What a day!

Yesterday (Wednesday) was one of those days.

It started out just fine.  Miss D. went off to work, and I settled in to organizing the house after last week's move.  I'm going through books, getting rid of at least half of them, separating the 'keepers' from the discards.  All was going well until a sudden cacophony erupted outside.  The neighbors had brought in a tree service to take down a large tree on their property, and they'd set up their tree chipper just opposite our bedroom window.  I sadly gave up all hope of my usual afternoon rest (I sleep twice a day for shorter periods, thanks to back pain, rather than a single long period at night).

Within an hour I realized that I was getting uncomfortably hot.  The air conditioning had stopped working.  Sighing, I decided (once again) that 'it never rains but it pours', and called our landlord.  He came over, and for the next several hours tried various fixes that . . . didn't.  Eventually, late in the afternoon, he brought in the professionals, who decided that the entire motor was shot and would have to be replaced.  That's supposed to happen today (Thursday).  Meanwhile, of course, things got very hot and sticky inside - our local heat index was over 100° Fahrenheit yesterday, and is expected to be as high again today.  Since there was nothing that could be done about it, short of running out and buying window A/C units for a couple of rooms (which I can't afford), I got on with the sorting out, interspersed with a bit of shopping and visiting Oleg for lunch.

The final straw came just before Miss D. got home.  Having sorted two entire 6-foot bookcases, one for disposal, one to keep, our cat decided to jump up on a shelf, as she's done quite happily from time to time since we moved in.  Unfortunately, the bookcases now rest on a fairly thick-pile carpet instead of flat hardwood;  and her weight proved just enough to tip one past the balance point.  It fell forward, dislodging its screwed-together panels, and dumped all the books on the carpet.  The cat made like the proverbial streak of lightning and avoided being squashed;  but I was left staring at several neat rows of books upside-down on the floor.  I may have used a few words that I don't include in my novels . . .

Things could only improve after a day like that, and to some extent they did.  The landlord came back with a free-standing A/C unit that's cooled our bedroom enough to be able to sleep, albeit a bit noisily.  Miss D. came back from work, sent me off to shower (I could almost see the steam rising as the lukewarm water hit my heated body), and then took me to a local Irish pub and restaurant for a cold beer and a good meal (in an air-conditioned environment, praise be!).  That all helped me to feel a lot better by late evening, when we both turned in to get some rest.

We'll see what daylight brings.  Posting may will be a bit light until it cools down in here!

Peter