April 3, 2015
Dear Everyone:
There was an ad on TV that intoned, “…the hottest day of the year is the
one when your air conditioning stops working…”
I forget which product was being advertised, other than
air conditioning, of course.
But last week I discovered that my air conditioner was not working.
Now, I realize that some people, sitting under six to eight feet of
accumulated snow, have little empathy for me right now; and I understand
that. But the fact is, last
Wednesday the outside temperature was in the 80’s and the inside was
only a little below that. In
fact, by evening the temperature was cooler outside than it was inside,
so I actually opened a couple of windows.
That helped a little.
Bear in mind, these windows were all installed over 25 years ago.
When the developers renovated the original apartments, they redid
the kitchens and bathrooms.
And added crown molding.
They didn’t touch the windows or the central air system.
These days, to open the kitchen window I need a step-ladder and both
hands and feet. I suspect
that the developers, when they renovated the kitchens, installed
countertops that are more up-to-date than back in the 80’s and
consequently deeper and higher.
Either that or they expected to sell only to
orangutans, or
people with four-foot-long arms.
In fact, when I first bought this place, six years ago, I made a mental
note to replace the windows “sometime in the future”.
In the meantime, the air-conditioning was not working.
Fortunately for me, I have a “home warranty” contract.
So, once I dug the contract out of last year’s file box, I was
able to contact the service and they assigned the problem to a local
service rep. That was
Thursday.
On Friday, I called the service rep, got voice mail, left a message.
He called me back and actually offered to come by “between 8:00
and noon” on Saturday.
However. I had an
appointment that Saturday, so we had to settle for “between 7:30 and
8:30” the following Monday morning.
Sure enough, he showed up a little after 7:30.
It didn’t take him very long to determine that the problem lay
with the condenser; that’s the part that sits outside.
I had already realized that when the air conditioning was turned
on, the fan inside was enthusiastically blowing air around inside, but
the condenser outside was not working at all.
Hence, warm air moving, not cooling.
The service rep quickly replaced some kind of regulator and was finished
in less than an hour.
Coincidentally, the weather turned cooler, with a hint of rain possibly
coming this weekend. So I
haven’t really had a reason to turn the air conditioning on since it was
fixed. Doesn’t it just
figure?
Meanwhile, getting those windows replaced has moved upward on my
priority list. Sure, I’ve
been meaning to get it done for the past six years, but it’s higher on
the list now. Right after
paying down my credit card and refinancing on my home
mortgage loan.
In other news…
Yesterday I finished the last of three crocheted Bears for the
Mother Bear Project,
which is sponsored by a local yarn store.
Each Bear was made with three colors of leftover yarn, plus some
embroidery thread and polyfil.
The thing about polyfil is, once you’ve bought a bag, you have a
bag. It’s not like you can
take the unused portion back to the store.
And it doesn’t take much to fill a little crocheted Bear.
The store provides a “drop off location” for completed Bears and
collects the necessary “Bear Fare”.
Each Little Bear requires some “Little Bear travel expenses”.
You know: Little Bear
Passport; Little Bear
Visa; Little Bear
Vaccinations.
After all, the Little Bears are going to
Africa and we wouldn’t
want them to sick, would we?
Love, as always,
Pete
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