Stormageddon, Dark Lord of All
It's been eerie reading about the hurricane while living inland. I didn't really think we'd have to worry about hurricanes anymore. Tornados, yes - they terrify me. My heart races and I count the number of blasts in a panic whenever the siren sounds, relieved that it is just a test. Tornados - like earthquakes and scary critters (scorpions, tarantulas, and serious snakes; a rattle around every corner!) - are just foreign to a lifelong New Englander. Unknown. And we fear the unknown, do we not?
But being 800 miles away from the coast should buy us a reprieve from hurricanes. Seriously.
Now, we were never in any serious danger. While the coast was ravaged in places, and many of you are out of power, we just got a massive windstorm (and light rain). Sure, it's not pleasant outside and I'm happy to be hunkering down under these here blankets. And Ann Arbor is not next to one of the Lakes, so we did not need to worry about the exceptional waves flooding downtown.
But therein lies the rub. We're 800 miles away - even further if calculated from where Sandy made landfall - and we still experienced a windstorm that howled all night. That's how awesome and far-reaching a hurricane can be. We're barely even in the same time zone as those of you back home; there are no mountains in sight; no ocean within driving distance... yet the same storm that is knocking down your trees and flooding your subways is simultaneously battering my doors and windows and bringing a chill that the thermostat just can't compensate for.
It's not how I expected to still feel closer to home, but I'll take it. With significantly less destruction next time, please.
Or "Stormy" for short
I'm looking forward to Halloween tomorrow. Because we're living in our own little family housing community that has its own trick-or-treat, I feel like I can make cookies for dispersal rather than just buying candy. I'll include a slip of paper laying out major allergens and my contact info. But it feels like we live in a bubble where parents aren't going to freak out at something homemade, or an apple, or any of the things that people don't give out any more because of fear of razor blades and whatnot.
Because our complex has a lot of international families, there are periodic emails/flyers explaining terms such as "tailgate party" and "trick-or-treat". I really enjoy sitting back for a moment and thinking huh, how do you explain some of our wacky traditions to foreigners? It's a great opportunity to step outside of the box.
So I've been roasting pumpkins, refrigerating several types of cookie dough, so that I can both bake cookies tomorrow in time for trick-or-treat, as well as have a supply handy for when we go to a potluck, or Arthur finishes a paper and we need to pop in a tray or two of cookies to celebrate. 'Tis the season when cookies are on call.
Facilities... giveth!
What makes this possible is the shiny new oven (!) we received last week. Over the past month, as it's been cool enough to bake, we discovered that the oven heated waaaaaaaaaay too hot. Cookies burned, because it was impossible to get a temperature between 300 and 450. Bread was out of the question!
And since we're making Thanksgiving dinner, it would be great if we had the oven fixed before then. I would like my poultry edible, TYVM.
So Arthur opened a ticket with facilities. Now, we've had a mixed experience with them. While they do fix things, they never communicate. Unless we're at home when they arrive, we have no way of knowing that they have been here - they don't leave a note, they don't send an email (we're supposed to file all issues online, so it should be easy enough for them to send a note when the ticket is closed), they don't tell us ahead of time that they'll be stopping by.
Our first day here, we discovered a leaky pipe in the kitchen sink. We promptly called it in. We never heard from them. So each day we tried turning on the faucet, and one day the cabinet didn't flood. So yay - working sink - but boo - why couldn't they have left a note? How long were we supposed to continue without a sink because they couldn't leave a note saying they'd fixed it?
I've been home a couple of times when they've come by (in response to the move-in status report we're all required to fill out), and I've learned that they only come by when we're not here or when I'm home, but not wearing pants. Obviously, I chose to go pantsless last week in hopes that someone would come by to fix the oven in time for trick-or-treat baking. (My new Pantsless Doctrine.)
It worked. In fact, both of us were at home (so I did not have to run upstairs to put on pants before opening the door this time). Except it was one person coming by to ask us if someone had brought us a new oven the previous week; um, not that we know of, but then again, YOU NEVER COMMUNICATE. (Granted, we would have noticed a new oven, if for no other reason than the stove looking startlingly clean ;) She then said someone would come by with a new one later that afternoon.
Which is great and all, but left us wondering - did anyone come by to try to fix it first? If so, we saw neither hide nor hair of them. When the guys came by with the new oven that afternoon, they did in fact ask about just that, and I'm like WTF, I have no clue. You all need to learn how to COMMUNICATE. For all I know, someone spent three hours sprawled in my kitchen trying to fix the oven. Or maybe no one came by at all.
It's a strange hybrid of campus housing and apartment. If this were a real apartment, a landlord couldn't enter without permission. A landlord would have to tell us when a plumber or electrician was going to be present. But this is campus housing, so they just show up without warning. If we had been out that afternoon, we would have come home and found a new oven, with no note, no phone call, no email - just "hey, this looks too clean to be our stove! I guess we have a new oven."
It's really disconcerting.
OTOH, the upshot of all this is NEW OVEN YAY! It works. I'm happy - mostly; I feel uncomfortable with this trend of gas ovens not having knobs and needing electricity to turn on and off. I like to use the oven (baking potatoes, or brownies, etc.) for heat during power outages. I can't do that anymore. It feels silly to me - why does it need electricity to turn on and off?!? - but I'll get used to it. In the meantime, I have a working oven! And a hundred trick-or-treaters to bake for! Eep!
Okay, I need to run to the bank and other unexciting tasks. Ciao!
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