When I came home after softball practice tonight, my apartment was 88°F. That’s what the thermostat says in the living room. My bedroom at the back of the apartment, which bears the brunt of the afternoon sun, actually feels warmer even though the window fan in my bedroom says it’s 84°F. So I’m not sure what temperature it really is, but it’s not cool, and leaving the window fan on all day (blowing air out) no longer appears to be doing much good.
My heater and stove are gas fed which I believe may be part of the problem. They both have pilot lights burning 24/7, and when I get close to the heater, I can definitely feel it giving off heat. Presumably enough I imagine to warm a small apartment by a few degrees on a warm summer day.
I bumped into one of my neighbors the other day who’d just come back from Yardbirds, the local home improvement store, with an air conditioner. He said it was an impulse buy, he’s lived here for a year and finally broke down and got one. I’m jealous. I’d been thinking I might complain about the heat to my landlord. Looks like this may be a problem for me to solve.
On the other hand, not having AC is like not having a TV. It makes me feel kind of hardcore—and earth friendly to boot. Meanwhile sweat drips down my brow even though I’m doing practically nothing.
It’s not humid here, which I guess makes a difference. And in the evenings I open the window in the living room, and it does cool down, but it takes a while. I guess an air conditioner would do the same, though at the cost of bumping up my utility bill. Perhaps I should think more seriously about homebrew air conditioning.
i hit up the target and bed bath and beyond big time yesterday. my favorite purchase i think was a little metal stand to hold some fingertip towels. and some fingertip towels to be held by the little metal stand.
not long ago if someone asked me what a fingertip towel was, i would have drawn a blank. i think melanie explained them to me, in the context of someone’s wedding gift registry. i’m sure my mom knows what they are, since my parents have them, but i’m also pretty sure the term “fingertip towel” has never came up in conversation at home.
being that my bathroom for bathing is now also my bathroom for potential guests, i figured fingertip towels were the best solution for that oft-pondered question “do i dry my hands on the towels they dry their bodies with?”
i’m not sure who that’s weirder for, the hand dryer, or the person who feels noticeable wet spots when they dry off after a shower. in either case, at my apartment, that problem is solved.
note: color coordination with countertop completely serendipitous.
wednesday was wet. santa rosa got record rainfall and i was supposed to be moving in. i got the keys to my apartment very early, and then did some chores before the abf truck was due to arrive.
when it did, the driver tried for a while to back the trailer into my apartment complex, a harrowing task on a narrow city street. eventually he decided it wasn’t going to happen, tree limbs too low, and it looked like we were going to block a car in. he drove back to their terminal, luckily nearby, and told me i’d have to rent a truck in order to get my things.
so picture me, drenched from having stood out in the rain trying to help him negotiate the driveway, no internet, no phone book, completely unfamiliar with the area, and my things are driving away. this was a contingency i had not planned for. so i called my dad and asked him to help me find the nearest uhaul, which he did because he rocks. and because he’s my dad.
eventually i rented a ten foot long truck, found the terminal, and backed the truck up to the trailer so i could walk between the two and somewhat avoid the rain. of course by walk i mean leap down two feet from one to the other. and so for an hour or two i disassembled my 480 cubic feet of stuff and transfered it into truck #2. once it was full of boxes, i drove it to the apartment and started unloading.
and this is where things got tough. i carried one box at a time up a flight of stairs outdoors in the rain to my second floor apartment for two hours straight. it occured to me that my hiking the grand canyon and zion national park were merely training exercises for this day.
during the second trip i “slid” my furniture on cardboard from one truck to the other, again negotiating the height differential. the queen sized mattress was the most ridiculous to move. eventually i just got under it like atlas to move it into place. i was able to get everything remaining in the trailer into the truck and return to my apartment to unload what i could before receiving some much appreciated assistance from two o’reilly coworkers who helped with the last big things.
after which we sat at my recently reassembled dining table, drank some beer, and marveled at the 480 cubic feet of stuff spread out all over my apartment that i now have to unpack. actually i was probably the only one marvelling, except i wouldn’t use the word marvel.
yesterday i started loading things into the trailer. today i took everything i’d put neatly along one side and started packing it as tightly as i could along the back, trying not to use more than my alloted 6 linear feet. the trailer is about 8′ wide and 10′ tall which means all my stuff should fit into 480 cubic feet of space.
notice the red 6 marked off at the top right. 6 linear feet is not as much space as you’d think, considering the trailer is 28′ long.
