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Not even 48 hours into September and already it's time to drag it into the woodshed for a little talk.
Things are supposed to be better, Septie. Here's what you visited on us yesterday:
Work was dead like a dead thing. I suspect a lot of people decided to take this last summer gasp even as of Thursday. Calls and emails, unreturned. Two crappy pieces of mail, delivered early. I got a few things done and cut the hell out early in the afternoon.
Eleanor was fretting over our friend from the patio project, who took the brunt of the weight of the weekend and was not feeling well. He wasn't returning messages about how he was or what our next steps would be, and she worried that he was either mad at us for getting him hurt or, more likely, had just moved on to other things in his own life. We've heard from him since, and everything seems fine, with him and with him offering more assistance.
Before that news came through, though, last night I decided to step up and do something to distract my dullness and make things a little easier for her, since she was still hurting a bit herself from the amount of work she did on that weekend. For the first time in a while, I just got the ingredients out and began making a fairly simple dinner for us. Onions in the skillet, pasta in the pot, and ciabatta rolls being warmed up in the oven. Everything was on schedule until the thermostat clicked and I went to put the rolls in.... and discovered that the heating element, replaced two years ago in our 50s-era built-in oven, was sparking and starting to show signs of an early death.
It had been a bitch to find anything even close in the way of a replacement element two years ago, and even more of one to get it shaped and insulated to fit, since the exact replacement model on a 1957 Westinghouse doesn't exactly exist anymore. Appliance people didn't want to touch it because of the electrical issues, and electricians didn't want to work on an appliance. Finally, back then I got a Rochester electrician client to send somebody who got the thing soldered and installed. He's been incredibly busy, though, and we have no way of knowing if he can help this time. For now, we're going to invest in a toaster oven and use the grill outside for ovening-type things until we can figure this out.
The thing had at least warmed the oven enough to get the rolls heated up, but the distraction carried over to the stovetop. When the time came for me to boil the water for the pasta, I screwed up and instead turned the heat all the way back up on the simmering sauce, which promptly got fried along the bottom of the skillet. I salvaged enough of it to make a meal out of it, but it just added to the stress- aided even further by me having to get me and the dog out the door for her overdue physical. It had been scheduled for a couple of weeks ago but we postponed to last night because of the Covid outbreak.
And,.... despite me making effort to walk her further every morning and varying her diet, she's up a good 10 pounds from a year ago and more like 12 above the weight they'd like her to be. They had no real answers for her anxiety issues, which have improved somewhat with daily medication but still has her moments of manifest annoyance. Her latest trick is to hop up behind Eleanor on the back of the sofa while we're watching something, and just panting endlessly. Doesn't make for a particularly theater-like experience. So we're adjusting the meds (not increasing but spreading out over the day), being more careful about her measures of kibble, and trying to get through her problems while dealing with those of our own.
To which another got added while the dog and I were out at the vet.
----
Remember when we first got diagnosed and we resorted to an Instacart delivery? I noted at the time that they did not add a delivery charge but did add some shekels here and there to the prices of the items Eleanor selected. We haven't had to use them since, but while Pepper and I were out, Eleanor discovered that we got hoodwinked in the process of that initial order:
Instacart had signed us up for a $99 a year "membership." Eleanor has no recollection of being asked about this. It turns out to be an option, one that saves repeat customers on service and delivery fees, but they bury in the Terms And Conditions that they opt you into. Fortunately, we never used it again after that one order, so we're eligible to get the bucks back, but even though they instantly zap you for the charge in the first place, it takes them 5-10 days to process the refund back to your payment method.
That itself is one of the biggest scams going. I'm still waiting for a refund on the price of tickets for an October 4th concert that I bought in early June, that was canceled well over three weeks ago, but which still hasn't been refunded. Eleanor's been waiting almost as long for a refund on a power tool that fell apart barely a month into its use and has been shipped back to them.
----
And then there's the car.
Yesterday, only a minor and predictable annoyance. I hadn't driven the Smart car for two days; Tuesday, I took hers to Rochester, then she asked me to drive hers again Wednesday so she could replace the cabin air filter on it on account of it seeming a little stinky in there the day before. Her dealer had wanted to charge north of 200 bucks to replace it on her car, and she figured out how to do it on hers and, yes, mine as well, each for about 20 bucks at Auto Zone.
But when Thursday morning dawned, it brought the dreaded CHECK TIRE PRESSURE warning. Not a big deal, as that does tend to happen when there's a sudden up or downtick in the outdoor temperature. Three quarters in the AIR machine and five minutes of rolling around on the ground to do all four of them. But then, this morning, I went to put something in the trunk and the lid went THUD. Hatches on cars of this kind are held up by gas-filled struts, much like the ones that shut your screen door at home, and mine suddenly seemed to lose their mojo since the last time I drove it. For now, there's a temporary fix- a combination of "attach a wrench to hold the thing up" and "hold the thing up with your hand so it doesn't bash you in the brain"- until we can get the relatively cheap replacements and find the time to install them.
----
So those are the assorted complaints. At least we haven't been raided with FBI agents finding secrets in our storage room.
Things are supposed to be better, Septie. Here's what you visited on us yesterday:
Work was dead like a dead thing. I suspect a lot of people decided to take this last summer gasp even as of Thursday. Calls and emails, unreturned. Two crappy pieces of mail, delivered early. I got a few things done and cut the hell out early in the afternoon.
Eleanor was fretting over our friend from the patio project, who took the brunt of the weight of the weekend and was not feeling well. He wasn't returning messages about how he was or what our next steps would be, and she worried that he was either mad at us for getting him hurt or, more likely, had just moved on to other things in his own life. We've heard from him since, and everything seems fine, with him and with him offering more assistance.
Before that news came through, though, last night I decided to step up and do something to distract my dullness and make things a little easier for her, since she was still hurting a bit herself from the amount of work she did on that weekend. For the first time in a while, I just got the ingredients out and began making a fairly simple dinner for us. Onions in the skillet, pasta in the pot, and ciabatta rolls being warmed up in the oven. Everything was on schedule until the thermostat clicked and I went to put the rolls in.... and discovered that the heating element, replaced two years ago in our 50s-era built-in oven, was sparking and starting to show signs of an early death.
It had been a bitch to find anything even close in the way of a replacement element two years ago, and even more of one to get it shaped and insulated to fit, since the exact replacement model on a 1957 Westinghouse doesn't exactly exist anymore. Appliance people didn't want to touch it because of the electrical issues, and electricians didn't want to work on an appliance. Finally, back then I got a Rochester electrician client to send somebody who got the thing soldered and installed. He's been incredibly busy, though, and we have no way of knowing if he can help this time. For now, we're going to invest in a toaster oven and use the grill outside for ovening-type things until we can figure this out.
The thing had at least warmed the oven enough to get the rolls heated up, but the distraction carried over to the stovetop. When the time came for me to boil the water for the pasta, I screwed up and instead turned the heat all the way back up on the simmering sauce, which promptly got fried along the bottom of the skillet. I salvaged enough of it to make a meal out of it, but it just added to the stress- aided even further by me having to get me and the dog out the door for her overdue physical. It had been scheduled for a couple of weeks ago but we postponed to last night because of the Covid outbreak.
And,.... despite me making effort to walk her further every morning and varying her diet, she's up a good 10 pounds from a year ago and more like 12 above the weight they'd like her to be. They had no real answers for her anxiety issues, which have improved somewhat with daily medication but still has her moments of manifest annoyance. Her latest trick is to hop up behind Eleanor on the back of the sofa while we're watching something, and just panting endlessly. Doesn't make for a particularly theater-like experience. So we're adjusting the meds (not increasing but spreading out over the day), being more careful about her measures of kibble, and trying to get through her problems while dealing with those of our own.
To which another got added while the dog and I were out at the vet.
----
Remember when we first got diagnosed and we resorted to an Instacart delivery? I noted at the time that they did not add a delivery charge but did add some shekels here and there to the prices of the items Eleanor selected. We haven't had to use them since, but while Pepper and I were out, Eleanor discovered that we got hoodwinked in the process of that initial order:
Instacart had signed us up for a $99 a year "membership." Eleanor has no recollection of being asked about this. It turns out to be an option, one that saves repeat customers on service and delivery fees, but they bury in the Terms And Conditions that they opt you into. Fortunately, we never used it again after that one order, so we're eligible to get the bucks back, but even though they instantly zap you for the charge in the first place, it takes them 5-10 days to process the refund back to your payment method.
That itself is one of the biggest scams going. I'm still waiting for a refund on the price of tickets for an October 4th concert that I bought in early June, that was canceled well over three weeks ago, but which still hasn't been refunded. Eleanor's been waiting almost as long for a refund on a power tool that fell apart barely a month into its use and has been shipped back to them.
----
And then there's the car.
Yesterday, only a minor and predictable annoyance. I hadn't driven the Smart car for two days; Tuesday, I took hers to Rochester, then she asked me to drive hers again Wednesday so she could replace the cabin air filter on it on account of it seeming a little stinky in there the day before. Her dealer had wanted to charge north of 200 bucks to replace it on her car, and she figured out how to do it on hers and, yes, mine as well, each for about 20 bucks at Auto Zone.
But when Thursday morning dawned, it brought the dreaded CHECK TIRE PRESSURE warning. Not a big deal, as that does tend to happen when there's a sudden up or downtick in the outdoor temperature. Three quarters in the AIR machine and five minutes of rolling around on the ground to do all four of them. But then, this morning, I went to put something in the trunk and the lid went THUD. Hatches on cars of this kind are held up by gas-filled struts, much like the ones that shut your screen door at home, and mine suddenly seemed to lose their mojo since the last time I drove it. For now, there's a temporary fix- a combination of "attach a wrench to hold the thing up" and "hold the thing up with your hand so it doesn't bash you in the brain"- until we can get the relatively cheap replacements and find the time to install them.
----
So those are the assorted complaints. At least we haven't been raided with FBI agents finding secrets in our storage room.