the day's not even half over yet, and it's already been eventful.
my neighbor chose this morning to come over and start doing brick repair on my house. for the record, he said he'd do this work weeks ago, and when he hadn't shown up weeks ago i just assumed he was backing out of the job. so i was more than a little surprised to hear construction noises this morning at 7:30am.
bang bang bang! saw saw saw!
and lots of talking in spanish. my neighbor doesn't speak english.
well, he speaks a little english... enough that i could arrange the job to be done (with some help from a translator), but i could say little else to him. "hi", he understands. "can i get an invoice for my insurance company"... forget it.
when i went out to check on their work this morning, though, it looked good. they're repairing more than just the hurricane damage... they're also fixing the bricks on the side of the house that cracked when the house settled (that problem having been fixed by foundation work done with the seller's money at closing, in july).
with that unexpected work underway, i knew to actually expect someone from carolina heating & cooling at 9am to do a 'tune up' on my furnace. i had them come out during the summer and i signed up for their deal where you get a winter tune up at a reduced price if you pay for both up front. so today's visit was 'free' in that sense; i'd already paid.
the woman came out today was the same woman who was here this summer, which was nice. she was already familiar with my heating/cooling system. in the summer she did a lot of extra work because the unit had been neglected for so long. she unplugged the drain, cleaned the coils, deodorized the system, and a whole lot more. today she didn't do as much... just a check-up and cleaning of the coils.
however, she did deliver some bad news to me. when i bought the house and had a contractor fix the inoperable A/C system (again, at the seller's expense) apparently the thermostat the contractor picked was one that doesn't allow my 'heat pump' to operate. i'm pretty damn ignorant about this stuff, but elnora (i think that's her name, from carolina heating & cooling) took a lot of time explaining it to me this morning. (of course, i now remember very little of it, but i'm writing down what i recall so i don't forget it all). see?
not only is the heat pump not working (i think that just exists to give me extra, 'emergency' heat, but i'm not sure) because it's simply not hooked up to the thermostat, but also my brand of furnace ("carrier") isn't all that great. and it's probably under-sized for the house. my carrier furnace only has 2 'heat strips' (i think that's what they're called) and higher-end brands have 4, 6, 8 or more. the more heat strips, the more heat, apparently.
to add more bad news, the insulation inside the unit (it looks like a reflective blanket) has been sorta sucked into the unit and is hampering ideal performance. she also tracked down, using the serial number, the year this unit was installed (or at least manufactured): 1995. this carrier model apparently has a 10 year life-span. elnora said if it makes it to 10 years, she'd be surprised.
oh joy. just what i wanted to hear!!
she was very nice, though, in saying that there's no problem with just letting it go until something breaks (either the compressor, the fan, or the contactor is probably first to go) and then considering my options. she even said she'd try to get her boss to come out and look at the unit to see if there's any way they could figure out some sort of life-prolonging rig.
she's very helpful, this elnora.
so when she was done, i packed up the car, said goodbye to the mexican brick-fixers, and headed to work. on thursdays i travel with my giant bag of CDs, as i go straight to divaville when i get off work, so i popped in a christmas CD and damn if it didn't make me feel better. bing crosby singing "i'll be home for christmas" about made me cry, but then next thing i know danny kaye was singing "all i want for christmas is my two front teeth", and everything was bright & shiny.
until i realized i'd forgotten to put on makeup before i left the house! i was practically panicked at the thought... and then i got mad at myself for being panicked. this is exactly why i didn't want to wear makeup in the first place... i hate the idea of becoming reliant on it. geah! i reluctantly admit that i briefly entertained the idea of turning the car around and going back home to at least slap on a little foundation. but that was merely a fleeting fantasy. i kept driving, and tried to put it out of my mind.
peggy lee's version of "jingle bells" is rather swanky.
i'm singing along and i turn a corner near work and see a bunch of landscapers laying very, very green sod at the entry of a newly-built subdivision. they were all wearing red shirts and jackets. it was very seasonal! it made me smile. and it made me wish i could take a picture while driving.
i got to work and pulled into the parking lot... and saw that there were zillions of cars there. which means that there's a fundraising mailing going out and that the zillions of cars belong to the zillions of volunteers inside, who are all stuffing envelopes. and this is exactly why i started wearing makeup... because in a weird way i'm a public personality and i feel like i sort of owe it to these people to look nice. (analyze that!) today i'm dressed nicely, but no makeup. d'oh.
a quick (very quick) "hi" to everybody and i duck into my office, where i see that someone has left me a tangerine on my desk chair:
the house work, the makeup... none of it really matters.
i have a friend here at work who somehow knew i needed something sweet and good... and a new foundation for my day.
Posted by xta at December 4, 2003 11:59 AM | TrackBack