped out, with others being made ready. So, there's progress.
Last night, I sat down in the living room and realized that we were down to a single layer of boxes there instead of double. I counted the stacks of books on the floor for curiosity, as he's been gathering them, and there were twelve, mostly paperbacks at this point. There are still boxes with books in them, but not many more. I think. This is my job, to go through and rethink what books we keep and what we give away. ( I pulled Women of Nauvoo out of the box for one of my daughters, where it had somehow ended up, because that one I'm not parting with! I think it's remarkable, if anyone ever sees it somewhere.) However, on the first round--still at the house--I had put one in the give-away pile and he had pulled it out, thinking that he might want to read it first. He noticed that the pages didn't lie flat in the middle, which I hadn't thought about, and found that there was money stuck in it. Crisp new $20 bills, dated 1996. All we can figure is that he picked up this book somewhere (swap meet, Half Price Books maybe) when some minor client paid him in cash, and he had stuck the bills in the book, came home and stuck the book on the shelf, and forgot. It was a Young Indiana Jones paperback, not something I would have bothered to read, so it sat undisturbed, apparently for a long time.
But Wednesday night, as we were saying the blessing for dinner, there was a crash from the kitchen. Opening our eyes, we looked at each other and said, "What was that?" It was a box which I had pulled out a bit to be able to get my plug-in grill out of the cupboard to make dinner, it was sitting on top of another box, and had imperceptibly moved after I had disturbed it until it slid off. As Robin Williams' Batty character declared in Fern Gully, "gravity works!" (just before he crashes off a branch).
An hour or so later I was passing through the kitchen and noticed that the clock display on the microwave wasn't on. I thought I would have to check if the other plug worked in that outlet, but I didn't get back to it right away. Since it was still light I didn't realize that the overhead light didn't work either. In fact, the above-counter outlets in the kitchen, the outlet and fan in the bathroom, the overhead lights in the kitchen and dining room, and the dining room outlets were all dead. We had brought in our own large refrigerator and put it in the back of the kitchen, and it was plugged into one of those nonfunctioning outlets--that was the one thing that had to be solved quickly.
Down in the basement, the breaker box didn't have any obvious answers, so Hubby had to beat closing time at Target and get an extension cord. The outlet, added later in a protruding box, where the refrigerator was SUPPOSED to go was the only one working. It was also nine feet at a diagonal across the room, and we didn't know where to find our long heavy duty extension cord that we used for the weed whacker. (We realized we don't know where the weed whacker is, either.) Our nice huge, freezer on the bottom fridge is in the other corner of the kitchen, sacrificing the pretty little breakfast nook, because it didn't fit in the fridge spot. Kind friends sweat bullets bringing it in the back door because I had measured and said it would fit, but the overhead cabinet with the range hood left it in fact about a third of an inch short on room. I am going to be a cautionary tale, sigh, on measuring every point where something has to be maneuvered on its way, and into its place.
It is a measure of true charity that these friends are still smiling when they say hello to me.
So, we left the light on in the nook, which still worked, so that we wouldn't trip over the heavy cord which had to run from corner to corner across the path to the bathroom, and made our first call to the owner's rep in the morning. We made sure that one of us was home all day, had a call finally that the guy would be here between 3 and 5 o'clock, and he never made it. Repeating the night time survival bit, I called this morning. Today we are not able to be home, I will be leaving here in a few minutes and won't be back until 4:30; that's because Hubby had to take my car to put in a court appearance in Clark County (2 1/2 hours south) and I have to make my YMCA class and the medical appointment after it on the bus. So, let's hope that the guy can solve this with a new breaker rather than an electrician.
Meanwhile, at least our food didn't spoil and it's not winter, where it would be dark early and cooking and eating dinner would be tougher to do in the dark. The bedrooms and living room are fine, so we have the computer, our alarm clocks, and the reading light and television. We have hot water, laundry, and a stove. We don't have a computer crash, this time, to deal with.
Adventures in modern living! We're good.
Trouble is, rooms that were mostly organized at the beginning are now overwhelmed with stacks of stuff needing attention. Hubby was actually feeling pretty well yesterday and tackled several hours' worth of boxes. Some of the things which belong to our children have been sorted and shipped out, with others being made ready. So, there's progress.
Last night, I sat down in the living room and realized that we were down to a single layer of boxes there instead of double. I counted the stacks of books on the floor for curiosity, as he's been gathering them, and there were twelve, mostly paperbacks at this point. There are still boxes with books in them, but not many more. I think. This is my job, to go through and rethink what books we keep and what we give away. ( I pulled Women of Nauvoo out of the box for one of my daughters, where it had somehow ended up, because that one I'm not parting with! I think it's remarkable, if anyone ever sees it somewhere.) However, on the first round--still at the house--I had put one in the give-away pile and he had pulled it out, thinking that he might want to read it first. He noticed that the pages didn't lie flat in the middle, which I hadn't thought about, and found that there was money stuck in it. Crisp new $20 bills, dated 1996. All we can figure is that he picked up this book somewhere (swap meet, Half Price Books maybe) when some minor client paid him in cash, and he had stuck the bills in the book, came home and stuck the book on the shelf, and forgot. It was a Young Indiana Jones paperback, not something I would have bothered to read, so it sat undisturbed, apparently for a long time.
But Wednesday night, as we were saying the blessing for dinner, there was a crash from the kitchen. Opening our eyes, we looked at each other and said, "What was that?" It was a box which I had pulled out a bit to be able to get my plug-in grill out of the cupboard to make dinner, it was sitting on top of another box, and had imperceptibly moved after I had disturbed it until it slid off. As Robin Williams' Batty character declared in Fern Gully, "gravity works!" (just before he crashes off a branch).
An hour or so later I was passing through the kitchen and noticed that the clock display on the microwave wasn't on. I thought I would have to check if the other plug worked in that outlet, but I didn't get back to it right away. Since it was still light I didn't realize that the overhead light didn't work either. In fact, the above-counter outlets in the kitchen, the outlet and fan in the bathroom, the overhead lights in the kitchen and dining room, and the dining room outlets were all dead. We had brought in our own large refrigerator and put it in the back of the kitchen, and it was plugged into one of those nonfunctioning outlets--that was the one thing that had to be solved quickly.
Down in the basement, the breaker box didn't have any obvious answers, so Hubby had to beat closing time at Target and get an extension cord. The outlet, added later in a protruding box, where the refrigerator was SUPPOSED to go was the only one working. It was also nine feet at a diagonal across the room, and we didn't know where to find our long heavy duty extension cord that we used for the weed whacker. (We realized we don't know where the weed whacker is, either.) Our nice huge, freezer on the bottom fridge is in the other corner of the kitchen, sacrificing the pretty little breakfast nook, because it didn't fit in the fridge spot. Kind friends sweat bullets bringing it in the back door because I had measured and said it would fit, but the overhead cabinet with the range hood left it in fact about a third of an inch short on room. I am going to be a cautionary tale, sigh, on measuring every point where something has to be maneuvered on its way, and into its place.
It is a measure of true charity that these friends are still smiling when they say hello to me.
So, we left the light on in the nook, which still worked, so that we wouldn't trip over the heavy cord which had to run from corner to corner across the path to the bathroom, and made our first call to the owner's rep in the morning. We made sure that one of us was home all day, had a call finally that the guy would be here between 3 and 5 o'clock, and he never made it. Repeating the night time survival bit, I called this morning. Today we are not able to be home, I will be leaving here in a few minutes and won't be back until 4:30; that's because Hubby had to take my car to put in a court appearance in Clark County (2 1/2 hours south) and I have to make my YMCA class and the medical appointment after it on the bus. So, let's hope that the guy can solve this with a new breaker rather than an electrician.
Meanwhile, at least our food didn't spoil and it's not winter, where it would be dark early and cooking and eating dinner would be tougher to do in the dark. The bedrooms and living room are fine, so we have the computer, our alarm clocks, and the reading light and television. We have hot water, laundry, and a stove. We don't have a computer crash, this time, to deal with.
Adventures in modern living! We're good.
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