Keepin' Warm

Still day after day of record temps. Only 111 yesterday. Perhaps 107 today. They announce that as though we should be singing hozannas at the good news.

We might. Except...

Bedtime temperatures still hover around 100, only hitting a low of 80 at 6AM. And the AC kicked the bucket yesterday afternoon. Not just getting increasingly glitchy. Dead. Doornail. Kaput.

Send out the salesman.

To be fair, first they sent out the repairman, from a firm recommended by a years-long resident with many years of experience with them. After checking inside and rooftop, he found a list of things. The motor seized up. He took a cell picture of the label and its info, hoping that with all the numbers on it they can come up with a match. The actual nameplate disappeared some years back, apparently, so he can't just call in for whatever brand it is. HOWEVER...

The system is old. For here, extremely so. Other parts are, if not completely defunct, then only partially funct. There is so much rust up there that they can't even tell if the unit is leaking coolant. So the motor would likely not be the end of the attempt to fix it.

On the plus side, the cost of the service call would be taken off further costs, repairs or replacement. And they were fast. But today the salesman cannot come out until somewhere between 3 and 4 this afternoon. And that's no indication of how long to get a new unit in, since I decided not to diddle around with a bunch of half-assed maybe-fixes and still end up with a very old unit on the roof but with some new parts. And then only if they can successfully connect them through all the rust to the existing unit.

Anyway, it was plenty hot last night. We had air circulating, but if you think that's a substitute for cool air circulating, you'd better not try for a career selling AC units. There were a few old-fashioned stop-gap measures employed, including drinking about half the glass of water and pouring the other half over your shirt. It only partially offers relief, as the shirt dries too quickly that way.

Before finally trying to sleep we both went all out in attempted cooling, putting on our PJs and standing under the shower in them, stepping out without toweling off, then letting the fans do their work. That's good for a few hours at a crack, more if you drip generously into your chair or onto your bed so moving around offers up new wet spots to the tender mercies of the fans.

As a bonus, it's dry enough down here that even the wettest upholstery/padding does not stay wet long enough to start to mold or even get a bit funky. I'll let you know if that holds for two nights in a row, by the way.

The good news is the Doc officially is allowing me to go in the shower now. He doesn't allow me in the community pool for another week and a half.

Those will be the remains of my wet footprints down the hall from the shower.