Ear Worm and Other Matters

Tuesday, 2:56 pm

By Kate

Nov

27

2007

One of our local-ish fm radio stations, WSRS 96.1 (Worcester), switches exclusively to Christmas music sometime in November. I only ran across it on Sunday while searching for a radio station to listen to in the car. If you like to listen to Christmas music early in the season, they are your one stop shop. There is a live stream via internet, too. Their selection is pretty decent and sometimes amusing. I’ve now developed quite an ear worm for You’re a Mean One, Mr. Grinch. It has a catchy tune and the lyrics crack me up.

You’re a mean one, Mr. Grinch.
You really are a heel.
You’re as cuddly as a cactus,
You’re as charming as an eel.
Mr. Grinch.

You’re a bad banana
With a greasy black peel.

You’re a monster, Mr. Grinch.
Your heart’s an empty hole.
Your brain is full of spiders,
You’ve got garlic in your soul.
Mr. Grinch.

I wouldn’t touch you, with a
thirty-nine-and-a-half foot pole.

Etc.

Yeah, I know it’s not very Christmasy, but still. It turns up on the playlist a couple of times a day. But, if you’re more into Nat King Cole’s The Christmas Song, they play that, too. I’m enjoying the early holiday tunes this year.

__________________________

Later on today I’ll get around to posting Week 25 of the 90 Percent Project. I’ll probably also post Week 26 sometime on Thursday. That one is going to be horrible, but fair is fair. It will be the following week that’ll be interesting.

As I suspected (knew), having the laptop has really trimmed my electricity use. Yesterday I registered a whopping 1 kWh for the day. Today’s reading said 2kWh. I think I’m probably averaging 1.5 kWh per day currently. If the weather ever turns cold enough to freeze water out on the deck, I’ll be able to stick a few containers of solid ice in the little fridge and that will effectively cut back the work it has to do, which will drop my electricity use back a little bit, too. Why not take advantage of Mother Nature’s free gifts, eh? I have done that a couple of times in the last two weeks and it does make a noticeable difference in the daily electricity draw. Anyone with a larger fridge could easily freeze a couple of gallon milk containers and stick them in the fridge to gain some benefit. I also use a couple of those thin plastic Ziploc containers with the blue lids, in the sandwich size, too. They’re small and easy to fit in tighter spaces.

So, you might wonder, how much of a life does one live on 1 or 1.5 kWh per day? I don’t think anyone looking in for a day would think I was skimping on creature comforts very much.

My morning starts out with a trip to the coffee pot. While that’s brewing (220 watts total), I go down and turn up the hot water heater, feed Abbie and the birds. Once the coffee is finished, I turn off the coffee maker, pour myself a cup and pour the rest into a tall thermos bottle. It’ll stay steaming hot well into evening...if the coffee lasts that long.

Breakfast usually involves either a bowl or oatmeal or cheese grits cooked in the microwave. While I’m slurping either one of those down, I fire up the computer, tune into some streaming music, and look at what’s happened in the world since last night. Having the laptop reduces my electricity draw by 2.5x over the desktop computer. In other words, instead of sucking up 157 watts per hour, I’m only drawing 65 watts (and possibly slightly less as I’ve turned the screen’s back lighting down to about 50%).

And then a shower. When I’m finished in the bathroom, I go down and turn the hot water heater back to the vacation setting.

The rest of the day isn’t very exciting, really. Sometimes I run a few errands. Otherwise, I’m tappity-tapping on the keyboard. I turn a couple of lights on around 4:30 when it starts to get dark here. The bulbs are 9 and 14 watt CFL bulbs, which gives me an equivalent of 100 watts of incandescent light. Dinner is either cooked in the microwave, on the wood stove (if it’s burning) or on the kitchen stove. Sometimes a combination of all three. If the stove is burning, I’ll also have a pot of water simmering on standby for doing the dishes later. And while I’m doing dishes, I’ll heat another pot of water on the wood stove for a small handwash, if needed. If the stove isn’t burning (like yesterday and today, so far), I will boil a kettle of water with my electric kettle (about 100 watts for 4 minutes) for the dishes.

During the evening, I’ll sit by a lamp with a 23 watt CFL bulb (100 watt incandescent equivalence) and either read, stitch, or web surf. About three evenings a week, I’ll put a Netflix DVD into the DVD player. That draws 12 watts an hour and the little LCD television only draws 27 watts (turning the screen’s back lighting down just a tiny bit cut the electricity draw from 57 watts to 27.)

And that’s pretty much it. Nothing extravagant, but not all that constrained, either. Just about everything that requires electricity in this house is plugged into a power strip. When I’m finished using something, I switch the power strip off so that there are no phantom loads.

This, of course, would be a normal day. Days like last Thursday, Friday, and Saturday were quite abnormal. I used 19kWh, 15kWh, and 7kWh respectively. That was post-flood and involved the use of the dryer, spin cycle on the washing machine to wring excess water out of the pile of laundry that had been sitting in front of the washing machine when the flood happened, the dehumidifier, and several fans running at top speed. I finally turned the dehumidifier off on Saturday morning and the fans off on Sunday morning. Thank goodness. They were driving me crazy.

Back to normal

Sunday, 1:52 pm

By Kate

Nov

25

2007

The lad is delivered to his Dad’s house, I listened to Christmas music all the way home, and I am in a good mood. This was a perfect weekend. Nothing will get in the way of that. You hear me, house? Nothing!

That’s probably called tempting fate. May no more hoses, pipes, or anything else burst. I think I shall call a plumber tomorrow. I got to thinking that water hose attachments are probably not something I should experiment with. Perhaps I should leave it to someone who knows what he’s doing. And I have decided that I am nowhere close to being able to part with my washing machine. Hand washes are fine between times, but I need my washing machine. Or want it, I guess. Anyway…

On my drive home, I observed that our trees haven’t dropped their leaves yet. They’ve turned colors and dried up, but are still stubbornly clinging to the branches. It looks like vast swatches of huge dried bouquets covering the hillsides and lining the roads. I don’t know why the trees have clung to their leaves, but it’s a very strange sight. If they haven’t let go by the time the first snow storm arrives, we might be in for some trouble. Heavy snow on leaf laden trees? Bad combination.

Coming back in the house, I sort of sighed. I’ll be spending some time cleaning again. Didn’t I just do that a couple of days ago? Holy cow, it looks like a bomb went off downstairs. How can one lad turn the place upside down in less than 24 hours? Such is life in a tiny house. I don’t mind. It was worth it. I’m humming and smiling with a pretty warm glow and I’m reluctant to let that go, while, at the same time, rather looking forward to getting back to the normal daily routine and trying to live just a tad lighter than I have in the past couple of days.

Since I have obviously become compulsive about reading meters, I suppose I should just bite the bullet and do up a Week 26 of the 90 Percent Project and call it a wretched, horrible, very bad week. Life happens. It’s very gratifying to have the energy available when needed in higher than usual amounts. I certainly don’t enjoy using that much and I don’t intend to make it a habit. But, overall, it will balance out.

The lad was quite gracious about turning stuff off and being careful this weekend. He told me that last summer definitely rubbed off on him because he finds himself going around the frat house turning off televisions and lights when no one is using them.

__________________

My laptop: I love this thing. And, despite what I’ve heard about Windows Vista, I really like it. As far as I can tell, there isn’t that much difference between it and XP, other than cosmetic improvements and a few nifty new gizmos. Nothing has crashed on me yet, so it appears to be stable.

As for the scratch and dent...beats the heck out of me where they are. I’ve pored over every square nanometer of it and I can’t see any scratches or dents. And the case’s jet black exterior is very pleasing. I am delighted with my refurbished laptop. Works great, looks really pretty....

Most of all, though, I really love the way it makes my electric meter crawl. Of course!

__________________

Another thing that made my day....

When I drove back in the driveway, my neighbor was out decorating her side of the house for Christmas. There were no icicle lights dangling from the eaves! Instead she opted for pretty wreaths and non-electric garlands and dangly things. I am so happy! I asked her where her lights were. She said she thought we should try something a little more traditional this year. Was that okay with me? Oh bless her!

Over in a blink

Saturday, 10:15 pm

By Kate

Nov

24

2007

My boy is sound asleep. We had a busy day just kind of poking along. First we sat down and talked a blue streak for about three hours. It was WONDERFUL! Then we did some shopping to stock him up on essentials to last him the remainder of the semester. He appeared to be out of just about everything. I was rather amazed at how much money I spent on a less than 24 hour visit. Good golly. He also spent a couple of hours on his laptop working on a paper that’s due on Tuesday. While he did that, I sat across the room with my laptop. That’s what you’d call companionable silence.

Later in the afternoon several of his friends came over and took over the living room. We ordered pizza and they talked and played Guitar Hero and talked and ate...and ate...and ate.

Finally, after they’d all left, we sat down to watch a DVD movie—The Station Agent. What a wonderful story. It’s definitely not a Hollywood type of production (an independent film). It’s way better. Two five star recommendations from this household.

So now my happy boy is catching up on some sleep. He was so happy to be home. He looked around and remarked how he’d missed it and how homey it is. It feels so warm and inviting, he said. Well, I did have a fire crackling for him when he came home this morning. And Abbie was right there to offer her purrs and leg rubs, too.

I’ll take him back to his Dad’s house early in the AM. He’s catching a ride back to school with one of his fraternity brothers who lives in the same town. That’s kind of a nice deal for both his Dad and me. And the fellow with whom the lad is riding welcomes the gas money and the company. They’ll have a good time riding back together.

It really went by much too quickly. But we had such a good time. I hadn’t quite realized just how much I missed him until he walked through the door this morning. It was soooo good to see him and hug him and spoil him and hug him and talk with him and hug him some more. He’s grown up even since August. Looks more mature and about 20 pounds thinner and...I have to admit...he’s really handsome. It appears that school is a terrific environment for him. He’s happy and it shows. That makes me happy, too.

The nicest part, though, was hearing him say “I love you, Mom. It is so good to be home with you.” Gosh, those are magical words.

Cleaning day

Friday, 2:59 pm

By Kate

Nov

23

2007

The FedEx man arrived on my doorstep at noon. My vacuum cleaner was whirling away and I didn’t hear him at the door. Very fortunately, I happened to look out the front window and saw his truck. He had made out a slip to let me know he’d been here and that I had to sign for my laptop package. You can bet I tore out my front door like the devil was after me. I signed for the package and it is now sitting on my living room floor. I have not opened it yet. You have no idea the effort it’s taking not to open it.

But I still have a lot of cleaning to do and if I open my laptop, there will be very little cleaning going on around here.

I have mostly tamed the basement. Between all the hauling of soggy stuff out the door and several fans blowing full speed and the dehumidifier sucking moisture out of the concrete (I am up to 19kWh already today—I may not be officially recording it, but I’m still watching it in agony), my basement is nearly dry now. There are only a couple of damp spots left. The mildew did not get a chance to grow. At least so far. I don’t think it will, though.

I was never so pleased as when the trash guys showed up this morning. They took it all away. That may just be the best part of my week. They know that I put out very little trash from week to week, so when I go egregiously over my limit (very rarely), they take it without question. One of the guys did ask (jokingly) if I was cleaning out the basement and I said that, as a matter of fact, I was. I’d had a flood yesterday. Much sympathy and advice offered on drying out basements. See? My trash guys are wicked nice.

Now, I have to start in on the lad’s room. Sorry to say that when he left in September, I closed his door and tried to ignore it. It is still in a bit of a disarray. And, I assure you, that is an understatement. Personally, I’m in the mood for filling trash bags. I’ve had a lot of practice in the last 20 hours and I’m desensitized now. I’ll bet he wouldn’t miss a thing, either. I’m tempted.

Well, back to it.

The Imperfect Ending

Thursday, 11:07 pm

By Kate

Nov

22

2007

Just about the time that I was putting the finishing touches on the carrots, this afternoon, it occurred to me that the water filling the washing machine had been running rather a long time. I got about half way down the basement stairs and I knew there was trouble. That gushing sound wasn’t at all what I should have been hearing.

Water was gushing up from behind the washing machine like a geyser and it reached nearly to the ceiling and poured down the walls. I tried to turn the water off by the washer, but the little lever was stuck and with water pouring down on me, I really didn’t want to make a project of it. So I turned the water off to the whole house. And then crawled up on top of the washer and put a little elbow grease into pushing the water lever off. It finally budged and turned off. Mental note: Apply some WD-40. I looked down behind the washer and saw that one of the water hoses connected to the back had split wide open. It looked as if it had exploded. It shouldn’t be too difficult to find a replacement for it.

So...I surveyed the damages and found a fairly significant pool of water surrounding the furnace and the hot water heater. Another half inch and it would have drowned my hot water heater. Many boxes were completely soaked as well as a pile of laundry on the floor. That I was able to run through the spin cycle on the washer to wring out the excess. And I tossed it in the dryer.

I tried to pry the cover off the floor drain and it wouldn’t budge. Naturally. I got out a large wrench and tried to twist if off, but the wrench kept slipping and then the handles snapped closed with my thumb between them. I was kind of surprised to see a rather generous amount of blood running down my hand.

It looked worse than it was. After I mopped it up, washed it in soap and water and soaked it in alcohol, it was pretty clear that the damages to me were fairly insignificant. The wrench pinched my thumb hard enough to make me see stars, but only managed to extract a teeny tiny piece of skin. A nice clean, round little hole, not much larger than the head of a pin. Funny how it bled so much. It stopped bleeding quickly, but I got to thinking that maybe I ought to get a tetanus shot. The wrench was kind of rusty in spots and where it was swishing around in water, the rust sort of dribbled down the handles and my hands were covered in it.

One of the lads across the street, meantime, had located a HUGE wrench and got the basement’s floor drain cover off. The water drained away nicely with a satisfying gurgle. As for the rest, I figured it could wait until after dinner. It surely wasn’t going to go anywhere while I was away.

I thought, at the least, I’d take a shower to make myself a little more presentable, being somewhat soggy and wilted by that time. But, no, there wasn’t a drop of hot water left. The geyser had apparently been from the hot water hose. Doesn’t that just figure. With my apologies, I showed up for dinner with my carrots, pie, and banana bread....and clean clothes and a few smudges around the edges with a baseball cap pulled over my mess of damp hair. That’s the nice thing about good friends. They can overlook the fact that you look like you just crawled out of the sewer.

Dinner was quite lovely. It was over within forty-five minutes. Isn’t it amazing how quickly we can demolish a meal that takes hours to prepare? But the boys did the dishes. That was way cool! Everyone felt the effects of too much food—there were a few glazed eyes and deep yawns. There wasn’t going to be a Scrabble tournament tonight, so I reluctantly took my leave to start cleaning out the basement before the mildew got a toehold. Yuck, what a lousy way to end a Thanksgiving.

While I was hauling soggy stuff out to the curb, my thumb started aching a bit and I also started thinking maybe I ought not wait until tomorrow to see about a tetanus shot. The more I thought about it, the more convinced I was that I should go up to the emergency room to have it looked at.

The emergency room was empty. Totally. The triage nurse on duty wondered if she could help me. I explained my situation and said I was mostly seeking advice. She looked at my thumb and and whipped out her magnifying glass.  I think that was a clue.

Well, I guess there wasn’t a burning need for a tetanus shot after all. Mostly what I’d managed to do was bruise the heck out of my thumb. The tiny wound itself was almost healed and very clean. And it didn’t cost me a dime to feel like a big baby. My dignity wasn’t even really wounded. So, all’s well there, I guess. Could have been worse.

Back home, I continued hauling soggy stuff to the curb. I’m most of the way finished, I think. With a couple of fans blowing and the dehumidifier going at full tilt, I might be able to forestall the mildew until I get the rest cleared out tomorrow.

I think I chose a pretty good week to call a moratorium on the 90 percent project. I blew through at least 40 gallons of water today...the gallons that ended up on the floor. And the fans and dehumidifier and dryer aren’t exactly electricity sippers. My electric meter is spinning madly. Sigh....

At least my basement is a lot cleaner that it was a few hours ago. That’s one potential silver lining. It’s pretty clear that I’m not going to be doing any laundry for a little while, though. I don’t know what I’m going to put on the lad’s bed if I can’t wash his sheets. And, no, I don’t think I’m going to have the time to wash them in the bathtub. Of all the miserable times for the washer to spring a leak! Although that is probably the least of my concerns right now. I need to get that basement dry sooner rather than later.

Well, that’s been my exciting Thanksgiving. And it started out so well, too. How was yours?

Happy Thanksgiving!

Thursday, 11:42 am

By Kate

Nov

22

2007

For those who consider Arlo Guthrie’s Alice’s Restaurant an unbreakable Thanksgiving tradition, you are in luck. Radio Paradise will broadcast it in its entirety at Noon PST. I, unfortunately, will not be near a computer at that time, so if y’all hear it, doubly enjoy it for me, too, willya?

The apple pies are bubbling away in the oven. Almost done. It smells so good in here!!

Happy Thanksgiving!