Month: November 2017

Peace and quiet

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When we moved in to this house, it was still summer.  It was September, and it was hot, and we kept the windows open.  We used the portable AC in our bedroom at night.  Any noise from the AC or the fans we have was constant – white noise that masked traffic sounds and helped us sleep.

Then it got cold.  We turned on the heat.  The noise began.

That’s steam hammer.  We have steam heat, generated by a boiler in the basement, with radiators in every room.  That banging starts in the basement and echoes (loudly) through all four floors of the house every time the heat kicks on.  On top of that, high-pressure steam hisses out of each radiator’s vent periodically, also loudly.  Like, the hissing wakes us up at night.  We’ve taken to dropping the heat lower than we normally would at night so it won’t kick on and we don’t get scared out of bed thinking someone is coming after us with a pipewrench.

At first, we thought the banging and hissing might be happening because it was the first time the heat was running since last winter.  Maybe it would work itself out after a few days of keeping the heat on.  Maybe the water that is doing the actual banging would drain out on its own.  It didn’t.  The heat would kick on, the banging would start, and the people in my office, who could hear it clear as day on the other end of the conference line, wanted to know why I was working from a construction site.

We emailed our landlord on the 1st of November, and after 6, maybe 7, visits to the house by people with escalating levels of expertise, we THINK the problem has been resolved.  As of TODAY, the 30th of November.  Today, after several visits from the handyman and two different plumbers, they sent out an actual steam heating expert, who diagnosed the problem as bad return piping (which is what John diagnosed the problem to be a month ago after doing lots of internetting) and immediately fixed it.  And the crazy hissing?  It’s because all the high-pressure steam was only going to half the radiators, so they were getting twice the expected pressure and were attempting not to explode.  Since he fixed the piping, about 3 hours ago, we haven’t heard any banging.  Fingers crossed we can have quiet heat the rest of the winter.

It took a month to resolve, but ZERO DOLLARS from us.  Renting isn’t perfect, but this is a big perk.

New additions

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You all remember Bird and Bird, right?

Bird and Bird joined us when our house was on the market during the holiday season in 2014, and it behooved us to decorate mildly but tastefully.  I bought a little abstract sort of tree and a holiday-ish table runner for the dining room table, a green bough of some kind for the mantle, and Bird and Bird for the counter.  The other decorations didn’t make the cut, but Bird and Bird accompanied us to Annapolis, across the country to Eugene, and back the other way to Providence.  We like them.

Three years into our travels with Bird and Bird, we decided they needed friends.

Meet Bird and Bird:

They are appropriately dressed for the weather, and they’re ready to make friends.

Don’t they look like a fun bunch?

Time to move!

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Last month, I told you that my toaster has lost its ding.  It still made ticking sounds while it toasted (and it did still toast).  This morning, things got weird.

  1. I put a piece of bread in the toaster and closed the door.  It started ticking.  I did NOT start the toaster.  I twisted the dial until it stopped ticking and then walked away.  (I wasn’t ready to actually toast the bread yet.)
  2. When I came back a few minutes later, John asked me if I was trying to burn the house down.  My piece of bread was practically ash.  John stopped the toaster when he smelled it burning.
  3. I got a new piece of bread, watched it while it toasted, and then twisted the dial to stop the ticking when it had toasted enough.
  4. I unplugged the toaster (just to be sure), and sat down in the dining room to eat my not-burnt toast.
  5. About ten minutes later, I heard the toaster ticking.  IT WAS STILL UNPLUGGED.

The toaster is haunted.

Mortality

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A Twitter friend and occasional pen pal died yesterday.  It was sudden – he was fine the day before Thanksgiving but then that night, his family rushed him to the hospital.  He’d had a brain aneurysm.  After several surgeries over the course of the weekend, the doctors determined that too much brain tissue had died for him to survive, even with another surgery.  His wife took him off the ventilator Sunday afternoon.

He was unconscious the whole time.  She didn’t even get to talk to him again.  He was around my age, had two kids.

I only knew him through Twitter and a couple of postcards – he was funny, supportive, and kind.  I feel awful for his wife and kids, and I’m trying to help in small ways.

I keep crying, but I know my emotional response is not about him.  It’s not about his family.  (I’d be a better person if it were.)  It’s about my fear.  There were no warnings.  This could happen to anyone.  What if it had happened to John? She didn’t even get to talk to him again.  I think about what his wife is going through and I break down again, and then I feel guilty about it because it’s not about me.  It didn’t happen to me.  And I’m so glad it didn’t happen to me, and whoops there goes the guilt again.

I’ll be fine.  I’ll do what I can to help his wife and family be fine.  And tomorrow I’ll go back to our regular inane programming.

Nostalgia

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I watched The Man From Snowy River tonight for the first time in probably 20 years, and I think it’s hilarious how vindictive and nearly evil they paint the black horse who’s in charge of the wild brumby herd, what with the rearing and the freeze frames of crazy eyes.  Equally hilarious is how Kirk Douglas plays two brothers, one of them camouflaged behind a beard and a peg leg.   A beard doesn’t fool me, movie makers.  I’ve got eyes.

Not so hilarious is the scene where poor Jessica wakes up on a tiny ledge over the side of a cliff.  I didn’t remember that at all.

Impressive: according to Wikipedia, the actor who played Jim had never ridden before he got this role, and he did his own stunts.

Opinion after 20 years: the movie holds up.  It leaves Netflix on Dec 1st.  You’ve got a week!

Let’s go to the mall!

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Would you believe I was in the mall the other day and I DIDN’T go to Athleta?  It’s true.  Would you believe I have lived in Providence for two and a half months now, within easy reach of Athleta after a year and a half of being two hours from the nearest one, and I haven’t been even once?  Also true.  I must be ill.  Would you believe I went into a bookstore yesterday and didn’t buy a single book?  You would?  You’re gullible.

We were at the mall over the weekend to see the third Thor movie, which is BY FAR the best of the Thor movies.  Those first two were pretty bad.  The second one is easily the worst of the Marvel movies.  This one was more like Guardians of the Galaxy – funny, fast-paced, and fun.

The mall was all decked out for Christmas, and we had to go through the entire thing, from the basement level to the top floor, and from one end to the other, to get from the car to the movie theater.  We didn’t do any shopping – I’m afraid that once we go back so we can buy stuff, we’ll be holiday’d out faster than usual.  Would you believe it?  Somehow we’ll live.

Wonder of wonders

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I have gone more than two weeks with this ridiculous piece of paper as a temporary driver’s license, convinced every time I had to show it to someone (which was surprisingly often) that they’d reject it.  That almost happened last week, actually.  It stumped the bouncer at the club for the Arkells concert, and he was about to tell me he couldn’t take it as ID.  I can’t blame him, really.  It’s a full size piece of paper that I have folded into a tiny square so it’ll fit in my wallet.  When I unfold it to show it to someone, it’s all creased and worn and it really doesn’t look official.  Printing “Official Temporary Driver’s License” across the top does not make it look less fake, State of Rhode Island.  So with all that, I’m not really sure why he changed his mind.  Maybe it was my look of fury.  (Have you seen my look of fury?  No?  I should work on that.)  More likely it was my sad eyes and bedraggled state (we’d been standing out in the rain for 20 minutes waiting for the doors to open).  And also the fact that NO ONE could look at me and not think I was over 21.

I’ve been checking the mail every day hoping my real license would arrive and it did!  Today!  Right before we were about to drive across several states for Thanksgiving!  I feel legal again.

It’s a Thanksgiving miracle!

Band love

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I’m sure this will be shocking to you, but I have to say it: the Arkells are REALLY good and their shows are REALLY fun.  Their opening act was this band from LA called Irontom.  They were pretty good, super entertaining, but the main attraction there was their lead singer, who is…odd.  Super odd.  At first I thought he was doing the flamboyant front man thing, a la Freddie Mercury, and he was, and it was great, but then it got weird, and at one point (during a guitar solo), I thought he might be having some sort of breakdown in the back corner of the stage.  From that point, I was a little more concerned than entertained, but their music was good, and I’d like to hear more.

But Irontom is NOT why we were there.  We got there shortly after the doors opened because I was not about to ruin our streak of being right down front.

We were successful.  That’s Max.  He’s adorable.

Arkells were headlining this time (the other two times we saw them they were opening), so we got double the setlist, which was AWESOME.  They played all our favorite songs, Max came out in the crowd for a couple of songs and we got hugs on his way back to the stage, and then we talked to him for a couple of minutes after the show.

Now, naturally, John wonders where his life went off course.  He should be in a band like that!

Supervisors by the numbers

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  • I have had 10 bosses in not quite 8 years with the same company.  Well, 9 bosses, since my current boss was my boss a year ago, but I had a different boss in the year in between.
  • 4 of them don’t work for the company anymore.
  • In 2 cases, I got a new boss because they left the company.
  • My shortest period of time working for someone was about 3 months.
  • My longest period of time working for someone was nearly 2 years.
  • 5 of my 9 bosses have been women, but not the past 3.
  • All 9 are older than I am.
  • I have had 3 bosses since I started working remotely (more than 2 years ago).  4, if you count the one who’s my boss again.
  • I’ve had 1 boss I’ve never met in person (my current boss), although that will change in about 3 weeks.

This has been illuminating.  I don’t know what it tells me – maybe that we have a lot of turnover (except that more than half of them still work for the company), or maybe that the company doesn’t know what to do with me, or maybe nothing, and this is just how it goes when you work in one place for nearly 8 years.

My heart’s always yours

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We’re going to Boston tonight to see the Arkells for the third time this year because they’re awesome and we love them.  I figured I’d spend the day with their albums on repeat, get all revved up for the show, but that didn’t last long.  I cannot focus when music I like (that has words) is playing.  Lots of singing was happening, not much work.  It did remind me that I like listening to music while I work, though, so I switched to classical, whiiiiiiich wasn’t really a better choice.  My favorite Enigma Variation played and I started crying and I just had to stop listening altogether.  There’s no crying at work.  Also, that’s, like, the complete opposite mood I want to be in for the show.  There’s time to fix that!  It’ll be all Arkells, all the time, on the drive up, which starts NOW.

I will be dancing like the people in this video.  In fact, I already am.

Who are the people in your neighborhood?

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I met our mailman today.  Well, I waylaid him.  Once I saw that his truck was parked outside (he always parks his truck on the opposite side of the street from our house and then walks the block delivering the mail), I spent much of my afternoon peering up and down the street trying to find him so I could meet him at our door.

We keep getting other people’s mail.  I don’t mean previous tenants – I mean people whose addresses are not even on our street.  We try to return it, or in some cases, deliver it ourselves, but now I’m worried that we’re not getting all of our mail.  We have no guarantee that whoever IS getting it is making any effort to get it to us.  They might just be throwing it away!

I wasn’t going to accuse him of anything.  I just wanted to hand him the three pieces of mail we got yesterday for someone on the next block over (different street) so he could deliver it correctly, so I lurked by the windows, and I STILL almost missed him.

He is the nicest man!  Super chatty, a bit too much of a sharer, but very nice and quite happy I gave him the mail so he could redeliver it.  Turns out he was off yesterday, and he has been correcting delivery mistakes all day long.  I guess yesterday’s substitute isn’t very good at his job.  I didn’t tell him about the other times we’ve gotten the wrong mail – it didn’t seem like a good time because it turns out he was off yesterday because he was recovering from Monday’s colonoscopy, which he woke up during but was unable to alert the doctors, so he could feel it, and THEN when he woke up yesterday, the left side of his face was droopy and basically paralyzed.  Turns out he has Bell’s palsy, which he had once on the OTHER side of his face about seven years ago, and it’ll get better over the next few weeks.

His name is Ed.  He has a white brushy walrus-type mustache, and I like him.

Trees and forgery

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The most perfect tree is at the end of our block.  It’s like a role model for trees.  See little seedlings?  You could grow up to be this lovely.  But if you don’t, I’ll love you anyway.  (I like trees.)

It’s a nice tree.  After yesterday’s wind and today’s rain, it might also be a naked tree.  Poor naked tree.

From Rhode Island Comic Con this weekend:

There’s a creepy kid behind me, isn’t there?

NO, I AM NOT YOUR MUMMY!

We had a really good time.  Bought a lot of geeky stuff, saw some cool celebrities (I managed not to lose it while walking past Wallace Shawn several times), chatted with some artists – it was fun.  And then I got my credit card back from the bar where I’d left it the night before because I had a tab open when the fire alarm went off and they evacuated the building and when we came back for it they had just locked the doors so we had to come back the next day.  No hassle at that point, thank goodness, but I was half-expecting an issue with proving I’m me since I haven’t gotten my real RI license yet and I’m walking (and driving) around with an 8.5″x 11″ piece of paper as my temporary driver’s license.  I keep expecting someone to look at it and be like, “Nice forgery, idiot, I’m calling the cops.”  I could never be a criminal.

I have the olds

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We’ve had a really good, really fun few days, but oh my god the late nights.  I’m SO TIRED.  On Thursday, we were up past midnight because Greg and Amanda and the kids were passing through on their way to Boston.  We had a great time (and saw them again for an hour the next day before they left), but we didn’t go to bed until late and then the goddamn steam heat banged through the radiator at 3 in the morning, and we still worked on Friday.  Friday night wasn’t too late, but Saturday night we met Dan (from high school with John) and Lindsay for dinner and didn’t get to bed until nearly 3am, and then we were awake by 8am Sunday morning (I don’t know why), and then we were on our feet all day at the Rhode Island Comic Con (which was way fun), and all I want to do is go to sleep.  It’s not even 7:30 right now, but I feel like I’ve been up for days.  I see an early bedtime in my future.

Book Funk

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The other day, John told me I’m in a book funk.  I objected.  I told him I am NOT in a book funk, I like the book I’m reading now.  He pointed out, accurately, that I was JUST telling him what I don’t like about that exact book.  Leaving aside that I’m capable of liking a book while not liking something about it, so that’s not really an indicator of whether I’m enjoying reading my book (maybe I’m enjoying complaining about it!), once I thought about it, I have to say he’s not wrong.  I might be in a book funk.   (Also, he wasn’t wrong about that book.  I think I’d have to say I didn’t like it overall, but I liked certain things about it.)

I just went back to my book list, and my ratio of books I don’t like to books I like is WAY higher than normal.  Over the last 12 weeks, I have not liked 10 out of 29 books.  That’s a full third of the books I’ve picked up in the last three months.  Either I’m getting worse at picking out books or I’m getting better at recognizing what I shouldn’t be spending my time on.  The second thing sounds better.  Let’s go with that.

If I could do cartwheels, I totally would right now

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The sort feature came back!  I am way happier about that than I should be.  I mean, really.  It’s a sort feature on a website.  But it’s back!  And I can sort my wish list by price again!  Seriously, I’m pretty pleased.  I will take that as a positive end to what turned out to be a very long workday (what is with Fridays?), walk away from my computer, and read a book.  Hopefully one that I’ll like.  More on that tomorrow.

Neighbors are doing it right

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I keep a list of things I like about houses and might consider for our forever home (like tile floors or hardwood floors, floor to ceiling windows, skylights, Olympic sized bathtubs, wraparound porches, a creek at the bottom of an expanse of lawn, plenty of trees, window seats, a library with a ladder, first floor laundry, a mudroom, etc.).  At this point, the list is full of contradictory things, and a house that had everything probably wouldn’t stay upright, but at least I have a list of things to refer to when we actually start looking.

Anyway, there’s a house a few blocks from us with pretty stone wall and steps and a vine-covered railing.  I like it.  I want it.

Added to the list.

Thanks, but no thanks

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I had my free session with a personal trainer tonight, and, uh, yeah.  I won’t be doing that again.  The workout was fine, but she totally ignored my requests about what I wanted her to show me.  When we were done, she gave me the hard sell to work with her regularly, in the MOST annoying way.  Maybe this works on your other clients, lady, but I CAN meet my goals without your help, and I can certainly do it for less than $400 a month.  You don’t know me.  Don’t assume I need outside motivation just because I’m taking advantage of a free session.

I’ve been home for an hour and a half, and I’m still super irritated.  Must let go.

Breathe in.

Breathe out.

Breathe in.

Oh hell, I’ll probably see her at the gym again sometime.

Breathe out.

Maybe she doesn’t come in early in the morning.  She didn’t look familiar.

Breathe in.

I really don’t want to have to keep telling her no.

Breathe out.

The pushy personal trainer can shove it.

Breathe in.

Breathe out.

All better.

Hangin’ stuff

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It’s time to hang pictures.  Some pictures.  Or at least we’ll start thinking about where pictures could go and we can lean them against the wall in the right room.  (Baby steps.)  Nearly everything we have (that we’re traveling with) is framed now, so we just have to make some decisions.  Except we’re likely to get more geeky art at the Rhode Island Comic Con this weekend (yay!), so maybe we don’t want to go poking holes in walls just yet.  We can wait another week, right?  And then another…while…before we get frames for the new stuff, and then some more time leaning pictures against walls while we work it out…  I’m sure we’ll have everything on the walls just in time for us to move again.

We’re rough.

Tune in next week for more useless wishing for a longer weekend

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Where did the weekend go?  We ran errands on Saturday and went to the last Waterfire of the season (pictures to come).  Today, we went out to breakfast and then got groceries and cleaned.  I need another weekend.  I need more time for reading and exploring and watching more Stranger Things (we started season 2).

Ugh, and I have to work again tomorrow.  That keeps happening!  Who needs work anyway?  All work does is clutter up my life with things that aren’t reading.  Buying stuff and doing fun things that cost money and, like, eating and wearing clothes are over-rated.

This has been this week’s edition of the Sunday Night Blues.  Thank you for reading.