Observe my bitterly cold ranting!
Oct. 10th, 2003 09:42 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
gwynWhile my pals were complaining about the horror of trying to get LotR trilogy tickets, I was sitting in my chair, huddled like a Titanic survivor in blankets, with hot liquid in my hands, mocking them for their petty problems. Hah. At least their freaking furnace didn't up and die on the very day it decided to become winter in Seattle -- replete with cold, lashing wind, torrential rain, and dark, pendulous clouds.
I hate my house. I love my house, but I hate it, because everything is always falling apart (and I do mean everything) just when it's the worst possible time. The last time the sewer line stopped up so badly it necessitated a $3,600 new piece of line put in, was during the first big rain of fall. Now, I didn't know at the time what that meant, but the sewer guys were all laughing at my predicament because they were booked solid for days on end -- it turns out that a lot of people's houses have rain gutter lines that go straight into their sewer lines, so all these people were backed up because it had rained so hard that it was nearly flooding out inthe streets. Whee.
Same thing for my furnace, I found out yesterday. "Earliest we can get there is Tuesday." Over and over. Because it's winter, and everyone is now servicing their furnace for the upcoming cold. Why didn't these people have their upkeep during the summer! Damn them all to hell! And why can't I be put in the queue ahead of them, when mine is an emergency and I'm sitting here huddled in my blankets, fingers cramped up like claws! Well, I could, but I'd have to tack an additional $150 on to the cost of the repair and service call. I took the day off today to have fun and just rest, and instead spent the morning frozen and calling all the furnace guys who had ads in the Yellow Pages with smiling-face pictures, hoping they'd turn out to be nice, competent, and mostly speedy. Finally I found someone who can come tomorrow morning. Let's hope he's not a serial killer and the picture is from a stock photo company.
Last night I had to run out to find a space heater. I thought, oh, I bet Target would have more choice than a drugstore, so I went there, and after wandering around lost and remembering why I never go there, I called their service phone and the guy said, "We don't have any, we're putting them out tonight." Handy, I thought, when my furnace is broken tonight! I went to the drugstore and finally found a nice tiny one that seems to put out some heat, but it's still no more than a toasty 65 in here, and that's only for the small living room by the thermostat, and doesn't include the icy bedroom or office. At least the water heater works, though, so I can go stand in the shower when it's too cold, and slather myself in Lush's Coconut Almond Smoothie soap and then apply Sympathy for the Skin body cream, both of which smell divine and make me enormously happy-feeling, and for a few moments I don't care that I'm going to be freezing again.
It isn't even really the cold that bothers me, though. I mean, that's endurable, and the space heater helps a little bit. It's more that I haven't fully recovered from Summer of Poverty -- buying the computer and the going to and staying at Vividcon really knocked me for a financial loop this summer, and it's property tax month. My house's prop. taxes aren't in the mortgage because I bought the house from First National Bank of Dad (unbeatable low interest rates!), and so twice a year I have to pay a bill that's an entire paycheck and a half. I usually spend the months preceding April and October trying to pad up the checking account as much as possible so that it won't hurt quite so much, but as the taxes have increased and my salary hasn't (no raises in over three years, and it wasn't exactly megabucks to start with), that gets harder to do. Every time I think I can do it, or do something fun like travel or go to a con, I'm pushing towards the edge because something can go wrong with the house, like this. If they have to replace much beyond a starter, it could get pretty pricey, and since it's in a crawlspace, there's usually an extra charge for work down there.
So it's less about sitting here looking like Bob Cratchit, all huddled up in my layers of clothes and fingerless gloves and scarf over my head, and more about fear of money, which I think is my number one fear, always. Houses are such a responsibility, it's hard think about anything else when they're falling apart. Now I think I'm going to go return the shoes I bought to try to perk myself up the other day, even though it isn't exactly the fun, relaxing day I had planned for myself, and then apply more Lush products.
And of course, money woes make me even more thankful to my kind LJ Fairy benefactor for all that paid time, and I thank you again, whoever you are!
I hate my house. I love my house, but I hate it, because everything is always falling apart (and I do mean everything) just when it's the worst possible time. The last time the sewer line stopped up so badly it necessitated a $3,600 new piece of line put in, was during the first big rain of fall. Now, I didn't know at the time what that meant, but the sewer guys were all laughing at my predicament because they were booked solid for days on end -- it turns out that a lot of people's houses have rain gutter lines that go straight into their sewer lines, so all these people were backed up because it had rained so hard that it was nearly flooding out inthe streets. Whee.
Same thing for my furnace, I found out yesterday. "Earliest we can get there is Tuesday." Over and over. Because it's winter, and everyone is now servicing their furnace for the upcoming cold. Why didn't these people have their upkeep during the summer! Damn them all to hell! And why can't I be put in the queue ahead of them, when mine is an emergency and I'm sitting here huddled in my blankets, fingers cramped up like claws! Well, I could, but I'd have to tack an additional $150 on to the cost of the repair and service call. I took the day off today to have fun and just rest, and instead spent the morning frozen and calling all the furnace guys who had ads in the Yellow Pages with smiling-face pictures, hoping they'd turn out to be nice, competent, and mostly speedy. Finally I found someone who can come tomorrow morning. Let's hope he's not a serial killer and the picture is from a stock photo company.
Last night I had to run out to find a space heater. I thought, oh, I bet Target would have more choice than a drugstore, so I went there, and after wandering around lost and remembering why I never go there, I called their service phone and the guy said, "We don't have any, we're putting them out tonight." Handy, I thought, when my furnace is broken tonight! I went to the drugstore and finally found a nice tiny one that seems to put out some heat, but it's still no more than a toasty 65 in here, and that's only for the small living room by the thermostat, and doesn't include the icy bedroom or office. At least the water heater works, though, so I can go stand in the shower when it's too cold, and slather myself in Lush's Coconut Almond Smoothie soap and then apply Sympathy for the Skin body cream, both of which smell divine and make me enormously happy-feeling, and for a few moments I don't care that I'm going to be freezing again.
It isn't even really the cold that bothers me, though. I mean, that's endurable, and the space heater helps a little bit. It's more that I haven't fully recovered from Summer of Poverty -- buying the computer and the going to and staying at Vividcon really knocked me for a financial loop this summer, and it's property tax month. My house's prop. taxes aren't in the mortgage because I bought the house from First National Bank of Dad (unbeatable low interest rates!), and so twice a year I have to pay a bill that's an entire paycheck and a half. I usually spend the months preceding April and October trying to pad up the checking account as much as possible so that it won't hurt quite so much, but as the taxes have increased and my salary hasn't (no raises in over three years, and it wasn't exactly megabucks to start with), that gets harder to do. Every time I think I can do it, or do something fun like travel or go to a con, I'm pushing towards the edge because something can go wrong with the house, like this. If they have to replace much beyond a starter, it could get pretty pricey, and since it's in a crawlspace, there's usually an extra charge for work down there.
So it's less about sitting here looking like Bob Cratchit, all huddled up in my layers of clothes and fingerless gloves and scarf over my head, and more about fear of money, which I think is my number one fear, always. Houses are such a responsibility, it's hard think about anything else when they're falling apart. Now I think I'm going to go return the shoes I bought to try to perk myself up the other day, even though it isn't exactly the fun, relaxing day I had planned for myself, and then apply more Lush products.
And of course, money woes make me even more thankful to my kind LJ Fairy benefactor for all that paid time, and I thank you again, whoever you are!
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no subject
Date: 2003-10-10 10:22 am (UTC)Oh, man! Talk about timing! Sorry to hear about the furnace.
*Thinking warm thoughts at you.*
no subject
Date: 2003-10-10 12:31 pm (UTC)That's terrible timing for the heater, though. Tuesday is a long way off. Here's hoping for a tropical front to sweep through town and keep you warm until then.
no subject
Date: 2003-10-10 06:06 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-10-10 06:08 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-10-17 12:43 pm (UTC)(And I'm reminded that I need to call Olsen and have my furnace checked again.)
I'm in Seattle, do actually own random tools and heaters, and have a love/hate house of my very own, which, by the way, chose THE LAST DAY of my job in 2001 (layoff followed by 9 months without work) to have a nervous house breakdown. From which, I might add, it still hasn't recovered. (Partly because, once we got the bathroom down to the studs, we suffered from overworked homeowner meltdown.) So I am reading this and feeling a certain kinship.
(And, why yes, I adore the episode Flooded, and have been known to wander around my basement muttering, "No more full copper repipe!")