05-SEP-B-2
DEPARTURE DELAYEDFOR
BY DON AND MARTHEEN
AND MY RE-GROUPING AT DERWOOD
September 20--21, 2005
I have spent a full day trying to correct the meltdown of the appliances and other technologic items around me, and as I go, I have had proliferating breakdowns of every system I had put together to assist the “activities of daily living”. My phone goes into terminal hourglass spin when I press the button for “names” in the directory and the caller ID has failed as well as other services for which I noted from the bills received today I am still billed even though I have never requested such “add-ons.” I did get in a good run today and visited Carl Dees for a haircut where I learned that he will have a repeat operation on his ankle and his partner will have a breast operation for cancer both in the same week.
I went to
get a new Brita filtering water pitcher to replace the one smashed when the
Viking fell over on me, and the parts could not be made to fit together. The FM kitchen radio, my sole source of news,
has gone into an unsquelchable screeching phase from which it cannot be
adjusted. The towering wreckage of the
Viking propped up in the middle of the chipped Mexican tile of the kitchen
floor is reeking now as it did when the power failure was my greeting on return
for
I had ordered a new upright freezer and a companion upright refrigerator/freezer form Lowe’s appliances on Friday night September 2. What was especially helpful is that they promised me the both of them would be delivered on Tuesday morning September 6 the day after Labor Day. That would be perfect, since I had a double order of Omaha steaks coming in on Wednesday to get a start on re-filling the freezers and at that time I still had the Viking in the kitchen which I went out to fill on a shopping trip to Giant before the events of the weekend call to scramble to New Orleans and I turned the big Viking over on myself trying to salvage the freshly [purchased refrigerated items in the freezer compartment. I now have ZERO refrigeration appliances in Derwood whereas before I had four. This makes it rather tough to store up the purchases I usually make—the OJ, milk, meat and other items for the refrigerator for breakfast and dinner.
Well, at least the Lowe’s delivery will have me supplied with new refrigerators and freezers, right? The bad news is that the items are found in their computer with several “on hand” in stock for delivery, but they could not be found in their warehouse. Sorry about that, but we will have to await a shipment from the manufacturers. So, I am eating peanut butter sandwiches, with powdered milk on cereal. I had bought the new Viking for just five times as much as the COMBINED cost of the two units to be replaced downstairs, and it is about four weeks from installation, or even hauling out the ruins of the (brand new) former one in the middle of the kitchen floor. I called the cleaning crew and they were awaiting the Environmental Solutions report which had not been received until late today. I called the insurance ag3etns to find out what will happen next and he told me to go out and buy a new Viking unit—so I trucked over to the Great Indoors where I just had bought all the high end appliances and asked them to look up my name and replace the Viking top of the line identical refrigerator/freezer. They have no record of me buying anything except the paper towel Pole which is about one five thousandth of the investment I had made there for the new house. I waited as we had to go through the whole drill and order up a new atrociously expensive Viking unit to replace the one destroyed in the parts scattered around my kitchen. They will not have it ready for delivery for several weeks. At least while there I picked up the certificate frames I had wanted to do so I could get the backlog of framing done.
The representative from D G Liu will come over early Thursday morning to see about tearing up the Mexican tile beneath the carcass of the leaking Viking almost new and already derelict junk, and assess the amount of dry walling he will have to do and painting. So, I will have all that done as soon as I can to turn the Derwood Manse back into something almost like it was upon my departure.
So, I set
about the task of framing the certificates and photos, the last one being the
Prague Marathon Photo. I had got it
trimmed to size to fit into the new glass fronted frame and tried to hang it
behind the marathon ribbon bar. As I got
the picture hanger in place and nailed the picture hanger to the wall, it could
not hook on it even though it had so magnificently just before the moment of truth
when the framed
I had been eager to get home to get on a more regular diet free of all the high calorie MRE type meals and the over abundant snacks and junk food, but now my “home cooking” is peanut butter and jelly (with no way to refrigerate the jam I had to open form the shelf, since there is a jam jar locked inside the Viking refrigerator at room temperature these past weeks behind the door that is wedged and jammed at an angle from one hinge. I can’t get into the mess inside, so it will have to go out the way the other appliances did, all taped shut—just like the ones from downstairs and the Louisiana special on appliances all taped up along the curbs. I have to go back and get new frames and new appliances and try to eat something reasonable that does not require a refrigerator or cooking. These are not overwhelming options but difficult—and I can read and write. Think how much harder it would be to try to get your life back together after it had blown away and you are an illiterate who was picked up and bussed to Texas to fend in a new life that would require skills you still haven’t started thinking of yet? “When things start to go South, they pick up speed and get much worse in a rush.”
LAST DAY OF SUMMER, AUTUMNAL EQUINOX,
AS MARTHEEN AND DON HEAD (ALSO) TO
AND BEGIN A LONG SERIES FROM
Martheen and Don leave on the Equinox to drive to