Howie has lately had a few guest teachers, all of whom I really liked. One asked this question for self-reflection: “Who do I become when things don’t go my way?” That caused an internal wince. Over the decades, I have often gotten really angry and been quite unpleasant with someone who has thwarted my desires or who simply happens to be the person I’m talking to after something has gone wrong. (That is, a stranger, because they are not actual people, like people I already know, right? Sigh.)
Years ago, I completely lost my temper with someone at AT&T (phone service provider) and used the F word (I did not tell the person to F off; I said that I just wanted the thing to effing work, if I recall correctly) and ordered them to cancel my service. The person, likely a little bit angry herself by then, did that with such alacrity that when I said two seconds later that I didn’t really mean it, it was too late—my service had already been canceled and furthermore, that plan was no longer available to new customers, which I now suddenly was, and what I had to get instead was more expensive. Even at the time, I could see I had that coming.
As time passed, I got better at recovering from this emotional derailment in time to apologize to the person I’m talking to, and quite often—at this point, basically always—I am perfectly delightful from beginning to end, with nothing at all to regret or apologize for. It helps to remind myself that that person has not a very fun job and that the least I can do is to be patient and friendly. Also that I am lucky to have a computer that has a problem or a basement that floods when it rains.
That being relaxed and agreeable is my default these day is mainly due to the painful learning experience of advocating for my mother when she was ill and in the care of so many various people with such an astonishing array of responsibilities and details to attend to. There were so many things that could go wrong, or at least fail to be perfect, and they often did go wrong, despite the astronomical expense of her care. When what was supposed to happen did not happen, I got quite exercised and communicated accordingly. I wish I had the whole thing to do over, in part because my vigorous and proactive gatekeeping no doubt affected how people felt about my mother, and of course because those workers of all sorts had only good intentions, were doing the best they could in very difficult jobs that don’t pay nearly enough, and did not deserve the extra stress.
I could have made the exact same points and achieved the exact same results in a much nicer way.
I haven’t really felt lonely here yet because I am always having to talk to the electrical person or the roof person or the air conditioning person or the ant person or the wet basement person or the drain person; often I have spoken to two or three or four of a given kind of tradesperson, and so I have wondered who I’ll talk to when I’m done talking to all those people who fix things, but it’s dawning on me that I might literally never be done talking to them. (Which is not really how I had wanted to spend my Grand Finale.)
Often they offer warm compliments on the house. “I’m also a realtor and I’d buy this place!” “This house is built like a bunker!” “I love this house! It’s like a California bungalow.” One of the two persons who came today said, “I love your home. You’re on the corner but it’s kind of hidden away.”
The house is made of cinder blocks encased in bricks. When I lie in bed at night, it is a rarity to hear anything whatsoever. One end of the house is rather dim; I have come to think of that as my personal compound: bedroom, bathroom, office. The other end is brilliantly light, with giant windows to both the east and the west. I like that light end more, but am coming to appreciate the contrast, and the privacy and seclusion of the other end.
Today I made 16 phone calls, several to people who might potentially tear the clogged clay tile pipes out of the basement and replace them with PVC pipes, which may or may not help with water collecting on the basement floor after it rains. I made several more calls to people who might be able to fix or build or tear out various things that need fixing, building or tearing out.
So maybe my new occupation is Home Repair Coordinator, and if so, I will do it with as much kindness as I can possibly muster.
It was hellishly hot yesterday and today, closing in on a hundred degrees and exceedingly humid. Yesterday, the first day of the heat emergency, I waited until evening to take a walk, and then I proceeded at a stately pace, but still arrived home sticky and limp.
When I opened the front door this morning about 8 a.m. to let in the fellow who had come to see about my mini split and smart thermostat problem, I was stunned at how hot it was. Of course, the symptoms had vanished during the night, so there was not really anything for the person to do. Maybe it’s a matter of learning the details of how the new thing works.
The smart thermostat is integrated with our gas and electricity provider and knows when the peak hours are, when energy costs the most, and so it tries to pre-cool so that the equipment can run less during the hours when the rates are higher. The program is called eco+. It has a setting to “Adjust for humidity,” which causes it to aim lower than the set temperature to achieve the desired feeling, as humidity makes cold seem colder and heat seem hotter. Yesterday it was aiming three degrees low for this reason, as I learned in the course of the day. However, the fellow who sold us this system said the regular old air conditioner tries to do the same thing, though maybe not to quite as low a humidity level as the other thing aims for, so it’s not a bad idea to turn off the “Adjust for humidity,” which I have done.
I did not take a walk today. It was just too damn hot. I did go out to lunch at Seva, because that is my tradition on my last day in Ypsi, and just walking from the car to the door of the wonderfully over-air-conditioned restaurant, I felt like I was going to keel over. It actually felt almost a little difficult to breathe at one or two moments, and I struggled to stay awake while driving. The air seemed thick and murky, both in regard to trying to breathe it and in its appearance, but the pertinent app said the air quality was moderate.
I am planning to go home for two and a half weeks and then to come back to Ypsi for three and a half weeks and then to go back to San Francisco for six and a half weeks, with the thought that several weeks in a row of going to work might be illuminating in some way. I suspect that if I spent three months straight in either place, I would just stay in that place forever.
A lot of the calls I made today were about repairs or renovations I would need to undertake if I were going to have cats, specifically Marvin, living here. I asked my sister if he could climb up the inside of the chimney and she said it might be possible? I can so easily picture Marvin’s head sticking out of one of the chimney vents on the roof. I can picture the expression on his face just before he leaps off the roof and is never seen again.
Step by step, I can feel myself getting ready to be a homeowner, but it’s not official. I feel quite mournful at the same time about my soon-to-be-lost occupation, which I worked extremely hard to prepare to do, and which means everything to me.
