January | 2012 | johnozed

A day off yesterday which was nice and somewhat busy. Bill and I have been problems with our kitchen heater, a gas on gas contraption which has been on the fritz the past couple of weeks. To ignite the thing you need to lay on the floor and hold in the red button, the ignition switch, for a minute and hopefully that would get the pilot light lit. And when the light would be lit, more often than not it would go out after about 5 minutes.

Being on the 5th floor it is usually colder than it is on the street, so when it would get cold, we would have a pot of water on the stove top in a slow boil and when it would get really cold, we would turn on the oven with the door open. It did the job but it was getting frustrating. I contacted the absentee landlord who duly sent his repairman over.

It turned out that the thermo-coupling was loose. So loose that the repairman was able to unscrew it with his hand. A set of pliers fixed that problem and we were able to have a decently heated apartment last night for the first time in weeks.

Then there was the bathroom problem, specifically the toilet. There was a puddle of water next to the toilet bowl and we had been using rags to sop it up. I thought that it was leaking, after 10 years of 2 guys over 200 pounds sitting on the bowl day in and day out, I figured it was bound to leak, but the repairman figured out that it was condensation that accumulated causing the puddles to form.

He took care of that and he was out of the apartment about 15 minutes after arriving. It went much better than expected. Today was a visit from the Hoboken Building Inspector. Our 5 year visit was due. The tenants received a notice that today would be the day and since the absentee landlord has no keys, someone would have to be there.

I made arrangements to come in late and take care of that. The window of opportunity was from 10AM to 1PM and they showed up close to 12:30. Another quick visit. Smoke and CO detectors were functioning, fire escape had easy access and no mold in the bathroom. So all in all it wasn’t so bad.

I expected to be back at the cigar shack by 2PM but wound up getting in at 1:30. It was not busy at all, Thomas texting me to hurry up since they already had 3 customers and they had been open for 90 minutes already. Out into the brutal cold for me, wind whipping around, cutting like a knife. Still I walked up the avenue to save some dosh and that wasn’t so bad.

As long as you’re moving the weather is fine. The minute you stop, that’s when you feel the cold. And I did.

01 Johnsburg, Illinois

Well yesterday’s good feeling, thanks to prayer or chanting or whatever seemed to fall by the wayside. Last night while going to bed, I was visited by a few Charlie horses. In rapid succession they cramped my leg. I never thought that going to sleep would be so strenuous as to require stretching before going to bed but there it was.

Bill was fast asleep, the sleep apnea mask doing its job. After a while I was able to massage my left thigh and get the Charlie horses out. Last week it was a leg cramp, more than likely from low levels of potassium, so I’ve been eating a banana a day. But despite that I had a visit from the horse named Charlie. I was able to fall asleep, not as soundly as the night before but still I did get some shut eye.

I was awoken by the sound of a major rainstorm in the morning, luckily I was off today so I was able to sleep a little bit later than usual. But the body clock had designs of its own and despite my struggles I still got out of bed. Bill was going to work later than usual today, meaning he was still around at 8:30. I decided to defy the body clock and get back into bed, not wanting to deal with the pouring rain outside.

Bill had left and suddenly reappeared, climbing the four flights of steps since he left his phone home. He got the phone, gave me another kiss and headed out as I did an about face and went back to bed. It was of no use since I was awake already and not going to be able to go back to sleep.

I did have an appointment in the city, a meeting with an agency. We had arranged it all yesterday and I headed into the city on the Path train around 9:45. I was at the agency at 10:15 and like they said, the meeting would last around 15 minutes. At 10:35 I was back on the street. It had stopped raining and I decided to walk to the bus terminal since I needed to get to the supermarket and the bus would drop me off closer to the market than the Path train would.

As I rode back the bus driver, (my second favorite bus driver after Bill) told me that he wouldn’t be my driver anymore. He would be on a different schedule, until April when he might be able to get the shift back again. That was a mild bummer and I walked to the supermarket and got my usual items. Of course as I left the supermarket, the skies opened up and I hustled to get home before getting a good soaking.

Once home I got out of my suit and into some jeans and a t-shirt. After finally having something to eat I got my very late holiday package to the post office and sent it to my sister and her family in California. Walking back I ran into Stine and Alexander and that was quite nice. Alexander was playing the shy bit, smiling but refusing to say anything to me, or shake my hand or give me a high five.

It was alright, he was tired after being in school and just wanted to be home with his mom. Stine did invite me over sometime soon for dinner, so I guess that might happen on my next day off next week.

It’s been a decent day, nothing to write about, though I did just that.

02 Holotelani