Surprise, surprise... Not the day I expected, but good none the less

Thing2 and I were minding our business this morning. I had just finished my first cup of coffee, and Thing2 had just discovered that our refrigerator had turned itself off. (Thing2: "The items on the door of the refrigerator sure don't stay very cold... wait... there seems to be something wrong with the refrigerator, nothing's very cold.") I get up to have a look at it and I see that the display on the door looks like "0 FF". I immediately thought it was a hexadecimal number, but then it dawned on me. OFF. The refigerator was off. And when I tried pressing buttons to turn it on, nothing happened.

That was when the doorbell rang.

Thing2 said, "Don't answer it." But I said, "It's OK. I can get it."

When I opened the door, my heart sunk. There was K, a lady who we had made an appointment with, and which I had completely forgotten about. She was here to help us sort and store away all our things that we had piled-up in the den. And there she was... I wasn't sure what to do, but I invited her in. I admitted that we weren't expecting her, and I asked her to have a seat because before anything else happened I needed to get the refrigerator turned back on.

Thing2 meanwhile was searching the bookshelf for the manual. I did a quick on-line search. Nothing. Meanwhile, the manual troubleshooting section said to go to the 'How to use the controls' section, which didn't say anything about how to turn it back on!

I decided to try unplugging and plugging back in. No luck.

Back to the internet. Finally I find a forum where someone says that if you hold down the temp and ice buttons for 5 seconds the thing resets. A later comment on the same thread gives the helpful hint that you must do this when the door is open.

I try it, and viola! It's on. Whew! What a relief.

But I still had to deal with K. After talking it over with Thing2, we decided that we could spend a few hours of unplanned work. So I had a quick bowl of cereal and got to work with K.

Now our den is all boxed, and Thing2 and I are exhausted but pleased to have accomplished so much today (although why the refrigerator turned itself off is still a mystery.)

Not the best day...

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I don't usually blog about work, but today I'll make an exception. We had a meeting that was attended by a General Manager. (Usually these types of meetings are only attended by department heads.) The guy was unbelievably full-of-himself and rude. I don't understand all the dynamics, but I'm rarely around people that act as unprofessionally as he did.

Not. Impressed.

(Fine with me if he wants to be rude and obnoxious to his staff, in my book you don't treat front-line employees badly when you are a GM.)

Stress and drinking

Reading back over my posts, I realized that I didn't mention that my mother came home from the hospital 'Against Medical Advice' (AMA) last Friday.

My brother has been staying with my parents, but he is going home tomorrow.

Dad has already been doing nearly all of Mom's care, but with Bro1's departure, he won't have anyone big and strong to help him move Mom.

Already last weekend I noticed that Dad was having a strong drink at about noon, and chasing it with beer. When he noticed me noticing his drink, he said 'liquid courage'. I mentioned this to a friend of mine, and she reported that when her mother broke her foot, her father also increased his drinking. Neither of our fathers have a history of drinking problems. It it helps him get through this time, then I guess it's what he needs to do.

Meanwhile, my mother is working on figuring-out how she's going to get her stitches removed. She is unable to go to the doctor's office. But she insisted on going home and not to a rehab facility, so now she's got a problem....

Things are getting better

I visited my Mom and it was a nice visit. I am happy to report that she's doing better, although she still has an incredibly long and difficult recovery ahead of her.


I did write a post late last week, but I lost my network connection and lost my post. It was about acting before thinking when I saw a jumping spider on the edge of the table. It appeared to be sizing-up the possibility of jumping on to my knee, six-inches away. It was stepping forward, looking this way, looking that way, and then backing-up a few steps... I thought, "I wonder if it is trying to jumpt to my knee.", and I reached-out and put my hand between my knee and the table - and she liketty-split jumped to my hand, then dropped to my knee, skittered down my leg and was off and running away.

Now I read in wikipedia that jumping spiders are considered inquisitive, and may even jump on your hand if you put it near them. Now they tell me...