September 9, 2009
Dear Everyone:
Yesterday I went down to the
title company and
signed many, many forms. The
buyer signed many more forms.
The finance company has sent the funds into
escrow.
The designer is set to remove her accessories tonight or
tomorrow. “Jeannie” has
arranged with the furniture company to remove all their stuff on Friday.
I have a bag full of keys to mark and deliver to the
realtor.
(Query: How did I end
up with three keys to the pool gate?)
By week’s end I hope to see a very large chunk-o-money in my
credit union account.
Of course I won’t get to keep it all.
I have to pay back my
401(k) ($50,000), “Jeannie” ($25,000), one
particular credit card ($10,000) and sundry others.
But there will still be a nice sum to put down on the principle
of my current mortgage. Then
I’ll arrange with the credit union to refinance the
condo.
In other news…
When I bought the condo, I bought a new
refrigerator that dispenses filtered water and ice through the door.
The door has three indicator lights:
“Good”, meaning the filter is still good; “Order”, indicating
that the filter is getting old and will need replacing soon; and
“Replace”, which means it really is time to replace the filter.
A few weeks ago, the indicator changed from “Good”
to “Order”. I pulled the
filter out to get the part number, then put it back into the space in
the bottom grille. I was a
little concerned because it didn’t “snap into place” the way it was
supposed to. (I suspect that
a dry filter “snaps into place” more easily than one that is soaked with
water.) I was still able to
dispense water, but the freezer stopped making ice.
I checked the ice bin and half the ice was evaporated.
If you don’t know how a
frost-free freezer works,
this is what happens: At
regular intervals, the freezer shuts itself off, allowing the ice
crystals that have formed on the walls and shelves to melt.
Then a small vacuum comes on that sucks all of the moist air out.
At the same time, any ice cubes also begin to melt.
If you have a freezer that uses ice cube trays and you’ve ever
noticed that much of the ice is gone, that’s what happened.
I knew I would need to replace the filter “soon”,
so last weekend I went shopping and picked up a couple of filters
(another credit card to pay off.)
When you replace a filter you have to “sacrifice” a certain
amount of the new water and ice.
This is wasteful, especially when we’re in a drought, so I’m
thinking about how to use the three gallons of water and ice that should
be “thrown out.” Some people
save the water and use it to water their plants.
I don’t have any plants, but my neighbor does.
Or maybe I’ll just water the lawn out front.
In the meantime, I dispensed all of the ice in the bin into a
plastic bag which I then stored in the freezer.
A little while later, I heard a familiar sound:
Ice dropping into the bin.
Sure enough, the freezer was making new ice cubes
again. Even though the ice
had evaporated, enough of it was in place to fool the sensor into
“thinking” that the bin was still full.
Problem solved.
I’ll still have to replace the filter when the
indicator light changes, but that could be weeks from now.
In the meantime, everyone please pray for rain and lots of snow
in the mountains.
Love, as always,
Pete
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