Tuesday

Tuesday morning:

Several interesting things going on in the new Reality here in Chico. The first point I would touch on is the way I totally dropped the ball when viewing this apartment. I am not complaining--but when I first viewed the place, I didn’t notice that there was no closet space. By “no closet space,” I mean, there are no closets.  Anywhere. Except two, I guess.  One is a good place to put brooms and mops, while the other one is another good place to put additional brooms and mops. Unfortunately, it turns out that so far, at least, I have no brooms nor mops to prop against the walls in either of my two closets. Then there is the absence of a dishwasher. The kitchen is BRAND NEW and beautiful, and I guess I just assumed there was a dishwasher. I even bought some dishwasher type soap for it. But no. OK, I can live with that. And the fact that now that I must wash dishes in the sink, there is no spray hose dealie-bob in the sink. OK.  Oh, there is no garbage disposal. OK, no problemo. I hasten to add that the sink is beautiful despite these deficits. It is shiny stainless steel and when I turn on the overhead track lighting it is blindingly spectacular. 

There is a real neat electronic digital thermostat to control the furnace and central air. It had dead batteries in it, so I put some new ones in it and everything flashed to life. The weather here has been hot, and the temperature in the apartment was 78, so the first think I did was turn on the A/C.  Nice. It’s quiet, something I’ve learned to appreciate, and I waited for the cool down. Which never came. Three hours later, the temperature in the apartment had risen to 79. I walked outside and looked at the compressor.  It was running, quietly, fan turning, and all that, even though it looked like it might be perhaps 80 years old, like maybe Fred Flintstone had one and inside it there were two pterodactyls, one breaking up a block of ice and the other waving a fan over it. Anyway, apparently there is no freon in this thing. It was, at the time, the Holiday Weekend, so after two hot nights, I now prepare to to talk to the property manager about this. 

I have no Internet. I am typing this on a word processor and plan to zap it onto my blog whenever I find myself in a wi-fi zone. I guess I could carry the laptop to a coffee shop. It is an interesting experience doing it this way as for some odd reason I feel more relaxed and more wordy. I guess because I know I could sit here all day typing.  Maybe I shouldn’t even get Internet--though that would drive me crazy. But, maybe if I wait, by the time I am able to stream Netflix again, there will be some new episodes I haven’t seen yet. 

I’m in my living room. I have the little table sitting in the middle, but facing the direction of the bay windows. I set up my stereo, but so far, with my three feet of antenna wire, I can only get one station, and it is not NPR. To my right is the front door, opened onto the porch. I have this door, and all the windows, open in an attempt to cool the place down (it is 8:00 a.m.) before shutting it all up to keep the afternoon heat out.  I do have three awesome fans that are electronically controlled with wall switches that have, you know, 14 speeds and LED lights and which alternately whistle Dixie and the Star Spangled Banner. 

For all that, I love the location.  It takes me 15 minutes to walk to downtown Chico and the nearest coffee shop, and of course nothing around here is very far by car. 

That is all for now from the Big Valley.

Edit (Thursday morning): A/C is working now!  However, the Internet will be delayed until Comcast can return as I get access to the basement for them. It’s always somethin’.