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jazzfishSome months ago my bathroom fan started leaking, a steady stream of water. I called the super[1] and he took a look. Turned out the tub in the upstairs apartment had a leak in the overflow drain. They patched that up and all was well.
[1] Terry refers to himself as the "landlord" but he doesn't own the place, so it feels weird to refer to him as such. He's the guy who handles rent and the maintenance guy, but I pay my rent by bank draft, so I only interact with him for maintenance things. So he feels more like a superintendent from a mid-century book about NYC.
Until a couple of weeks ago, when (shortly after someone moved back in to the upstairs apartment, after it had been vacant for a while) there was a rhythmic thudding coming from the bathroom. It took me longer than it should have to realise that it was water dripping from the ceiling into the tub.
Long story short, Terry had to tear down my entire bathroom ceiling (because it was a sheet of plywood, so cutting a hole in it was Not On) so that the plumber could get at the drain for the bathtub, because he couldn't reach it from its apartment. Still needs to be painted and sealed, and then the bathroom walls need to be repainted because "there's no way we can get a match for that, it's ancient." On the bright side he also replaced my bathroom fan so it no longer sounds like an aircraft carrier.
Meanwhile the bathroom and front hall are full of dust &c and there's a fan going to dry things out, and the smell of paint/plaster faintly permeates everything.
I spent today at Erin's because now that winter's over and it won't matter for my heating bill they've replaced the antique single-pane windows. Erin's making marmalade, with my occasional assistance, and her house is full of the smell of cooking citrus. Or, not a smell exactly, if I had to guess I'd say it's the aerosolized oil from the peel. Sharp and bitter on the back of my nose and throat.
And I've moved things around so they could get at the windows, and taken down the blackout blinds, and I need to fix that, but it just doesn't feel like home at the moment. I hate that. Like, places rarely feel like home but there are degrees, and this is off enough to upset my balance.
I should eat dinner. I have chicken in the fridge but slicing chicken seems like Work so I'll eat it tomorrow. Cereal, I think, unless the milk's gone off, or maybe freezer-waffles.
Bah. I've not been sleeping well since the time change, which corresponds to when the family down the hall moved into the upstairs apartment. I had plenty of complaints about the place in Coal Harbour and in New West, but those were solidly built concrete monstrosities and there was no neighbour noise.
Just reread Robert Asprin's two Phule's Company books, which he describes as "F-Troop In Space". They are not as good as I remember them being (I read them to death in junior high and high school), but they're certainly better than I expected. I am now about to start a reread of Haruki Murakami's Hard-Boiled Wonderland And The End Of The World, which I read several times in Blacksburg and haven't cracked open since. It's I think the first book that I picked up from the Tech bookstore English section: it had been assigned for a class I wasn't taking, and it looked interesting. Very curious to see what I think of it.
Dinner.
[1] Terry refers to himself as the "landlord" but he doesn't own the place, so it feels weird to refer to him as such. He's the guy who handles rent and the maintenance guy, but I pay my rent by bank draft, so I only interact with him for maintenance things. So he feels more like a superintendent from a mid-century book about NYC.
Until a couple of weeks ago, when (shortly after someone moved back in to the upstairs apartment, after it had been vacant for a while) there was a rhythmic thudding coming from the bathroom. It took me longer than it should have to realise that it was water dripping from the ceiling into the tub.
Long story short, Terry had to tear down my entire bathroom ceiling (because it was a sheet of plywood, so cutting a hole in it was Not On) so that the plumber could get at the drain for the bathtub, because he couldn't reach it from its apartment. Still needs to be painted and sealed, and then the bathroom walls need to be repainted because "there's no way we can get a match for that, it's ancient." On the bright side he also replaced my bathroom fan so it no longer sounds like an aircraft carrier.
Meanwhile the bathroom and front hall are full of dust &c and there's a fan going to dry things out, and the smell of paint/plaster faintly permeates everything.
I spent today at Erin's because now that winter's over and it won't matter for my heating bill they've replaced the antique single-pane windows. Erin's making marmalade, with my occasional assistance, and her house is full of the smell of cooking citrus. Or, not a smell exactly, if I had to guess I'd say it's the aerosolized oil from the peel. Sharp and bitter on the back of my nose and throat.
And I've moved things around so they could get at the windows, and taken down the blackout blinds, and I need to fix that, but it just doesn't feel like home at the moment. I hate that. Like, places rarely feel like home but there are degrees, and this is off enough to upset my balance.
I should eat dinner. I have chicken in the fridge but slicing chicken seems like Work so I'll eat it tomorrow. Cereal, I think, unless the milk's gone off, or maybe freezer-waffles.
Bah. I've not been sleeping well since the time change, which corresponds to when the family down the hall moved into the upstairs apartment. I had plenty of complaints about the place in Coal Harbour and in New West, but those were solidly built concrete monstrosities and there was no neighbour noise.
Just reread Robert Asprin's two Phule's Company books, which he describes as "F-Troop In Space". They are not as good as I remember them being (I read them to death in junior high and high school), but they're certainly better than I expected. I am now about to start a reread of Haruki Murakami's Hard-Boiled Wonderland And The End Of The World, which I read several times in Blacksburg and haven't cracked open since. It's I think the first book that I picked up from the Tech bookstore English section: it had been assigned for a class I wasn't taking, and it looked interesting. Very curious to see what I think of it.
Dinner.
no subject
Date: 2021-03-23 01:05 pm (UTC)Boo for the apartment being an alien land again. I hope you can get your nest reestablished in reasonable time.
I haven't revisited Phule lately. Perhaps that should be next.
no subject
Date: 2021-03-23 08:34 pm (UTC)The Phule books are probably exactly as you remember them, which is kind of impressive in its own right. (I'm only talking about the first two: I remember reading one or two of the coauthored sequels and being consistently unimpressed, but I don't know if that's due to the books themselves or to my own maturing taste.)
no subject
Date: 2021-03-23 03:12 pm (UTC)Mood.
no subject
Date: 2021-03-23 08:22 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-03-25 07:58 pm (UTC)