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Entry tags:
Complications, catch-up
There's too much to catch up on, so I'm going to do it in terse mode.
Friday:
You can skip this part if you already listened to my whiny voice posts from that day.
There was a new driver on the shuttle to Ruggles who didn't know that he was supposed to GO to Ruggles. He also got a bit lost. So I missed my train for the first time in quite a while. That pissed me off a lot.
I took the subway to South Station and caught the 5:10 train instead. Half-way through the trip, there was an announcement that there was a fire on both sides of the tracks further down; we'd be stopping at the next station, and we should try to make "alternate arrangements".
Eventually a bunch of school buses came by and took us to the next stop past the fire. It was weird; I hadn't been in a school bus in decades. I ended up getting home at about 7:30.
Saturday
Sebastian had his second soccer game. There's no way to put it nicely; he's a terrible soccer player, at least so far. He runs away from the ball, looks away when it's being thrown on the field, gets silly, chats with other kids, and sometimes sits down on the field. I spent a lot of my time shouting "Look at the ball, Sebastian! Kick it!", and I know I shouldn't. It's not his fault; athleticism just doesn't run in our family.
They lost, 3-4.
Sunday
I played a fair amount of Zelda: The Twilight Princess on the Wii. But that will be a separate entry later, I suspect. So far I've had a lot of fun with it, and I've done quite well. Both Teri and Sebastian have been a bit difficult as kibitzers, though. Whenever I hit a tough spot Sebastian urges me to "cheat and look it up online". Teri just doubts my judgment in the game, although so far I've been right every time; I do understand the designers approach to the game (to be fair, Teri has also made some extremely insightful and helpful comments, and she's usually right in her guesses).
Right now I'm in the Goron mines of Death Mountain. The magnetic effects are totally cool.
Late Sunday night I heard Sebastian cough again and again. I managed to get to his room and get the trash can under his mouth in time to keep him from messing everything up, fortunately - that's a first. But it was pretty violent, and he was quite upset.
Monday
He couldn't go to school the next day; you're not allowed to if you've thrown up in the past 24 hours. Teri's car had to go into the shop (a woman had backed into it with her SUV and did some body damage). The rental wouldn't be ready until 10 AM, so I was stuck at home.
And then Teri said "Do you smell gas?".
We ended up calling the number for gas leak emergencies. Had to leave everything exactly as is. Even the phone had to stay off the hook. And we all waited outside for the technician to arrive.
Sure enough, we had a small leak in the valve connecting to our stove. Some of the hardware was extremely old, so old that replacement parts were no longer available; we'd have to have the valve and connector replaced. The technician turned off our gas and told us to call the company back once the repairs had been done. They don't do the repairs themselves; we would have to call (and pay) a plumber to do it.
Long story short, $388 later our gas piping was up to code. But our gas company (National Grid, for the record) won't give a time window for reconnection. Their technician could arrive any time between 8 AM and 8 PM, and possibly even later! They'll give a call up to an hour before they arrive, but that's it.
Teri was busy on Tuesday and Wednesday, so we had to book the appointment for Thursday. Until then, we can't use the stove or oven.
Oh well.
Friday:
You can skip this part if you already listened to my whiny voice posts from that day.
There was a new driver on the shuttle to Ruggles who didn't know that he was supposed to GO to Ruggles. He also got a bit lost. So I missed my train for the first time in quite a while. That pissed me off a lot.
I took the subway to South Station and caught the 5:10 train instead. Half-way through the trip, there was an announcement that there was a fire on both sides of the tracks further down; we'd be stopping at the next station, and we should try to make "alternate arrangements".
Eventually a bunch of school buses came by and took us to the next stop past the fire. It was weird; I hadn't been in a school bus in decades. I ended up getting home at about 7:30.
Saturday
Sebastian had his second soccer game. There's no way to put it nicely; he's a terrible soccer player, at least so far. He runs away from the ball, looks away when it's being thrown on the field, gets silly, chats with other kids, and sometimes sits down on the field. I spent a lot of my time shouting "Look at the ball, Sebastian! Kick it!", and I know I shouldn't. It's not his fault; athleticism just doesn't run in our family.
They lost, 3-4.
Sunday
I played a fair amount of Zelda: The Twilight Princess on the Wii. But that will be a separate entry later, I suspect. So far I've had a lot of fun with it, and I've done quite well. Both Teri and Sebastian have been a bit difficult as kibitzers, though. Whenever I hit a tough spot Sebastian urges me to "cheat and look it up online". Teri just doubts my judgment in the game, although so far I've been right every time; I do understand the designers approach to the game (to be fair, Teri has also made some extremely insightful and helpful comments, and she's usually right in her guesses).
Right now I'm in the Goron mines of Death Mountain. The magnetic effects are totally cool.
Late Sunday night I heard Sebastian cough again and again. I managed to get to his room and get the trash can under his mouth in time to keep him from messing everything up, fortunately - that's a first. But it was pretty violent, and he was quite upset.
Monday
He couldn't go to school the next day; you're not allowed to if you've thrown up in the past 24 hours. Teri's car had to go into the shop (a woman had backed into it with her SUV and did some body damage). The rental wouldn't be ready until 10 AM, so I was stuck at home.
And then Teri said "Do you smell gas?".
We ended up calling the number for gas leak emergencies. Had to leave everything exactly as is. Even the phone had to stay off the hook. And we all waited outside for the technician to arrive.
Sure enough, we had a small leak in the valve connecting to our stove. Some of the hardware was extremely old, so old that replacement parts were no longer available; we'd have to have the valve and connector replaced. The technician turned off our gas and told us to call the company back once the repairs had been done. They don't do the repairs themselves; we would have to call (and pay) a plumber to do it.
Long story short, $388 later our gas piping was up to code. But our gas company (National Grid, for the record) won't give a time window for reconnection. Their technician could arrive any time between 8 AM and 8 PM, and possibly even later! They'll give a call up to an hour before they arrive, but that's it.
Teri was busy on Tuesday and Wednesday, so we had to book the appointment for Thursday. Until then, we can't use the stove or oven.
Oh well.
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I'd heard about that fire near South Station; wasn't sure that was the same problem you'd had until you noted this. It does strike me that one could get on the Orange Line at Downtown Crossing (with access to it from Park Street via a corridor) and go to Back Bay that way; I'm a little surprised that they provided buses considering that. Bus drivers not quite knowing a route isn't new to me; one of the virtues of the subway and trolley is that they can't really get lost. :)
I'm having to wonder if Sebastian is allergic to something; he seems to throw up a lot. Mind you, when I was a little kid I was more prone to that than in adulthood, but it seems a little unusual.
Gas is one of those things that makes me wish the Promise of Nuclear Power had been real, making electricity dirt cheap. I do not like something that can blow up or poison you; I'll grant that it is apparently better for cooking and is cheaper for hot water than electricity (and is a potential "biofuel," more reasonable I suspect than the "Let's use all our corn for Ethanol and drive up the price of feed so other farmers go out of business" plan) and electricity has its own dangers, but one is going to have electricity in the house anyway so why add a danger? National Grid is of course part of the "Let's deregulate utilities so that they can become even bigger monopolies" things; they're even Evil Foreigners! Okay, they're from Britain, but still.....