danajohnhill.org

Monday evening was no fun at Château d’Oiseau. I rode home on my bicycle as usual, warmed up some left-over Hungry Howie’s, grabbed a cold Coke from the fridge, switched on the thermostat to enjoy some conditioned air and sat down on the couch. After a few minutes, however, I noticed I was hardly more comfortable. In fact, it was cooler outside, so I just opened the windows and turned on the fan and left it at that. But it was disturbing to me that the air conditioner was having no effect on the ambient room temperature later in the evening when I wanted to go to bed. I knew something was wrong. So I put on my shoes and went outside to find the fan on the compressor not running at all, which explained everything. It was too late then to do anything, obviously, and the thought of spending thousands of dollars on a new A/C gave me bad dreams.

So, too, did the other nightmare of the evening: the death of our computer. Granted, it was old and had worked hard all its life, but losing it is difficult, since it received constant use. There have been occasions earlier where we’d had serious problems, but with help we got through them. This, however, is it, since it no longer seems practical to struggle just to keep it going. I know we need another computer post-haste, but I don’t know when we can obtain one, so my posts may be infrequent for a while.

Many of you may be thinking, “man lived for almost 200,000 years without air conditioning or computers; you’ll survive”. To that I say, the God who created man 6,000 years ago wants me to have access to online smut in climate controlled comfort. Gah, read your Bible!

And I’m far closer to achieving that lofty goal thanks to Kathleen, who called me yesterday afternoon and offered her help with my A/C malady. She and Steve had recently had a similar problem, and she got some OJT replacing her own fan capacitor. Together we knelt down in leaves and reached into spider webs to pull out and inspect the small metal cylinder that controls the fan that draws air across the coils of the compressor unit on the side of the house. It was 4:50 before we could see the obvious damage to the old capacitor. Luckily, the appliance parts store is four blocks from my home. We made it with minutes to spare, and the part was only $5.99. By the time Miriam arrived home from work the house was a fierce cold.

And today is Kathleen’s birthday, so, huzzah, Kathleen!

Mrs. Hill proposed that we convert what had at one time been a window in our living room to a built-in bookshelf.  As director of physical plant this task fell to me.

Long ago our house had a covered patio, with a door and a window (exactly like this house).  When the patio was enclosed the window was removed, and a new door was added to the outside, while the former door became an interior one.  The window opening was left essentially bare, as you can see in this photo of our house on the day we moved in.  I trimmed it up and painted it white some time back, but it wasn’t ideal.  And, considering how many books we have that need a place, Miriam’s shelf idea seemed like the perfect solution.

I began by taking apart all the wood pieces surrounding the original brick window frame.  I cut, sanded and assembled some new boards into some I salvaged, and carefully installed the whole contraption in the opening.  But arranging it so as to have four shelves for books didn’t give enough clearance for our taller tomes, so I took it all out and reassembled it to accommodate three shelves of books.  Then I cut and attached a sheet of plywood on the back, caulked and painted everything, and (ta da!) it was complete.

Mrs. Hill was pleased with the results, and so am I.  Built-ins rule.

If all politics is local, it doesn’t get much more local than the ongoing controversy surrounding the city’s plan to expand their vehicle maintenance facility located on 39th Avenue, just east of 6th Street. Back in May I was encouraged to attend a meeting of the city commission in which they would hear presentations from the various departments involved in the proposed expansion. The public was also invited to make statements, and it was clear that most of the Stephen Foster residents in attendance were vehemently opposed to the expansion.

As I listened to the city’s presentation, looked at the plans and saw the photographs of the existing facility, and the renderings of what the expanded facility would look like, and how it would effect the surroundings, I couldn’t quite understand what the fuss was all about. What was clear from the proposal was that:

• The footprint of the facility would be no larger than before
• There would be a considerable amount of planting of trees
• The noise levels would be no louder than before
• The traffic would not be an issue on any of the neighborhood streets

Answering the door moments ago I was asked by a middle-aged woman to sign a petition to oppose the expansion in a second round of hearings. I politely explained to the woman that I had been to the initial hearing, had seen the city’s presentation, listened to the engineers and architects and the city’s arborist, and I couldn’t see a legitimate reason to oppose the expansion of the vehicle maintenance facility. Moreover, I said, the city needs a place to service its vehicles, and that facility has already been there for a long time. It isn’t like people bought their houses there not knowing what they were getting into. Furthermore, the expansion plans, in my opinion, seemed more like an improvement than anything else.

“Do you own this house?” asked the woman. I told her I did. “Do you know that when they do appraisals that they look at the values of the surrounding neighborhood?” I told her I wasn’t worried about that happening. First of all, I doubt that the city’s plans would hurt anyone’s property values, and, second, it isn’t close enough to me anyway.

But that isn’t my real point. You see, there are a lot worse things to live near than a city-owned property where pick-up trucks get serviced, and the public never goes. I used to live across the street from a place that installed booming bass car stereos. Other people look out at stores or parking lots or freeways. If people really wanted to make a difference, and increase the property values in the Stephen Foster Neighborhood, they’d do something about the abandoned houses, and the overgrown lots with rusty shopping carts, and not gripe about what, to an unbiased eye, would appear to be an improvement of city property.  I could see if these people lived next to a lovely park, and then, suddenly, the city proposed a new service garage.  But that isn’t what’s happening here.

So, when I told the lady I supported her grassroots activism, but opposed her cause, she became pretty testy, and was suddenly in a hurry to go “convince other people”, as she said. I have a pretty good feeling that the lady that was at my door was the same one who wrote this letter to the Independent Florida Alligator. Sorry I upset you, but I think your passion is misplaced.

This house of ours is fine in most respects.  We have no leaks, no substantial electrical problems, our A/C works, and so on.  But once in a while a drain gets a fierce clog.  The ones in the bathroom sink are easy to fix.  The ones in the tub and in the kitchen are much worse.  We’ve had one of the former for at least a month now, and I my efforts at combating it were largely unsuccessful, until I got Drain Pro. 

Its pure chemical goodness destroys all clogs with ease.  I would have used it sooner, but the only place I know that carries it, Wal-Mart, didn’t have any.  Wal-Mart is not a place I like to shop for a variety of reasons, and I prefer to avoid chemicals if I can, but I couldn’t get to this clog with my tools, and nobody else has Drain Pro, so to Wal-Mart I went.

After pouring just 1/4 of a bottle down the drain in the tub, the clog was clear, and so was my mind, since standing in water while I shower had become a headache to me.  Huzzah, Drain Pro!

After a tremendous amount of strenuous physical labor, I finally finished spreading out the mulch that is our new driveway. It arrived in a big pile, left by the city for free by request. Over several days I used a rake and a tarp to drag heaps down the yard, and spread it out. It was baking hot inside the pile, and full of dust and spores and who knows what, which made breathing unpleasant. But now it’s our driveway, and it sure beats parking on wet sand.