After teaching my last two classes of the day I returned home to try to make sense of the bargain basement mélange of furniture that crowded my apartment and the dust that shrouded everything. Good thing I was dressed in jeans and a t-shirt.
The new couch, the one I relished and looked forward to with no idea of what I was actually getting, resembles a bench seat from a Chevy truck. It is upholstered in bright red velvet with a flower pattern etched into it with small, matching cushions serving as arms. It has a black base and stands on chrome legs. It looks like it belongs in a piano lounge. At least it is of decent height so that I don’t feel like I’m squatting instead of sitting.
Being as it appears I’m going to be stuck with the world’s ugliest couch after all I decided on a face-off: it versus ‘piano lounge’ couch, with the old, shaky coffee table in the middle. I moved the TV stand to the corner by the balcony door, moved one bookcase so that it faces the other across the room and placed the couches on opposite walls, with a table in between. Except for the upholstery and style, the living room is now attractively appointed. Now: what to do about the new coffee table that doesn’t match anything?
The new dining room set is actually quite nice: lacquered blond wood with slatted chairs. And it is tall enough for me to eat from comfortably. The new coffee table matches the new dining room furniture. So, I thought I would put the new coffee table in the dining room, even though that room is not exactly large. That way I can stack the oven onto the microwave, and flank those appliances with the rice cooker and the crock pot I’ve yet to buy myself. It will be on the other side of the dining room and I’ll have to walk around the table and chairs to make use of those devices, but that’s no big deal. It is not like the dining room is huge; a few steps and I’ve traversed it. With this arrangement I’ve made good use of that extra table while handily having answered the question of crowding in the kitchen from all of the appliances. Now I have three rooms situated to my satisfaction.
Almost.
The question remains of what to do with my washer and dryer. That is when I spied the quick disconnect for the washing machine water hose, unobtrusively lurking on the balcony window sill. Now there’s an idea: store the slim, lightweight washer in the kitchen next to the fridge. I could then use the top of the washer as extra storage space, say, for my vegetable bin. Come laundry day I can just move the washer across the kitchen, connect it to the water tap using the quick disconnect, plug it in where I normally have the kettle plugged in and wash my clothes in varying temperature water. The drain built into the kitchen floor would serve as a drain line for the washer. It was like it was meant to be! The extra bonus is surely that I can now wash clothes in hot or warm water instead of just cold water. Some of my clothes are looking decidedly dingy for lack of proper care. Cold water is not good for everything, you know.
I’m not going to bother cleaning again. I’ll wait till I’m done throwing furniture around.
At Sam’s suggestion we moved the old dining room set into Victor’s apartment. He’s never home anyway. Come to find out, Victor’s apartment also contained my refrigerator from the old apartment that doesn’t work anymore, as well as all of the other furniture rejects from the old apartments. Thus I felt no qualms about burdening Victor’s unused space with my rejects.
After Sam and I moved all discarded furniture into Victor’s unused apartment he informed me that Dean Tu would visit my apartment early tomorrow morning to see what exactly needed to be done to make my house habitable. Oh, great! Yet another reason to get up at 6AM: get ready for dignitaries to visit! Why is this school trying to turn me into a morning person when clearly I cannot function at that time of day?
All jokes aside, I have to admit: the Dean makes things happen. A word from him and people quiver in their boots. At his ‘jump’ command workers leap about without bothering to ask how high. I’m rather glad he favors me; I’d hate to be on the negative end of all that power.
Dean Tu’s visit was particularly well timed. My apartment had sprung a major water leak in the wall between the kitchen and dining room. The whitewash that covers the concrete was bubbling and chipping off on the dining room side, and I had a constant puddle on my kitchen counter that I simply left a bunched up towel laying there to absorb. I would be glad to not have to sweep paint off the floor every morning or wring out a rag, and besides that, mold was growing already on the wet wall.
Within hours of his visit workmen once again trounced through my apartment, tweaking, installing, repairing, drilling and affixing. By the end of the day I had two handles on the balcony door, a water tap on the rear balcony should I decide after all to move the washer there, the glass was glued back into place in my bookshelf door (I had forgotten to tell you about that), and a plumber had rerouted the misrouted water pipe that allowed my hot water to flow onto the roof instead of into my kitchen tap. The bathroom sink would not get hot water at all. It was not designed to.
I managed to hang the shower head mount. During installation the brackets were not measured, so that, when they drilled the holes to mount it with they were not properly spaced. To make up for it the installer simply angled the drill upward and widened the hole. The plastic mount, being forced into an unnatural angle, broke its upper mounting bracket. The worker gave up on installation, leaving what he thought would be a useless mount on the windowsill. Using only one screw, I wedged the still-intact lower bracket between the screw’s head and the wall. This roughshod repair is still holding today.
The next day a crew of movers took away the monster wardrobe that was blocking the hall, and all of the excess furniture out of Victor’s apartment.
At the end of this maintenance extravaganza I was left with the water leak inside the kitchen/dining room wall. The various crews had taken care of everything else that could be taken care of right now. At this point, besides that water leak I have nothing to complain about. The two heat pumps were moved from the old apartment into the new one, without being serviced at all. The living room has a large, stand up unit that has no electrical connections. None of them work. I don’t need heat right now, so I’ll wait on those.
I forgot to tell you about the fridge. I’ve never owned a brand spanking new, still in the carton fridge before. Obviously I know I have to get it out of the carton before I can use it, but I figured workmen would unpack it, adjust the leg height so that it will be level and install it. I figured wrong. After three days of prancing by the fridge carton I took it upon myself to cut the strapping and liberate my new ice box. Now that was an interesting tango! Fortunately the fridge is small – smaller than the one I had before, even. If not for the dropped ceiling in the kitchen it would have been a snap. As it was I had to tilt the appliance out the kitchen door and support it with one hand while wrestling the box off of it with the other hand.
While I had it tilted I thought I should maybe kiss it, as a dancer does with his partner when he has her dipped. But the condenser coils were showing and I don’t think that was the side I was supposed to kiss. After removing the carton and setting the fridge upright I adjusted the legs so that the appliance would be level, and then scooted it into place, plugged it in and turned it on. It would be days before I would go to the store and buy anything to put in it, but at least I now had a fridge.
Now, besides the gas line for the stove, the only thing lacking is the internet connection. Man, is that a sore spot.
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