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July 16, 1998
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Today's Narragansett Vocabulary Words: Kussuttah - It is hot. |
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It's still hot. My feeble air conditioner is losing the battle. Even though I cleaned out the starling nest and changed the filter and reseated the air conditioner with brand new shims, it's still not powerful enough to cool the whole unit. The one downstairs in the living room doesn't seem to cool anything anymore. The fan works but it doesn't blow cool air. I had a repair guy come to charge it and he says it can't be fixed, it needs to be replaced. It's well over 20 years old (I will have lived here 20 years in November) so I shouldn't expect it to work. So I set the fan on "exhaust" figuring it would suck the cold air down from upstairs, which it actually does. The only trouble is that this strategy doesn't make the whole house cool.It makes the stairwell cool. Well, actually the living room is cooler than the outdoors and my bedroom is darn cold right next to the a/c unit. So cold, in fact , that I had to move my bed because the cold air blowing on me was giving me a headache and causing my arthritic knee to stiffen. Picture me in shorts and a t-shirt rearranging all the furniture in my bedroom. I basically rotated the bed 90 degrees. First I had to move everything that was against that wall into the hallway. Then I took the mattress off the bed. Then I found all these books and coins and Chinese fortunes under the bed, so I had to look at them. I moved the bed. I vacuumed the area where the bed used to be. Lots of dust. Made my throat hurt even more than the mold spores, and made my eyes itch. Not to mention I was dripping in sweat. My newly repaired vacuum cleaner doesn't suck. That's right. After spending $109 or so on it, it doesn't suck! Can the bag be full already? Is the darn thing broken again? Stay tuned. In my current allergy state, the last thing I want to do is change the vacuum cleaner bag. On the greenhead front, I think one of my bites is infected. Meanwhile, yesterday's Lawrence Eagle Tribune reported and advance in greenhead control. They apparently love the scent of oxen breath, so the state greenhead expert (yes, Massachusetts has a state person in charge of greenheads - reason enough to move to California) has set traps baited with synthetic ox breath. I saw the traps in the salt marsh on my way to work at the beach on Monday but didn't realize that's what they were. According to the paper, they're really effective. The greenheads fly in and they don't fly out. I finally finished the CD I was making for the botanists, so now I can return Kate's brother's CD drive. I mailed off the CD this morning. Now back to the IDRI web page, which I have neglected on account of the computer meltdown and the need to get the CD done to meet the deadline for the book. Every year I get this thing I call the "July sickness", which involves intense lethargy and anhedonia. I used to think it was some kind of inverse seasonal affective disorder until I realized it peaks at the peak of the mold spore season. Apparently mold allergy can cause lethargy. Today I actually got a lot of stuff done considering the lethargy and the heat and the limitations of having only 16 MB of memory. MacOS requires 8 MB and Photoshop requires a minimum of 8.1 MB. Oops. Somehow it works though. I just keep getting a lot of those little warning boxes. Anyway, I barely left the house except to go to the post office to mail the CD and then to go to my meeting in the evening. A quiet hot day in the mold spore capital of New England (North Andover is where they collect the pollen and mold counts). |
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