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dragonlady7Today's commute was thrillingly annoying, in that the rain that started falling about 20 minutes before I walked out the door was of course landing on surfaces (including the ground) that were below freezing, and so it was landing as ice. So I got to shuffle-scrape-scramble to work over a mile and a half of excitingly frictionless surfaces. I only almost fell about half a dozen times, and thrillingly managed not to actually fall at all, mostly by adopting a particular gait.
Now-- the Wegmans parking lots all have little signs they set out, kind of like "caution wet floor" signs but for outdoors? And they say "Careful-- Ice!" and bear a slogan that admonishes you to "walk like a penguin" to avoid falls.
(Oh here's a primer from Vox on how to walk like a penguin; I had suspected it was a more widespread thing than just the grocery store, and I was right. Now, any of you who live anywhere with winter already know this or you'd be dead, but there it is anyway.)
(I can't resist hotlinking this gif so if you click nothing else click this
/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/13723602/Scene2.0.gif)
)
Anyhow-- walking like a penguin was insufficient for this, I kind of had to do like a bent-knee Groucho Marx kind of shuffle-skid-hop. It was probably hilarious to any onlookers but it was absolutely terrifying for me. My thighs are like noodles and my calves hate me.
The thaw meant water leaked into our basement, and I noticed and turned the dehumidifier on and moved stuff out of the way, but yesterday I resigned myself to a suspicion I had, and investigated and determined that, no, the thaw water had all already gone away. The continual stream winding across the floor was coming from not one of the walls, but...
the hot water heater. Shit.
(Aside: Dude blew my mind asking if it couldn't just be called a "water heater" instead of a "hot water heater" but as far as I can tell, it is universally termed "hot water heater" despite that being stupid. I had never considered it before.)
So. I was already committed to making dinner, so I kind of. Passed it off to Dude. And to be fair, it's his house, not mine; I wasn't included in the acquisition, I'm not on any of the documents, and he seems weirded out that I'm weirded out, so we just don't talk about it. But listen. It's your fucking house, bro, so I guess this isn't my problem! I don't know how else to convey my feelings, and they've been conveyed, and that's that.
So, to his credit, he took care of it: went down there, figured out what knobs shut things off, Googled it, cleaned up a little (ok not really much at all), and called people and left messages about getting quotes and such on repair or replacement.
We haven't had hot water since dinner, but I got the dishes done while I was cooking, and I don't shower daily and had just taken one the night before, so I'll be fine without hot water until probably tomorrow. I'm a disgusting creature, don't worry about it. Listen, it takes a certain kind to view completely optionally living in a canvas shack in the woods as an exciting fun time, and I am that kind. Part of the way the yurt thing doesn't get old is that I really don't miss indoor plumbing and I'm not much worried about dirt.
So-- I happened to be there when he took a call this morning about someone coming to look at the hot water heater (it bothers me now, it's redundant, I've lived 39 years without ever wondering about it and now I can't stand it) and so I took it upon myself to go and remove the clutter from around it so that the person in question had a chance of actually looking at it. He would possibly not have mentioned it to me otherwise, and I literally don't know if he would have thought to, but that's where i've been keeping boxes and packing material for in case I need to mail things, and of course there's more there than I need, but like, the problem with us is that he sees i've made a pile so he adds to it and then I don't want to move his things and then we end up with accretions neither of us is willing to touch? Anyway--
I've cleared that out now, and maybe we'll get a new hot water heater (argh) soon.
I want to clear out a lot of the hoarded fabric and clothing in my house and am constantly struggling because it's a goddamn nightmare for me. It combines all of my issues with "can't use nice thing must save for later" and "this item is precious because it's my only one" and like, dumb shit like "i wore this in 1995 remember the good times rip" and like... "this was Grandma's and she never liked it but i have it now and she's gone so i must cling to it" and everything is fucking terrible, I am a hoarder and can't handle it.
So what I'm doing is that I'm going to start off with all the flannel pajamas I own that I don't wear anymore and am not particularly attached to, and I'm going to make a quilt out of them all. I'm procrastinating this by using a seam-ripper to disassemble them all.
Currently on the docket is a pair of blue and white plaid flannel pants gifted to me for Christmas of 1997 by my grandmother, which I had some good times in sure but they don't fit me now and they're kind of shabby, so. Been slowly seam-ripping them at work. We'll see.
Now-- the Wegmans parking lots all have little signs they set out, kind of like "caution wet floor" signs but for outdoors? And they say "Careful-- Ice!" and bear a slogan that admonishes you to "walk like a penguin" to avoid falls.
(Oh here's a primer from Vox on how to walk like a penguin; I had suspected it was a more widespread thing than just the grocery store, and I was right. Now, any of you who live anywhere with winter already know this or you'd be dead, but there it is anyway.)
(I can't resist hotlinking this gif so if you click nothing else click this
)Anyhow-- walking like a penguin was insufficient for this, I kind of had to do like a bent-knee Groucho Marx kind of shuffle-skid-hop. It was probably hilarious to any onlookers but it was absolutely terrifying for me. My thighs are like noodles and my calves hate me.
The thaw meant water leaked into our basement, and I noticed and turned the dehumidifier on and moved stuff out of the way, but yesterday I resigned myself to a suspicion I had, and investigated and determined that, no, the thaw water had all already gone away. The continual stream winding across the floor was coming from not one of the walls, but...
the hot water heater. Shit.
(Aside: Dude blew my mind asking if it couldn't just be called a "water heater" instead of a "hot water heater" but as far as I can tell, it is universally termed "hot water heater" despite that being stupid. I had never considered it before.)
So. I was already committed to making dinner, so I kind of. Passed it off to Dude. And to be fair, it's his house, not mine; I wasn't included in the acquisition, I'm not on any of the documents, and he seems weirded out that I'm weirded out, so we just don't talk about it. But listen. It's your fucking house, bro, so I guess this isn't my problem! I don't know how else to convey my feelings, and they've been conveyed, and that's that.
So, to his credit, he took care of it: went down there, figured out what knobs shut things off, Googled it, cleaned up a little (ok not really much at all), and called people and left messages about getting quotes and such on repair or replacement.
We haven't had hot water since dinner, but I got the dishes done while I was cooking, and I don't shower daily and had just taken one the night before, so I'll be fine without hot water until probably tomorrow. I'm a disgusting creature, don't worry about it. Listen, it takes a certain kind to view completely optionally living in a canvas shack in the woods as an exciting fun time, and I am that kind. Part of the way the yurt thing doesn't get old is that I really don't miss indoor plumbing and I'm not much worried about dirt.
So-- I happened to be there when he took a call this morning about someone coming to look at the hot water heater (it bothers me now, it's redundant, I've lived 39 years without ever wondering about it and now I can't stand it) and so I took it upon myself to go and remove the clutter from around it so that the person in question had a chance of actually looking at it. He would possibly not have mentioned it to me otherwise, and I literally don't know if he would have thought to, but that's where i've been keeping boxes and packing material for in case I need to mail things, and of course there's more there than I need, but like, the problem with us is that he sees i've made a pile so he adds to it and then I don't want to move his things and then we end up with accretions neither of us is willing to touch? Anyway--
I've cleared that out now, and maybe we'll get a new hot water heater (argh) soon.
I want to clear out a lot of the hoarded fabric and clothing in my house and am constantly struggling because it's a goddamn nightmare for me. It combines all of my issues with "can't use nice thing must save for later" and "this item is precious because it's my only one" and like, dumb shit like "i wore this in 1995 remember the good times rip" and like... "this was Grandma's and she never liked it but i have it now and she's gone so i must cling to it" and everything is fucking terrible, I am a hoarder and can't handle it.
So what I'm doing is that I'm going to start off with all the flannel pajamas I own that I don't wear anymore and am not particularly attached to, and I'm going to make a quilt out of them all. I'm procrastinating this by using a seam-ripper to disassemble them all.
Currently on the docket is a pair of blue and white plaid flannel pants gifted to me for Christmas of 1997 by my grandmother, which I had some good times in sure but they don't fit me now and they're kind of shabby, so. Been slowly seam-ripping them at work. We'll see.
no subject
Date: 2019-02-06 06:50 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-02-06 08:52 pm (UTC)Seems legit to me that you passed dealing with the water heater to Dude. Great that you found out before anything got water-damaged! Or by trying to shower and finding out the water wouldn't get warm.