Annoyed in Everyday Ramblings

From a walk this morning just after class. Fabulous light.

I had to get out of the house. There are so many benefits to being a renter and I have a nice apartment but…First it was the painters, then it was the roofers and now it is the contractors replacing the outside wall of my kitchen and bathroom.

Shall we say communication between the Management Company and me is less than optimal. I don’t know when they are coming, how long they are staying and what they are doing exactly. After two days of intense random hammering and drilling (This includes walking into the kitchen and finding old nails on the floor, on the counter, at one-point small holes in the wall, paint chips and dust and everything in my shower on the bottom of the bathtub and the covering for the light fixture on the floor), and they started again this morning.

This is a repair from a leaky pipe in the 3rd floor apartment dishwasher. More than six months ago. They are replacing the floor just above me on the 2nd floor.

First, I was told they are going to have to replace my kitchen window, then the contractor said no, but I was just told again by Management that yes indeed it does need to be replaced. But apparently it is going to be a spur of the moment thing. In the meantime, they are going to disable the plugs on that wall for a week. Workmen, dust and possibly Covid in here. La de da.

I am just whining. It is noisy, annoying, and inconvenient and I am worried about the cats. They have been remarkably sanguine about the whole extravaganza as long as they are near me.

I can’t plan anything. I certainly can’t plan to cook anything. This afternoon they took off to work on another project and I was able to get into the kitchen and roast a cauliflower.

Small wins.

Including being able to eat roasted cauliflower. I am graduating to more normal foods. Carrots are still a long way away.

I am shifting my evening Wednesday classes to Thursday. It is going to take a little while to get used to the schedule change. I have been teaching this schedule for many years. Attendance has fallen off and there are high level League events on Wednesday nights. I consulted my students first. It does mean I have to switch a bunch of other things around as well. I will work it out.

On Sunday an actor friend of Walt’s declaimed the whole of T.S. Eliot’s Four Quartets on Zoom. This fellow was born in London during the Blitz in 1943 and that is when the poem was finished. He is 79, or 80. He has lived in the U.S. most of his adult life and his accent is somewhere between British and American. He pronounced Clematis and Dahlia the British way.

I wonder how Eliot pronounced them. There is a recording. He was American but lived the better part of his life in England, where his ancestors were from.

The reading was great. I was glad I participated.

We are coming out of our deep freeze. It hasn’t been too bad as there was no precipitation. All the spring plants are slow this year. The shoots are up but that is it.

I need to get my hair trimmed. I know if I did it, I would feel better. I don’t know why I am procrastinating. I think it is a mask, no mask situation I am not comfortable with. I have another one of those tomorrow. A social engagement that involves being indoors and food. Apparently, there is also a Newfoundland named Lucy involved as well.

We are not hardwired for uncertainty, are we?

I watched the Leonard Cohen documentary that has moved to Netflix yesterday. It is the one about the song Hallelujah. I never saw him in concert, so I enjoyed the clips of his last tour all over the world. It was a good distraction, even if I did have to stop and replay a bunch of times because of the hammering.

What bugs me the most is that the Site Manager could care less that I am inconvenienced. I have been here long enough to be paying below market and it would make her life easier if I just got fed up and moved out.

Sorry sweetie. I will stick it out. Annoyed and all.

Last updated February 01, 2023