Over the last week or so, I hit a breaking point with little stupid things around the apartment that needed to be dealt with, but I was ignoring. “No one’s going to do it, but you”, I glared at my reflection. The latest thing was that yet another under-counter light in the kitchen went dead. It may just be a bulb, but we have other ones out that have something drastic or complicated wrong with them (C knew what it was) and so I do need to address it probably with a contractor. But I’m getting real tired of not being able to see stuff.
Anyway, I decided to fob off this week’s laundry on the local service to free up the time to deal with house projects and, while I didn’t get a ton done (still haven’t looked at the under-counter lights), I did:
- replace a doorknob that’s been broken for years
- replace a lightswitch (something I’ve never done before). Alas, I installed it upside-down (relative to the switch next to it), so one turns on up and the other turns on down, but it works! And I didn’t get electrocuted. That allowed me to finally put the wall plate back on, it’s looked ugly for quite a while now.
Update: I just took 5 minutes to take the wall plate off and turn the new switch right-side up. Now the dimmer switch is upside-down, but I never dim that room anyway. - fix the not-flowing fridge door water.
I’ve had problems with the fridge door water before and knew it was probably frozen and I could fix it with a hairdryer. But I watched a video or two and did it right – first, I established that the icemaker was still working, so the water source was still good. Then (today) I took off the kickplate and unplugged a particular tube and hit the water thing and got water out of the tube – which meant that yes, it was probably frozen between that point and the dispenser. Then I got out my trusty hairdryer, purchased for this exact task, and heated up various parts of the path.
And it didn’t work. And I grumbled and decided to call a repairman later.
And then a couple of hours later, I just hit the dispenser again just in case and it worked! “Oorah“, I cried, with great butchness. I guess it just needed to think about it some. Armed with knowledge from previous battles, I then ran about a gallon of water through the damn thing so the air bubbles would be chased out and it won’t freeze up again (we hope).
Other stuff I’ve gotten done over the last week or so. I’d decided to get a new Ipad as my Christmas present, and I finally got around to it. It’s one of the big 13-inchers (heh heh) but it’s an Air, not a Pro. I’m going to start dabbling in the world of reading sheet music on a device. I also bought a new Chromebook. (My old one works fine, but it won’t update the OS any more – if anyone wants it, let me know.) The new one was a pain, because it didn’t work off the bat, even after I charged it. And I’d bought it online from Walmart, and they were insisting I return it to a store (there are no Walmarts anywhere near here and I have no car). But I tried charging it again and (Oorah!) got a result – a message that the OS was hosed and needed to be re-installed. Well, that actually wasn’t that hard and bottom line is I cancelled the return and now have a working Chromebook.
And I got my piano tuned! First time, I think, since before The Thing. It really needed it. New tuner guy is good, it wasn’t that expensive, and he gave me good recommendations for improvements, like getting a humidifier. Also, regulating the instrument. “It’s very heavy”, he said. “THANK YOU”, I answered, “it’s always been like that. You can FIX IT?” Cool. The heavy touch is fine for real practicing pianists who play lots of Brahms, but not for my don’t-practice-much two-part Invention fingers.
Also got the horn out of the case for the first time since the Heartquake. I have a fun pit orchestra gig in March. I should post a performance schedule for the spring, it’s filled up quite nicely with interesting stuff.
I have not been exercising (“It’s cold out“, I whine) and have been eating too much, but we’ll fix that. I did some cooking over the last couple of weeks – a broccoli and gnocchi dish, chicken enchilada soup and a way-too-complicated broccoli mushroom chickpea General Tzo’s thing that turned out great anyway. I don’t know what I’m going to try this week – I’m trying to find interesting vegetable dishes, but I’ve now tried the three I’d pulled out. Ah well. I’ve got my traditional fallbacks. (shit, just remembering that one of the house disasters was my Cuisinart Griddler needs to be replaced. I guess the hot dogs will have to be done in a skillet again.)
After quite a bit of fun negotiation – me hosting two sessions at my home for the local directors, with the remote one brought in via Zoom – and did you know you can make your TV one of the laptop screens via Wifi – we are now offering principal roles to the Zoo and Pinafore casts and hope to have the cast lists public soon. More, much more, on that coming up.
The Toast Point Page 