There’ve been a couple of anniversaries this month that I was going to mention but haven’t gotten around to. In part because of all that’s been going on. The trip to New York was part of the reason. Then coming home to several things I had to deal with.
The first one was with my car. First a little of the set up to this story. I got a notice from the DC Department of transportation about work that was going to be done on the street in front of my house. The work was going to be on or around Sept. 15 which just so happens was the day I was going to New York. On my way to the subway the morning I was going to New York I suddenly remembered that notice. I couldn’t remember exactly what it said but I thought it said that the cars needed to be off the street when this procedure was done. So I decided I needed to go back and move the car. And this is where all the fun began but I was not yet aware of it.
I ran home and moved the car to a side street. I use a club on my car to lock the steering wheel. I moved the car and put the club on and left. Well someone how the club moved (actually I think it broke) and it pushed down on the horn. I had a great time in New York. Got home on that Thursday and had a message on my machine. It was from a neighbor that said my car alarm was going off. I thought I don’t have a car alarm. I went out to the car and the horn was on and it had been on essentially from the time I left to the moment I removed the club. I tried to start the car but the battery was dead.
So now I had to deal with the car. Not exactly what I’d planned to do. I’d thought I get some sleep. I called AAA. I won’t go into all the details but I decided to replace the battery but no one seemed to have the model that I needed. Then they gave me a jump so I could move my car off the street. I was told the battery was going to be ordered and I’d have it some time the following week. I checked up on this on Monday. I was given a phone number to call and that they would place the ordered. Called the number twice and I still waiting to hear back. I finally called AAA last Wednesday. The idea was to jump the car and then I’d take it some place and have the battery replaced. It turned out that the guy sent to do the jump ended up replacing the battery.
The second event had to do with the back porches. Five years ago I’d had these enclosed. I have one off my bedroom. It is a great place to go and read the paper on a Sunday morning. Sam loves it. I have a chair out there which has essentially become his chair. Now it’s great to go out there when the weather outside is nice. Over the summer I hardly used it because it was way too hot. I have an air conditioner in the room and even though it is a small space, it takes a long time to cool down. The reason is it gets hours and hours of direct afternoon sun.
Well the weather’s finally changed or at least I thought so and last Monday I decided I’d clean the room up and start using it again. As I was moving the vacuum cleaner into the room I noticed a crack where the wall of the room meets the wall of the house. And you could see light coming through it. I panicked a little (all right more than a little). Thankfully, I still had the number of the contractor who did the work. I called him. He said he’d be out that Wednesday morning.
I had all sorts of disaster scenarios in my mind. Turns out not to be that bad. The structure had only settled. The contractor said it would probably cost between $400-$500. He apologized for that. I said that was a bargain. We then talked about how the hatch to the roof was in this room. It had actually been covered over when the room had been enclosed. In fact I was asked about it at the time if I wanted to keep the hatch of have it covered up. I had thought that this can’t be the only way to get to the roof. As it turned out it was the only way to the roof. So we decided to reclaim the hatch. There were also some work to be done on the downstairs porch. There also going to replace part of the door frame on the door on the first floor porch. Also do some repair of the two brick columns that hold up the porches. They’ll be doing the work this weekend.
And all of this leads up to the anniversaries I missed. The first would be the 4th anniversary of my blog. The other is the 8th anniversary of me moving into my house.
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