Snow Brush

Last night I temporarily turned the heat up six degrees higher than normal and walked around the house with a clipboard to see if heat is coming out of all 19 ceiling vents. Most were working fine, a couple particularly well and a couple just barely. When we were shopping for this mini-split (air conditioner plus heat pump), a salesman said there would not be vents in the basement, but there certainly were, thanks to my father.

This morning I was able to have breakfast outside for the first time this year. In the afternoon, I took a walk, as I have been doing every day.

Continuing with estate sale preparation, I realized that a piece of furniture behind a bookcase still had stuff in the drawers. I moved the various items that were sitting on the floor in front of the bookcase and then enough stuff off the bookcase to allow shifting it aside, and then went through the drawers, where I found a piece of paper on which my mother had years ago noted the name of an “awesome realtor”: lo and behold, the very one we are now working with. I took a photo of my mother’s note and texted it to our realtor.

There were all kinds of oddities in those drawers, including some essential parts of the Seth Thomas clock that hung in our library decades ago. My sister had said she wanted the clock and was pleased when she saw those pieces, including the shiny gold thing that swings to and fro, which she had not realized were not with the clock. For her part, she located the crevice tool for the vacuum in what has become the junk room.

We spent some time in the garage picking out yard tools I might want for the gardening I will never do, even if I live here. My parents had one, if not two or three, of every possible thing in every possible size, so it was like going to a very well-appointed gardening store with a blank check. I brought a bucket full of things inside, while my sister will put some longer tools in her garage until after the estate sale.

She unaccountably kept harping on the pressure of the tire’s cars and finally was able to make me understand that you’re not supposed to go by what it says on the tire; you’re supposed to consult the sticker on the frame of the driver’s door. After my big triumph yesterday, it turned out that all four tires were quite overinflated, but now they aren’t. 

I looked through the car this evening and found a floodlight that can be plugged into what my sister had mentioned in passing was a sort of car outlet in the trunk, which fortunately I had remembered. I tried plugging the floodlight into that thing and found it worked perfectly. There was also a thing in the car that you can plug into that same outlet to have a three-prong electrical outlet. My father had everything, and he thought of everything that could possibly be needed in the event of this, that or the other.

My sister had earlier offered me a snow-clearing brush from the garage. I politely said I already have one, but she pointed out that it’s nice to have a second one outside the car, like next to the front door of the house, so you can brush the snow off the car that will otherwise fall on you when you open the car door to retrieve your first brush. Good point. I put the second brush in the back of the car for now, and I also accepted a small red plastic shovel, which she said might be good for digging out if I get stuck in snow. (I think that might have been a hint not to call her if I get stuck in snow.)

After I decided to stick with my two days of work yesterday, I had kind of a sinking feeling, and called my boss back today to see if I could take him up on his yes to going from two days of work per week down to one, and he said I could. After we hung up, it occurred to me that maybe another arrangement could be for me to work every week one of the days (the weekend day, which is a service to my colleagues, as no one wants to work that day), and work the weekday every other week, but I decided to let it be for now. At least while I’m traveling back and forth, maybe working just one day per week would be nice.