2020 Life Logs, Day 348: Interesting Day
Date: Monday, December 14, 2020
Weather: Overcast and Rainy: High 42, Low 29 Degrees
Location: At Home in The Cottage, Falmouth, MA
Wednesdays are supposed to be wacky, but this was a wacky Monday. Heather got up early this morning and there was no Google. There was no way she was going to be able to work without it, but she was most concerned because this was the day the Electoral College was going to certify the election meeting online. When I got up, we gave it a few minutes, and then I tried to send myself an email via Gmail. It worked, so she tried again and found that Google was back up and running. I said that Google needs to borrow the Dunkin’ Donuts slogan. American doesn’t really run on Dunkin’, it runs on Google.
Now for the next wacky thing. On Friday when Heather was working in Shirley’s house, I snuck over to do a laundry. I put the clothes in the washer, hit the button and heard the lid lock, and came back home. I assumed the washer had started. Later, we sent Jonah over to put the washer load in the dryer, and then I went over to get it out of the dryer. I folded things and found that some of my dish towels just hadn’t gotten clean. But everything else looked okay. Then this morning when I took Shadow out first thing, I unlocked Shirley’s house and turned the heat up so Heather could work over there again today. And I put in another load of laundry. I then took Ollie to school and Heather started her workday at Shirley’s. She was hoping it would be warmer today as she almost froze on Friday. She had to come back to the cottage to get a fleece jacket and a blanket to keep warm. But the house temp was going up a bit, so we just wrote it off as Heather being cold blooded.
Today, when I got back from taking Ollie to school, I went over to put the washer load I had put in earlier in the dryer. But the clothes were still dry. I started investigating and saw that the water was turned off. No wonder the dish towels didn’t look clean on Friday. They had not been washed! And evidently Jonah hadn’t noticed that the clothes had not been washed when he was sent to switch the load. So, I turned on the water and started that washer load again. I then went back to the cottage to gather as many things as I could remember that had supposedly been washed on Friday so that I could really wash them. When I went back to Shirley’s to take the additional laundry, Heather mentioned that the temperature in the house was not going up. The thermostat had been set at 60 all weekend and three hours after I had turned it up to 70, it was still 52 in the house. Obviously, the furnace was not working. Heather moved back to the cottage and we called the plumbing and heating guys to come take a look. They said they couldn’t come until tomorrow or the next day, but late in the afternoon a young many named Tyler arrived to check things out. I let him in and asked him to come see me when he was finished. But I saw his van leave, come again, leave again, and then another van came and two guys came to my door explaining that they were here to replace a valve in my furnace. I assured them I didn’t need a new valve of any sort, but that it was for the house across the driveway. I told them to come me see when they were done. They did, but they had taken the key I had left in the door lock and locked the inner door to the house. They gave me the key and said they locked the outer door to the entry way to which there is no key. There is a sign saying not to lock that door. But it was dark and they obviously didn’t see the sign. I won’t continue with this story as it just gets wackier. But Peter Baranowski, who is married to Shirley’s niece Karen, had to come and pick the lock so we could get into the house and check on the heat. It was still in the 50’s, but we’ll give it overnight before calling the plumbing and heating guys back. Thankfully we were using Shirley’s house in her absence or the non-functioning furnace might not have been discovered until it was too late the pipes were frozen. Tonight it is going to be 29 degrees and tomorrow night it is supposed to get 10 degrees colder. It would have to stay like that for a period of time before the pipes would freeze, but I’m glad we caught the problem now.
Even with all of the wackiness, I think we had a pretty good day. Sam should get his Covid test results tomorrow and if he is negative for Covid, I might lose my housemates. We have had a good time together, but I know all of the Goldstones are anxious to be together as a family again.
