Drama update

They came and laid new carpet last Friday. Poor Capri had to spend her first full day back in the house locked in the bathroom, this time with the window shut (the damaged screen she escaped through was finally replaced, only a little over a year after I reported it). Needless to say, she was displeased when I got home and let her out. But she was still here, so I was not sympathetic to her grumpy mood.

The carpet is a nice shade of neutral, and it's in. Well, all except for the small patch in the hallway in front of the door and extending to the bottom of the stairs. They cut a small square off of what they took out to try and match the color. So when the hall carpet gets patched is all dependent on when they can find something to match. So right outside my bedroom door is the plywood sub-floor for now. I need to find a small area rug...

Anyway, so about my bedroom furniture. It was offered for them to come move it back into my room on Saturday, but unfortunately my plans weren't working with their schedule. And I'll be damned if I was going to sit around and wait for most of the day for them to show up. Sunday didn't work either (they weren't available). Or Monday after work. Today, Tuesday, my furniture is finally back in my bedroom. My bed (and mattress!) is back where it belongs. And I can't wait to put fresh sheets on the bed and sleep in there tonight instead of my living room.

My bedroom is pretty simple. All I have in there is my bed and my clothing (in dressers). That's it. No radio besides my clock-radio-alarm, no TV, no electronics beyond a phone. And I did that on purpose. I've had a really hard time sleeping this past week. Partially because I was sleeping on a mattress on the floor, and partially because there was just too many distractions upstairs in my living room. I had a very hard time quieting my mind so I could sleep. Blinking lights, electronics, stuff. Too much stuff.

The drama is nearly over. There's been no more leaking when it rains. Believe you me, I've been freaked out with each thunderstorm we get. The new carpet is still dry. And I am overdue for a good night's sleep.

And the drama goes on...pt. 2

[continued from pt. 1]

Wednesday, Aug. 5, 2009

I get up and get ready to head into work. My landlord promises to be here when they come to spray, so I don't have to wait. All I have to do is lock my cat Capri in the bathroom so she's out of the way. I do that, knowing that I will pay for it in the form of cat retribution when I let her out that evening. I head into work.

At 4:30pm I call my landlord to find out what's up. They came and sprayed around 1pm. They also left an industrial strength fan in my room to help dry things out. They will be back to pick up the fan on Thursday evening (so they say). The floor should already be mostly dry, it's just the walls. Still, it is recommended I shut the door to the bedroom to keep the cat out. No problem. I head home.

I get home, change, and shut the bedroom door. I then go to let Capri out of the bathroom. She's not there. She's not anywhere in the house. PANIC. I discover that she escaped via the bathroom window. I had left it cracked due to the heat, and she pushed the window open farther and got out. The screen in that window wasn't secure. It needed to be fixed. I reported this to my landlords LAST YEAR when I moved in. It was never fixed. So she escaped. Because ONCE AGAIN they didn't fix things in a timely manner (or, in this case, not at all, which is also not unusual...there are several other things that were never fixed too). Clearly basic maintenance is not something they actually do consistently, if at all, and now it's caused two major problems: flooding and my cat escaping. I am livid. And terrified. I have no idea how long she's been out or where she is. She's an indoor cat, just over 2 years old, and I've only had her about 11 months now.

What's worse I took her collar off of her before locking her in the bathroom. Why? Because the last time she caught herself on the corner of the cabinet and freaked out (fortunately I was home so I freed her promptly). I didn't want that to happen again, so I took off her collar. So now she's outside, running around gods knows where, with nothing but a microchip. MORE PANIC.

I call my friend Plum and freak out. She comes over and as soon as I see her I start crying in the middle of the sidewalk. I've been walking around the blocks near my place calling for Capri, meowing (she actually answers to my meows, really), and shaking a treat bag. I can't find her. Then we hear her meowing. I meow back, and she responds (typical, we have regular "conversations" in meows). So we start trying to follow the meows. Plum and I start looking in the neighbors' backyards and Plum spots her up a tree. OhMyGodsThankTheLordShe'sOK. I coax her down, and right as I'm about to grab her (I even have my hands on her), a car alarm goes off and she bolts. SH*T!! Plum and I take off after her, cursing the car alarm as we run. Capri runs for the street. Fortunately a nice woman out for a run (happens to be running in our direction) heads her off and the landlords' kid (elementary age boy) keeps her from going into the street and she turns around and runs back into the yards behind my place. Whew. She goes back up the same tree, only even higher this time, clearly scared and now panting slightly. DAMMIT.

So Plum and I camp out in the yard where the tree is. My ankles are a buffet for mosquitoes (really, they are now polka-dotted with bites and I'm using anti-itch cream like lotion). We wait. I try tempting her down with treats. No dice. So I try milk which she loves and is notorious for trying to trip me when I get the carton out of the fridge and shake it. Also no dice. Capri sits up in the tree, and looks at me, quite comfortably, meowing periodically, from her branch (a good 20 feet off the ground). After a bit, Plum goes to Fu-Wah Mini Market nearby to get tofu-hoagies for us to eat for dinner. I continue my stake out of the tree, fighting a losing battle with the mosquitoes. [Side note: the tofu hoagies from Fu-Wah Mini Market are fantastic. Definitely recommended...it's a vegetarian banh-mi sandwich!]

After waiting for over an hour, watching Capri move around on the branch 20 feet off the ground with no movement downwards, we give up around 7:30pm. Plum heads home to take care of her own 4-legged furry brood, and I head inside. I go back outside to the tree to check on her at regular intervals, and she keeps refusing to come down out of the tree and back inside. I try tempting her with wet cat food (a major treat) but still no dice. At one point when I look up the tree she's descended to a lower fork in the branches (now only about 10 ft. off the ground) but still looks far to comfortable. I am also alarmed to see a raccoon in a neighboring branch. They are ignoring each other and quite calm. I'm freaked out. I decide to not try another food temptation for fear I'll get the raccoon instead of my cat. Yikes.

Around 10pm when I check on her she's out of the tree and lying on the ground, but as soon as I walk towards her she runs from me. She climbs another tree, this one right in my backyard, and meows at me. For the next 3 plus hours we have regular conversations of meows, her in the tree and me on the ground, but she won't come near me or come inside. I call my mom and freak out at her on the phone for 2 of those hours (good thing she lives in Australia where it's mid-day...I can always call my mom at midnight and not worry about waking her up!). At nearly 2am I finally give up and try to get some sleep.

Thursday, Aug. 6, 2009

I wake up after only about 3 hours of sleep, and still no sign of her and now no meowing. She hasn't tried to come in. It's also raining. I head into work, hoping that when I get home later she'll be waiting to let in where it's dry and there's food. I spend the day surprisingly productive, fueled by coffee and worry.

I get home shortly before 5pm, and look for Capri. She's nowhere to be found. I meow. No response. I let my landlord (the father who owns the property) know that I'm extremely displeased with them because my cat got out because they never fixed the screen on that window that I reported a year ago. He looks shocked. I explain again that she got out because they never did a repair I reported several times and I'm really really upset about that and it's inexcusable on their part.

[Side note: I also notice when I get home that the Stanley Steamer people haven't been back and their fan is still in my bedroom. Wonder when they're going to come get that...]

I go inside and retrieve the milk carton, take it out back and shake it, hoping to tempt her. Nothing. No sign of her. I try shaking the treat bag. Again no sign of Capri at all. I meow. Nothing. I decide to walk around the block once, shaking the treat bag and meowing. There's absolutely no sign or sound of her at all. OMG. I'm afraid she's decided to go exploring farther away from home, has gotten trapped someplace, or someone has trapped her. I can't stand it! I just want my cat back home and safe!!

Now there's really nothing else I can do besides wait for her to come home. And it's killing me. I also print out signs to put up on the corners near my house, hoping people see them and if they've taken her in they'll call me.

My landlord (my regular contact) comes by to measure the bedroom for the carpet. She tells me people are supposed to be coming tomorrow to actually lay the carpet and then they'll put my bedroom back together. I also take the opportunity let her know about the window screen (since she's my "official" contact), and how upset I am that pretty much all of the recent problems could have been prevented if regular and basic maintenance/upkeep was done on the property, such as cleaning the drains/gutters, repairing exterior windows/screens, etc. All the little things you have to do when you own a house just to keep it standing. And I tell her I hope that they can see that specifically the flooding, etc. that's happened this week is an indication that maintenance is needed and I hope they use it as a learning experience and start doing said regular maintenance. We shall see. I'm not holding my breath. But I'm *this* close to putting a hex on their entire family, I swear.

I know all I can really do is hope and pray that Capri is OK and comes home soon. And try to get some sleep despite how worried I am. She's got to get hungry eventually, right?

And the drama goes on...pt. 1

There's no lack of drama around here lately. The Sunday flood issues (see previous post) are still being resolved.

Sunday evening my landlord finally called me back and said they'd be by again on Monday to work on drying the carpet some more. So at 9:30pm, I drag my mattress (futon) upstairs to my living room and put it on the floor. Somehow I manage to do this without getting the mattress wet by dropping or dragging it on the wet bedroom carpet. Chalk one up for anger-induced strength. Sunday night I sleep upstairs in my living room. This is strange, and confounds the cat, who keeps meowing at me to go downstairs to bed. On the other hand, she is also quite happy to have a giant soft surface to play/sleep on, so I don't think she quite understands that it's the mattress.

Monday, Aug. 3, 2009

Monday I wake up and call my landlord before 9am. I spend a bit of time explaining why the wet-vac ain't gonna cut it at this point. I convince her, and she's going to call professionals to come in and dry it and make sure all is well. I also have to provide her with the names of several companies (mad librarian search skillz FTW!) because she has no idea who to call. I give her three names and numbers. She makes calls and we settle in to wait. A little after 11am she tells me someone is supposed to be here between 11am and 1pm. OK. And we wait. My bedroom is now so musty and muggy I can hardly breathe and it's triggering my asthma (I keep coughing uncontrollably...a bad sign for me). It's been over 24 hours so I know the carpet is toast and will have to be replaced at this point. Cleaning it is no longer an option...the mold has set in.

At nearly 2pm we are still waiting. She calls back as well as calling the other places. She tells me all three work together and the first one she calls knows she's called the other two and is pissed off at her for calling them. Well, duh. If you don't show up as promised naturally people will look for other options. At 6:30pm I get another update from my landlord. They are still coming, the question is WHEN? A little later, the first company calls and says that a., they won't be coming until tomorrow now (but again, won't give a time) and b., they need at least $2000 just. to. show. up. OMG really? Landlord tells them to forget it, and she ends up calling Stanley Steamer. It's now after 7pm. Stanley Steamer doesn't come that night. Landlord brings by a dehumidifier to try and control the damp air if nothing else. I sleep in my living room again, my bedroom carpet still soaking wet and the air very musty/muggy, to the point I can no longer breathe in there at all (all I do is cough, which, again, is BAD and a sign my cough-variant asthma is kicking in).

Tuesday, Aug. 4, 2009

I wake up and brace myself for the waiting game. Email various people at work to let them know and settle in with coffee and my remote desktop connection to get some reports and indexing project work done. Landlord calls Stanley Steamer people again and they say someone will be out that afternoon. I tell my landlord that the carpet is not salvageable at this point, it's been too long and there's no way to effectively clean it. What's more, because of my asthma any remaining mold could put me in the hospital with a severe respiratory infection and could kill me. She says let's wait and see what the professionals say. Grumble. I don't think she's really listening. MOLD = POSSIBLY DEADLY to an asthmatic, not to mention people with healthy lungs. No lie.

I see pictures of the flood in Louisville that devastated the public library via Twitter. OMG. The pictures make me gasp and are shockingly terrible. It's just an awful situation. And it certainly puts my issue in perspective. Still, I know my flood, while minor by comparison, needs to be resolved too.

Stanley Steamer shows up around 2:30pm. And thank the lords they back me and immediately tell her that the carpet needs to go. That they can smell the mold that's already growing in it. It's been wet too long now to be cleaned/dried and salvaged. It needs to be ripped out, along with the padding, and trashed. I am relieved. They want the room cleaned out, the baseboards, carpet and padding removed, and then they will spray the entire room and lower walls with an anti-microbial agent to kill any mold that's there. Once that dries, we are free to lay new carpet. OK. Sounds like a plan.

Landlord's dad (one who actually owns the property) shows up to get the estimate from them. He gets the estimate, and tells them they (landlords) will pull out the carpet. They make an appointment for them to come back on Wed. afternoon to do the anti-microbial spraying. The Stanley Steamer guys leave.

My landlord then offers me some lovely unsolicited advice in the form of a website promising a "natural cure" for allergies and allergy-induced asthma. I politely thank him and explain that my asthma isn't allergy related, but rather a portion of my lungs just don't work and I'm extra susceptible to respiratory infections and that said infections can get very serious and even deadly very easily if not taken care of. So, um, NO. Thanks but also "natural cures" like that one, well, it just doesn't work that way. Grrr.

He leaves and then people (more of landlords family, including my usual contact person) come in to move the furniture out of my bedroom. My bed is dismantled, and it and my dressers are placed in the hallway. Good thing it's a long hallway. They pull off the baseboards. I am disturbed to see mold on the backside of several of them, so I point it out and say that is NOT coming back into this room. Period. Landlord's daughter (my usual contact), says OK and promises they will be trashed instead (I'll be checking when they reinstall baseboards to make absolutely sure). They rip out the carpet, padding and tack strips, and clean up the resulting mess. The dehumidifier is put back in the now empty room in an attempt to start the drying process before they spray.

I realize my entire bedroom will be in the hallway and I'll be sleeping in the living room for the rest of the week. They won't be able to lay carpet for a good 36 hours after spraying, so the earliest new carpet will go down is Friday. GAH.

I go to sleep in my living room, cranky, but glad that things are finally getting done.

[To be continued...]

Time to build an ark, me thinks

I've been in my current apartment just over a year now. In that time I've been besieged by water issues. A useful detail to understanding things: I'm in a split level 2 bedroom apartment. My living space is upstairs, and the 2 bedrooms are downstairs in the finished basement. There are two baths, one upstairs and one down. My landlord is the member of the family responsible for this property, so "landlord" is somewhat misleading as it's not just her that I'm ultimately dealing with. She's just my specific contact person. Her family owns several properties that they manage.

Now back to the true tale of my water woes.

First it was a leaking pipe from the upstairs bathroom that was dripping into my bedroom right below it. It showed up within 2 weeks of me moving in. Various holes were created either by the water itself or to track the leak. I lived with holes in my ceiling and a bucket (plus a trash can at times) in my bedroom for a good 6 months until they found the source. I didn't use the upstairs bathroom either because why would I want to make the drip happen?!? So for the first 6 months I lived in this apartment I basically only had one bathroom, despite paying for two. Then I lived with the holes in my ceiling until they *finally* patched the holes over 6 months later.

Then the leak in the kitchen ceiling appeared. It was leaking from the same place it did previously, evidenced by the patch already there, so clearly there's been a leak in the roof before. For several months I had a bucket to catch the drips. Then the leak spread. So I added a trash can. And another. You can see the set-up here on Flickr. Eventually they fixed the hole in the roof (or I'm assuming they did as the drips stopped), but not before the drywall tape on the patch fell down so I had it dangling from my ceiling. When they finally patched the bedroom ceiling they put the tape back up.

I though things were finally calming down and the water issues had been finally resolved.

I was wrong. So very very wrong.

Now we have a new water problem. The Friday I got back from ALA (July 17th for those keeping track), we had a terrific thunderstorm. The drains outside the house couldn't handle the deluge. But instead of just sitting outside until it had a chance to drain, the water found someplace to go. It seeped through the foundation (or found a hole), and made a nice puddle on the floor of my bedroom. Specifically it soaked the area under my bed, and spread into the middle of the room. I called my landlord. The next day they brought a wet-vac along with the other supplies to make the final repairs as planned. They vacuumed up the water, and moved my dehumidifier into my bedroom along with an extra fan I have to help finish the drying process.

I lived with the dehumidifier in there for a week. Things seemed to dry out sufficiently.

Then we had another deluge. This morning (Sunday, Aug. 2nd, for those keeping track) we had a fantastic thunderstorm, just like the one a few weeks ago. The skies opened up and it just poured. I watched the water build up outside by the drain. So I went to check my bedroom. And my carpet was wet again. The water was clearly coming in along the base of the wall, so essentially through the brick/stone foundation. I curse and run down the hall to get the rag towels to try and soak up some of the water. I spread them out under my bed, specifically around the bedposts, and along the wall where it's coming in.

I head back upstairs and call my landlord. She starts making phone calls and sends someone over with the wet-vac. It's still pouring. I go back downstairs. OMFG I HAVE A SMALL LAKE THAT IS NOW COVERING HALF OF MY BEDROOM. The towels are completely overwhelmed by the amount of water and are useless. It's coming in all along the wall now, not just in a few small places. What's worse, when the water came it, it also brought debris, so there's dirt and crap all over the place.

I go back upstairs. I call my landlord back and let her know the magnitude of the problem. I let her know that this problem clearly needs a professional to come in, clean up the water and fix the foundation. This is way way beyond what a general handyman can fix.

A couple people from my landlord's family come by with the wet-vac. Since I had last called my landlord I notice that there's water coming in behind the fridge in the kitchen. I point it out and they pull the fridge out from the wall (partially blocking the doorway). One person goes outside to find out where it's coming in. The two young dudes head downstairs with the wet-vac and start vacuuming up the water. The rain is still coming down. The guy that went outside to inspect where the water upstairs is coming from finds that it's coming from next door. He then starts trying to speed up the drains. One is has debris partially blocking it. Debris that ran down the steps from the yard. The other is pretty much completely blocked in the pipe so there's no speeding it up.

The rain finally lets up. The dudes are still vacuuming. They leave around 2:30ish, saying they'll be back later to do another pass. I call my landlord to check in and find out what's going on. She tells me she's talking to others in the family and they're going to find someone to come deal with this and she'll let me know.

It's now 8:00pm. No one has returned to do another wet-vac pass. My landlord hasn't called me. So I call her and leave a message letting her know that that's NOT OK. I need to know what the plan is. And this needs to be fixed by a professional within the next week. One week is a reasonable amount of time given the magnitude of the problem and the amount of water that came in this time. If the water keeps increasing, eventually the entire basement will flood. Not only that, if the water keeps coming in every time we have a major thunderstorm (it is that time of year, mind you), things will never dry out, which will beget mold, which could potentially kill me given my asthma. And I'm really not exaggerating.

So now I wait. I wait for them to respond. I wait to find out the plan. I wait for some kind of action on their part. I #$*@%! hate waiting.

Oh, and to add insult to injury? My kitchen light is not always turning on. Sometimes it works when I flip the switch, other times it comes 1/2 way on, and sometimes nothing happens until I flip the switch off and on a few times. That makes me nervous. There quite possibly could be some sort of electrical issue stemming from the leak in the kitchen roof. Yeah, that's freaking me out a bit.

Is this balance?

So the weekend started with my massive disappointment in which I did not get NIN tickets despite being "in line waiting" before they even went on sale. Reportedly all the NYC shows sold out in 10 minutes.

The weekend then moved into the "are you f*cking kidding me" phase. We had a massive thunderstorm. Truly massive. The drains outside couldn't handle it. I even went out in the rain and removed debris from the drain to help and there still was a good 1 inch of water. The drain just couldn't keep up with the deluge. It rained like that for a good hour before it finally let up. When I went downstairs to go to bed (given my bedroom being in the finished basement), I thought the carpet felt a little squishy. So I leaned down to see what was up with my hand.

It was wet. WET CARPET IN MY BEDROOM. Clearly the deluge had overloaded the drains and the water table and the runoff had ended up in my bedroom, soaking part of my carpet. It had come in at one place along the wall, and then pooled under my bed. So I gathered up all the rag towels I had and started spreading them everywhere, lifting up the corner of the bed to put it under the bedposts. I also had to move my mattress to lift up the center support beam and put a towel under that leg given that was where the most of the water was. Much cursing was involved, and I think I bruised my knee banging it against the edge of the bed. Given that it was now midnight, there wasn't much more I could do so I collapsed into bed.

Then came the balance part of my weekend. My landlord was planning on coming by on Saturday to finish some repairs. Granted, several of these were repairs that should have been done 6 months ago (the end of the bedroom leak saga), but the timing ended up actually being a good thing. I was able to call her before she was on her way and let her know about the deluge induced bedroom flood, giving her time to find a wet-vac.

Saturday I had plans to meet up with my friend EM and hit the farmers' market in Clark Park and get breakfast tacos and Stumptown iced coffee from Honest Tom's taco truck. She arrived the same time as my landlord with the handyman (a different one this time...seemed to know more what he was doing, which made me very happy). I walked my landlord and the handyman through the apartment, reviewing everything that needed to be done to make sure we were all on the same page. Then EM and I headed out for breakfast and the farmers' market.

We returned a couple of hours later, bellies full of yummy breakfast tacos and bags of fresh farmers' market goods in hand, to find they were finishing up. They had to run out for a quick part to fix the toilet downstairs (the handle was being held to the plunger with a safety pin! which I discovered when it rusted through the other day), but otherwise they were done. Wow. The drywall mudding was done on the ceiling patches. He fixed the vent on my dryer that the gas company f-ed up recently. They had wet-vac-ed the bedroom, even putting the wet towels in the dryer. They moved my dehumidifier and my box fan in there to finish the drying process. Part of the carpet was still damp, where the most water had pooled, but certainly no longer soaked. They were really and truly done, the repairs completed in ONE visit as planned. This is new. I like it.

So EM and I headed back out to walk her bike down to the local shop (Firehouse Bicycles) to get a flat tire fixed. While we were sipping some nice iced coffees (from Satellite Cafe) and sitting in the park on the grass waiting for the flat repair to be finished, my landlord called to tell me they had finished replacing the flushing valve and handle and were now completely done. Miracles never cease.

EM and I had a lovely day. One random activity just kind of flowed into the other, no schedule, no plan, culminating in a gathering at Miss Plum's place for some grilling. The weather was gorgeous. The day overall was quite relaxing.

I'm guessing the lovely day was the balance for the hellish evening the day before. Went from high stress/frustration/anger to calm and relaxed. I'm not sure I like this flip-flopping stuff.

So, Universe, can we not do this one extreme to the other and instead just have some even-keel for awhile? I'd really appreciate it.

A little beer, and a LOT of rain

We had another happy hour for work last night. Despite the horrible rainy weather, we had a decent turn out. And we tried a new bar and pub: Slainte (pronounced Slawn-cha). The name means "cheers" in Gaelic. It's a new bar in West Philly, owned by the same people as the New Deck Tavern. It's a modern yet classic bar, lots of rich dark hardwood, and very comfortable barstools (I tested them thoroughly). They have a great selection of European beers on tap, including Guiness and my favorite Smithwicks, and a few American beers like Sam Adams as well. The even have hard cider on tap and decent happy hour specials. We sampled the cheddar and beer dip (similar to a Welsh rarebit), which came with toasts and veggies for dipping. The toasts were delicious, and dusted with black pepper. And surprisingly, the vegetables worked well with the cheddar beer dip, even the cucumber! We also sampled the chicken and cheese quesadillas, which were very tasty. I do believe we'll be having another happy hour there sometime next month. And I'm interested in going back and trying the rest of their menu for lunch or dinner.

Today the sky really opened up and we've been under a flood warning here in Philly. It poured, and I do mean poured, rain all day. We even had some thunder and lightening. It would have been great, except for one small detail: I had to go out in it. I needed dog food. Needed as in Aussie wouldn't get dinner if I didn't go to the pet store. So off I went. I was a bit crazy and took the dog with me, and by the time we went for our morning walk, and went in and out of the store, Aussie looked like she had enjoyed several baths and I felt a bit like a drowned rat. Five hours later my coat is still drying out and my shoes will probably be damp for a few days. I am very glad that I learned to drive in the rain of Portland, OR. The other crazies on the road, however, could use a few lessons on driving in heavy rain with water on the roadway.

File under "huh?!"

As you all know from previous posts on the topic, I have a history of problems with my phone line when it rains. In the past, this has meant static on my line. So much static that I end up with no service. The static interrupted not only my land line voice signal, but my DSL signal. Things culminated with the determination that a section of outside cable was in fact bad, and it was replaced the end of November. I haven't had static on my line during inclement weather since.

This time is different. It's pouring rain out. It's been raining all day. Raining so hard that after a quick trip outside the dog was wet enough to look like she had enjoyed a bath.

First, the good news, I don't have static on my line.

Now, the bad news. I have NO dial tone at all. No static. Nothing. Just silence. It's creepy.

BUT, I still have a DSL signal. Mind you, the DSL travels on the same lines as my voice signal, making use of the high frequency portions of the phone line (voice only uses low frequency). Logically one would think that if I have no dial tone, meaning something in the line has been interrupted, I would have no internet signal, since it's all the same phone line. Right? I mean, really, when I had static on my phone line interrupting my voice signal, it interrupted my DSL signal. Therefore it follows that no dial tone would mean no DSL signal, again since it's all the same line.

Um, maybe not. Apparently that logical assumption is wrong.

No dial tone, but I still have a DSL signal. Huh?! I'm filing this one away under illogical and possibly absurd things in my life.

But I think I'll stop short of complaining and just accept the absurdity of it.

Winter attacks!

Between the freezing rain on Sunday, the wind on Monday and Tuesday, and the snow today, I think it's safe to say that winter is attacking. The snow that's been coming down for most of the day is sticking to most surfaces...a nice wet snow. It's beautiful. I love how it transforms everything into a white wonderland, covering up all the city grime. All day my friend and colleague KS has been practically dancing in her chair (you can read about her excitement on her blog). I have to admit snow really makes it feel like winter for me too. It makes me want to snuggle up in the house with a steaming mug of hot cocoa after a cold walk in the snow with the dog.

Speaking of Aussie, here is a description of what she sounds like when out in the snow:

snuffle snuffle snuffle
foof! [sharp exhale sending an explosion of snow into the air around her nose]
snuffle snuffle
foof!
snort
snuffle snuffle...

And then she attacks it. No joke. Attacks the snow. Hates the rain. Not too fond of the cold either, she takes care of business pretty quickly when it's chilly out. Unless there's snow involved. Then she must inspect every. single. pile. of. snow. And nothing can make her hurry up. Not even me imploring her because my toes are getting cold. She's in the land o' snow and is lost to the rest of the world.

snuffle snuffle snuffle
foof!
[sneeze]
snuffle snuffle...

Side note: this post marks one full year of blogging for me. My blog is ONE YEAR OLD. That's longer than I've ever managed to keep a journal or diary before...guess I really did form that habit after all.

Too much rain, or, I'm glad I'm renting

So yesterday (Saturday) morning I woke up and proceeded downstairs to make coffee and take the dog out. I had a plan for my day. Little did I know my plan was about to be derailed.

As I walked into the dining room, I noticed there were chunks of dirt or something on the floor. That's weird...I was planning on cleaning, but when I went to bed last night all that was there was dog fur. Then I looked in the corner by the window (there's only one window in the dining room). There's a ceiling tile. On top of the dog kennel. It should be in the drop ceiling. But it's sitting on the dog kennel. And there's dirt and water on the radiator and window in the corner. WTF? So I investigate.

It appears that all the rain we got during the previous four days made the leak in the ceiling appear. The leak has probably been there for quite some time given the condition of the ceiling underneath the drop ceiling tiles and the condition of the tile that fell down. And it's still raining (remember, this is Saturday morning).

So much for a trip to the farmers' market.

I proceed to call and leave a message for my landlord, who I know is out of town, but I couldn't find another number to call (remember, this is all before coffee). I tell her that there's a leak, and one of the ceiling tiles has fallen down, and water is still dripping down the window on the inside and onto the floor in the corner. I then proceed to clean up, moving everything of mine away from the corner, and everything near it at least 3 feet further away. There was a blanket (clean) sitting on top of the dog kennel that's now covered in debris and is all damp, so it's now waiting to be washed. And the kennel is now on the opposite side of the dining room. Aussie keeps lying in it as if she's "reclaiming" it. The look on her face was "I don't care if it's moved it's still mine and I'm going to prove it by lying in it, see!?" and she spent all almost all afternoon in it. I swept all the scattered debris into the corner with the ceiling tile and other dirt, debris, pieces of wood, etc. I'm not cleaning that up until my landlord or her business partner sees it (they also may need to document it for insurance purposes). Fortunately, the rain has stopped.

So for now one-fourth of my dining room is not usable. Not that I ever really have used it, but still. And I'm very lucky that the only personal property issue is a dirty blanket. No damage to my stuff. And it's not my problem. All I have to do is notify someone else and they have to fix it. This is an argument for NOT buying a home in my mind.

I think the leak is the result of a not-so-efficient drain. I brought it up before, and the so-called handyman (remember the carpet debacle?) said it was fine, no issues, and the water I had seen on the inside of the window must have been condensation. Um, no, it wasn't condensation. Proving yet again that I was right in my decision to refuse to work with said handyman every again. Sigh.

I am SO glad I'm a renter right now. But now the question is how long until this is fixed? The waiting on someone else to fix things is the bad part of being a renter. But I don't have to fix it, which is good and I think outweighs the waiting issue. Because it's a mess. I'm just praying we don't get any more rain before it's fixed.

Interference

Once a week, I sit down and indulge in an hour of television. OK, so maybe it's more than just one hour a week, but this particular hour, on a Friday night, is one that I do my best to not miss. I hate recording it to watch later. Really hate it. I don't want to risk accidentally finding out what happens, I actually want to see it. [I'm about to admit just what a geek I am, so be kind] This weekly television compulsion is Stargate Atlantis. I've been a Stargate fan for years. I watched Stargate SG-1 (the original Stargate series). All ten seasons. I even watched the (some would call it bad) Stargate movie that started it all, and in a weird way, really enjoyed it. It's a cult classic really. As I've said before, my scifi roots run deep into my childhood (thanks Dad). Fortunately, this weekly activity didn't negatively impact my social life. My friends and I had a standing Friday night activity of getting together at each others homes (rotating week to week), making dinner, and watching Stargate. Yes, I'm a geek. And I'm OK with that, because obviously many of my friends are just as geeky as I am. And we always have fun.

Anyway, back to the point of this post, interference.

So, about 47 minutes into this week's episode, just when it's getting to the good part and all the suspense they've been building is reaching a peak and we're rapidly moving forward into resolution, there's a big clap of thunder. Shortly after that, my image and sounds starts cutting in and out. Then I lose it entirely, and I get the lovely message that my satellite dish is searching for a signal. Dammit all to hell. And while I know the character is going to survive, I want to know HOW they save him. Auugghhh!! Normally I love thunderstorms, just not when they interfere with my leisure activities.

Not funny universe. So. Not. Funny. I am not amused.

Misc. observations and an update

Ever notice how delegating something to someone else to get things off your plate so you can do other things doesn't actually work?

That said, also ever notice how people can surprise you if you're patient enough to figure out a way to explain things so they'll understand? I really need to focus on being more patient and creative in my explanations. It goes a looonngg way.

On to the update. I was out sick on Thursday and Friday. Fever, headache, the whole shebang. Now that the weekend has arrived, it's developed into a miserable head cold. Good thing I bought the BIG box of tissues last time.

It's been awhile since I've been really sick. I've had the occasional migraine, a mild sinus infection, a wicked cold (aka the "conference crud"), a bout of food poisoning, but it had been quite some time since I'd missed more than a day of work because of a fever. I'm not a good sick person. Some people are good sick people. They let people take care of them, they behave, they get lots of rest and they get better.

I am not one of those people.

I hate, really hate being babied when I'm sick. I've been that way my whole life...even as an infant I didn't like being coddled and cuddled when I wasn't well or had fallen down. Frankly, all I want is for the whole world to go away so I can be miserable all by myself. And if you try to take care of me I'll tell you to go away. And if you don't go away, I'll get mean. Seriously. Just leave me alone to be miserable and when I feel human again I'll rejoin the world. And I'm not very good at the resting thing. I get impatient and tend to push myself to get back to things before I'm fully better...which means that either it takes me longer to get better or I relapse. For someone with asthma that has a tendency to develop severe respiratory infections, this is not good.

So I'm quite proud of myself this time that I did rest. I slept. A lot. And I made sure I ate good food and drank lots of water and tea. I didn't push myself, instead, I let myself be sick and what do you know, I actually felt better sooner (there's a lesson in there somewhere...I'm sure of it). OK, so I have a nasty cold now, but it's not in my chest and I'm going to continue to take it easy this weekend. I have rugby to watch (the Semi Finals! England v France today and South Africa v Argentina on Sunday! GO ARGENTINA!) and ice hockey to watch. I'm going to be good and drink lots of tea and rest and not feel bad about taking an extra nap this afternoon. And hopefully I'll be fully human again by Monday when I have to go back to work.

In happy news, fall has finally arrived. I finally feel confident enough that it's not going to get so unbearably warm again that I took the window A/C unit out of my bedroom window this morning (my one chore for the weekend, I promise). I have windows open all over my house and it feels wonderful to let in all that fresh cool air. I love fall. It is, perhaps, my favorite season. The beautiful sunny days that you can walk around outside in a t-shirt but the evenings/nights are cool enough to need a jacket. That cool and crisp feel to the world. The kind of weather that you want to be outside because it's so perfect, not too hot, not too cold, just perfect. It's invigorating. I even put the quilt back on my bed, and it felt so good to snuggle up under it the past few nights.

Now, if you'll excuse me, my tea and my TV are waiting for me downstairs with my dog.

Summer in the city

You know those stereotypical scenes of kids playing in the spray of the fire hydrants on hot summer days that you always see on the news? I've never witnessed it. I've lived in cities for many years now and I've never seen it. That is, until yesterday.

Driving home from an errand, my car got "washed" not once, but twice by spray from the fire hydrant. I also had to slow down so the kids could move before I drove by since they were all in the street playing in the water spray. And several of my neighbors had little kiddie inflatable pools sitting on the sidewalk in front of their homes. In my neighborhood there are no front yards, so the sidewalk becomes the location for grilling, picnics, gathering, and apparently, pools. Each pool had several kids in it, all armed with super-soaker style water guns, and they were nicely offering to "cool off" the people that walked by. They were having a great time.

Aaahhh, summer in the city. The hum of window A/C units, people on the porches, kids in the street, the bell of the water ice truck, the music of the ice cream truck, and the flash of lightening bugs. I love it.

Summer has arrived

It was hot today. Almost 90 degrees Fahrenheit. It's supposed to be warm all weekend. I suppose it's fitting, given that Memorial Day weekend is the (un)official start of summer. Oh, and summer thunderstorms are in the forecast. I love thunderstorms. I love watching them and laying in bed listening to them. Counting the seconds between the flash of lightening and the clap of thunder. It just makes me smile.

But it becomes a frown when I think about how I found a dead flea. In the house. On. My. BED. But at least it was dead. Aussie gets internal flea meds (Sentinel, kills the eggs) as well as topical flea stuff (Frontline Plus, kills fleas and ticks). Yet I still found a dead flea in my house. Ick. I don't get it. Flea combing the dog is now at the top of my to-do list for the remainder of the weekend to make sure there aren't any other fleas. That and a very hot wash of all of my bedding.

Next week I leave town for the NASIG conference in Louisville, Kentucky. That means I have a very long list of things to do. Fun things like chores, which includes laundry, so I can pack.

Fortunately, Memorial Day (Monday) is a paid holiday for me. That gives me an extra day to tackle my list. Right after I flea comb the dog.

What is up with the weather?

This is not supposed to be a blog about weather. Yet, the screwy winter we've had here in Philly has vexed me week after week.

I was all set to blog about the window air conditioner I got via Freecycle, and the nor easter blows in. So here I am, with a nice new-to-me air conditioner sitting on my floor waiting to be installed in my bedroom window in anticipation of the sultry Philly summers, and horizontal snow outside my window this morning. Yes, HORIZONTAL snow. I'm not joking. And, yet again, I have at least an inch of slushy snow on my car.

Sigh. I just put away my scarf and hat last week. This morning I nearly pulled them out again and really should have. My face was so cold by the time I made it to the bus stop I couldn't feel my nose. My staff person at work told me this morning she bowed to the weather and pulled out her heavy winter coat again. It's mid-April. This is wrong. Today is the Boston Marathon and the organizers are saying that in 30 years they've never seen weather like this. I can't imagine running against the wind (with gusts to between 30 and 50 miles per hour!) and rain/snow we've got here in the Northeast right now.

[I can't imagine running a marathon, period, but with weather like this I really can't imagine voluntarily spending hours running into the wind with snow/rain hitting you in the face and chest. No thank you, I'll pass.]

And it just seems silly for me to be so excited about an air conditioner. But I am. Because I know come July, I'll be very very happy to have it. As will my dog. I have ceiling fans in all my rooms, but they can only do so much when the humidity sets in, which I know it will (despite the nor easter we've got right now). Being able to cool ONE room in the house so my dog doesn't get heat stroke and I can get sleep is priceless. So finding an air conditioner via Freecycle is like a gift from heaven. It may be old, but it was free, and it works. All I had to do was go pick it up. I can do that. I'll give it a good cleaning and we'll be good to go when summer arrives. What more can I ask for?

Besides spring. I'd really like it to be spring.

This is Spring?

You know how I mentioned that Spring had headed South for Easter weekend? Yeah.

We had snow flurries this afternoon. Nothing stuck, but it was definitely snow flurries. Light fluffy stuff twirling through the sky. It looked pretty with the sun peeking through the clouds and glinting off all the tiny little snowflakes floating in the air. But it was still SNOW. Otherwise known as ICE CRYSTALS. I took a couple of pictures because I couldn't believe it.

Easter is tomorrow. I'm sure we had snow a couple of times when I was little, there may even be a couple of pictures of my sister and I in our fancy Easter clothes standing in the snow in front of the house. But that's not what comes to mind when I think of Easter. Easter for me means flowers and new dresses with short sleeves and new shoes. Blooms and buds on the trees. Spring. A time of birth and rebirth, and new growth and regrowth. Warmth and sun and blue sky and lots and lots of colors, lots of different shades of green on the ground and in the trees, and don't forget the colored eggs.

Color. Lots and lots of color. NOT white snow. The only white is on your shiny new shoes and crisp white dress gloves and, if you're lucky enough to get one, your fancy Easter hat with the big satin ribbon on it. [OK, so I think I only had a hat ONE year, and I remember wearing it drove me nuts, but Easter still makes me think of fancy hats.]

And we have SNOW. I hope the Easter Bunny (or Easter Bilby for those in Australia) has an extra thick winter coat with a hat to keep his ears warm. And little booties for his poor cold little paws as he hides all those eggs.

Now I understand why the Easter Bunny always hid eggs INSIDE the house and not outside in the yard when I was little.

Things that are absurd

First, Happy St. Patrick's Day! Even if you aren't Irish. I, however, am at least 1/3 Irish, and probably more. I will be having a nice traditional dinner of corned beef. I'd have cabbage and potatoes as well (combined into yummy colcannon), but unfortunately, I don't have either one and I'm not going out again today.

Yesterday Winter decided to throw a last temper tantrum. The first day of Spring is in less than a week, and apparently Winter wanted to be remembered. So it started by raining, which then became sleet, which then alternated with snow until the wee hours of the morning. And it's supposed to snow again tonight. Yeah. So to go anywhere today, I had to dig my car out, which took a good hour. And then get out of my parking spot. Considering they don't really plow the roads here, getting out of a parking spot and driving can be a bit difficult. But I managed. I have a Subaru. I love my car.

Once I got moving, I had two important errands for the day. One, to get my Pennsylvania driver's license and two, to submit my paperwork to renew my passport. The first item was easy. Technically, I was a bit late and it should have been done months ago, but I had to wait until the identity theft situation was taken care of. Now that my record is clean, I could get rid of my previous state's driver's license. And fortunately, even though my passport is technically expired, it only expired in January so it was still a valid proof of citizenship and identity for the folks at PennDot. So, with my old driver's license, along with 2 utility bills to prove residence, and my Social Security Card and my passport to prove citizenship and identity, I had a Pennsylvania driver's license in about an hour. Not bad. Apparently the terrible road conditions from yesterday's bad weather kept a lot of people away so it wasn't that busy. I didn't even have to take a test since my old license is current and I have no outstanding violations (I have NO violations, none, nada, thankyouverymuch). My picture isn't that bad either.

So now that I had the new license, onto item number 2, the passport renewal. With the new laws requiring a passport for ALL travel out of the country, even to Canada and Mexico, the passport agencies are swamped. So it's going to take a good 8-10 weeks for me to get my renewed passport. Good thing I'm not going anywhere.

I filled out all the paperwork, got my 2 photos (not all that great, but not terrible), wrote the check for the renewal fee, and proceeded to the post office, which is the closest passport processing center (and possibly the only one in Philly open on Saturday). I had a package to pick up, so I did that first and then went and got in the passport processing line. After waiting in line for a good 30 minutes, I learned that in order to hand my renewal form to a person, I'd have to pay an additional fee of 30 dollars. What? Um, I don't think so. Especially since I'm eligible to renew by mail. So I go and get back in the line I was in earlier when I picked up my package to mail my forms, complete with delivery confirmation.

Here's the rub. I paid 4 dollars and 55 cents to (priority) mail my passport renewal with delivery confirmation to a post office box in the same building.
In.
The.
Same.
Building.

Absurd. Just absurd.

It's *cold*, dammit!

It's cold out. Seriously cold. And it has been for months now, despite all predictions for a mild winter and that it was going to end early. Today is deceptively cold. It looks nice out. Sunny with a clear blue sky. So when you look through the window it doesn't look that bad. The temperature isn't even all that cold: mid-20s Fahrenheit. But then there's the wind. Wind chills down to the single digits and sometimes even into the negative range. And tomorrow it's supposed to snow again.

Now I'm not one to normally complain about the cold. People have described me as a "human heater", a trait I share with my dad and sister. We don't get all that cold, ever. Yes, extremities get cold, but they do warm up, and usually quite quickly for me. I can't use flannel sheets because I get too warm, even in the coldest of cold snaps. Besides, when it's cold, you can always add more layers. Generally, cold doesn't bother me, and neither does snow. In fact, I kind of like winter. Fall and spring are my favorite seasons, particularly because I love that snap and crisp feel to the air, the cool evenings, but I don't mind the cold of winter.

Heat, on the other hand, is another issue. I'm not a big fan. You can only peel off so many layers before you're naked. Once your naked, there are no more layers. All you are is hot and covered in sticky sweat, stuck standing in front of or below a fan praying for some relief from the heat radiating from your person. Yuck. Over the years my body has learned to adjust to extreme heat, but that doesn't mean I like it.

Back to the cold. I know what you're going to say. March comes in like a lion and this cold is the lion part, right? My take on things is that the damn groundhog lied this year and we are having six more weeks of winter. And that day this past weekend where it was 60F out? Yeah, an anomaly just like that 70 degree day we had in early January. It's still winter, dammit.

Normally, six more weeks of winter wouldn't bother me, but the deceptive cold that it is today causes me to complain. The wind makes your eyes water, and then, if it continues to gust, it freezes those tears to your lashes. Or, if the wind gust passes, you feel the tears coursing down your cheek like hot lava digging crevasses into your skin. Cold enough to make my skin hurt under my layers and to wince when the wind blows up my coat. I'm home and warm now, but that walk home was vicious.

And on my walk I saw something I could hardly believe. A person outside, walking home from a corner store, in a T-shirt and jeans. A T-shirt. I can only explain this as either:
a) the person is from Antarctica so temps in the 20s with sub-zero wind chill feels balmy
-OR-
b) they're insane and trying to kill themselves by getting pneumonia.

I just can't decide which.

SNOW!!

First snow of the season!

Yes, that is snow. I swear.

I actually love snow. I love the crunch sound it makes when you walk on it. I love the way you can see snowflake clusters on your clothing when you're out in it. I love the way it makes everything look so soft, like a big pillow is laid over everything. I love how Aussie loves to catch snowballs and eat them. I love snow. I always have. I even like it when it's all dirty and slushy (although yellow snow is to be avoided at all costs).

Unfortunately, the ground is so warm probably none of it will stick. That's the worst kind of snow...the tease. It's in the air, but it melts when it lands.