Category Archives: Life

Law of Nature

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It’s a law of nature at our house that any appliance breakdown will happen on a holiday weekend. Fortunately, we’re not under the black cloud that ensures that this happens every holiday weekend, but still . . . .

Thursday it seemed that maybe our refrigerator was not feeling so well. By Friday, that was a confirmed diagnosis and its condition steadily worsened. And, of course, it was a holiday weekend.

Also, anytime one of our dogs gets bitten by a rattlesnake, it will be on a weekend when just walking into the emergency vet clinic costs enough to . . . well, buy a new refrigerator! Sometimes two or three refrigerators, even. Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad the emergency vet clinic is there. None of our dogs died from the rattlesnake bites. But couldn’t that happen during the week, early in the morning so we could go to our regular vet? Or even better, is there a way to prevent rattlesnake bites altogether, other than moving into a downtown condo, that is? But I digress; back to my refrigerator woes.

Over three days, I spent a noticeable amount of time on the Internet, shopping for a refrigerator much like the one we have: white, top freezer, with a freezer light, no automatic ice maker, no water dispenser, 21-22 cubic feet. How hard can it be? (That’s the clue that it’s always harder than I thought it should be.)

It was hard. As it turns out, those types of refrigerators are still made. The problem is navigating retailers’ web sites to figure out which models have which features. Some web sites have photos of the interior of the refrigerator and the freezer. Nice. Some have photos of just the refrigerator part. Some have photos of only the outside and an abbreviated list of features! Really? They want me to decide on a refrigerator just based on the outside of the doors and a brief summary? I don’t think so.

The sticking point turned out to be the freezer light. Our current freezer has one. Therefore, I think our next one should have one. This is not a default feature. Some freezers have them; some don’t. Then there was the automatic ice maker or water dispenser. I could easily find a top freezer model with a freezer light as long as I paid for the other features that I don’t want.

This wore me out. Besides my online research, I made some phone calls (a hearkening back to the olden days) and I even drove to three — count them three — retailers to look at floor models.

I’m looping back now to the point about it being a holiday weekend. This is a special holiday weekend when it comes to appliances. In Texas, if you buy an Energy Star appliance during the Memorial Day weekend, the purchase is tax-free. That means that everyone who is affected by the holiday-weekend-appliance-breakdown curse is out and about.

Finally I decided on a refrigerator. I took a friend’s advice and bought a bottom-freezer model. With a freezer light. And an automatic ice maker, which we will ignore. (Can’t have everything. Or in this case, can’t have only what I want.) I got lucky about the delivery schedule, considering that I bought the refrigerator on the last day of the three-day holiday weekend and everyone else got on the delivery schedule before me. I didn’t get the “next day” delivery time slot, but one day after that.

That will give me time to discard the science experiments growing in my refrigerator, which this time around aren’t my fault. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

School’s Out

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Every year I get the same idea at this time of year. Here’s my post from May 27, 2011 on my old blog.

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It’s the end of May. School is out and summer is here. That’s what makes me feel like a kid again. Even though I haven’t been in school for decades, I still get that giddy school’s out feeling. Summer!

Time! Time to read books, visit friends, watch movies, write letters, write short stories, sleep in, cook new dishes, go to the swimming pool.

I have as much time now as I did then — the hours in the day are the same — but I don’t have the same schedule. It’s a slight shock to look around me each end of May, after I have that giddy feeling and think about running out of the building, throwing my hands up in the air and kicking up my heels. The shock is the realization that the building I would run out of is not a school, it’s a business. Instead of textbooks to toss in the air, I have reams and reams of system documentation.

I don’t get the summer off anymore, I have to go to work each weekday. Still, I wonder how it would feel to run out the doors, leaping in joy again. I would probably scare the squirrels.

Fire Drill

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Monday afternoon, we had a fire drill at work. The first clues were the siren and the intercom announcement “Attention. Attention. An emergency has been reported.”

We calmly filed out of our offices into the hallway. That’s where the gridlock begins. Out in the hallway is where everyone is, heading for the stairwells (two of them). In my years at my agency, I’ve been housed in three buildings and on various floors on each of those buildings. Now I am on the 5th floor. And that means that when we leave our office for a fire drill, we get in line for the stairs. And we wait. And wait. I’m sure we’d all be moving faster in a real emergency, but that still leaves me on the 5th floor.

After my first 5th-floor fire drill, I started planning alternate evacuation routes, all having to do with the tiny window in my cubicle. First on my list was one of those fold-out rope ladders. After my second fire drill, my idea was to buy some sheets and tie them together, for the climb down.

But Monday, while we were in our assigned meeting place a safe distance away from the building, I noticed there is a tree under my window. It’s a small tree — now — but I wonder how long it would take it to grow to the 5th-floor level with a hefty dose of Miracle Grow.

Window looking out onto the Texas Capitol building

Too small?

I even have a back-up plan to my back-up plan. I’ll throw all my technical manuals out the window, creating a mound that I can use to scamper down. Although, throwing that many manuals out the window may take quite a while. If I start before there is an emergency, someone will find them and return them to me. That would be a never-ending effort to get the mound built up to the right height just at the right time. Okay, that plan is out.

Now, all I need is to figure out how to get a work order submitted to widen the 50-year-old window in my cubicle. It sure wasn’t made for an evacuation route.

Not An Expert

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I’m not an expert, but I’m pretty sure that when I’m in an antique store and turn over a dish to look at the bottom and discover that it is “dishwasher, freezer and microwave safe,” it is not an antique. It may not even fall into the category of “old.”

Anniversary Presents, Revisited

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Here’s an entry that I originally posted on April 25, 2011. Our wedding anniversary is soon, so I’m trying to figure out what to buy for hubby. I notice that I have a book on my Amazon wish list that is perfect for the occasion: Life Is Yours to Win: Lessons Forged from the Purpose, Passion, and Magic of Baseball by Augie Garrido (the coach of the University of Texas at Austin baseball team).

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Men get the short straw when it comes to a lot of “special” days, don’t you think?

Take Valentine’s Day. Pretty much everyone knows the stereotype gift of what the man is supposed to buy for the woman: chocolate candy and flowers. And what is the woman supposed to buy for the man, stereotypically speaking, that is?

Right. No one knows.

Then there are birthdays, anniversaries and Christmas. A man can’t hardly turn around before it’s time to figure out the next perfect present. And they are all supposed to be perfect, right? I can’t say that I have the answers to these questions. In fact, I don’t have the answer to all these questions. I can say that couples should look to their common interests for gift ideas. Hubby and I both like baseball.

You know the stereotype anniversary gift story: the man buys a woman what he wants to receive: golf clubs, new tools, a wax job (for the car!), sports magazines. I thought, “What a great idea!” Here’s how I’ve applied that structure. And it’s not a stereotype if I’m the only woman doing it. (Just how many of something does it take for a stereotype to get started?)

Anyway, the traditional gift for the 5th wedding anniversay is wood. The modern gift is silverware (if I can believe everything — or anything — I read on the Internet). I gave my lucky hubby a baseball book that I wanted to read: Wait Until Next Year by Doris Kearns Goodwin.

The traditional gift for the 10th wedding anniversay is tin or aluminum and the modern gift is diamond jewelry. I gave my lucky hubby a baseball book that I wanted to read: Luckiest Man: The Life and Death of Lou Gehrig by Jonathan Eig.

The traditional gift for the 15th wedding anniversay is crystal; the modern gift is watches. I gave my lucky hubby a baseball book that I wanted to read: Baseball in the Garden of Eden: The Secret History of the Early Game by John Thorn.

Of course, I let him read them first. After all, they are his gifts. I’m still trying to figure out perfect gifts to get him for his birthday, Valentine’s and Christmas. Hey! We both like football. Now that gives me an idea ….