It seems like just yesterday (or nearly a month ago) that I complained about having too many appointments, and now we’re stuck in another of those holding patterns. Things kicked off on Monday with an early morning visit from a woman who restores old windows. A couple years ago she repaired a broken stained glass panel from our front door, and now she was coming to measure and photograph some old windows we decided to salvage.
As we moved around the house with a notebook and tape measure, Muriel barked and whimpered from my office, where she’d been stashed with toys and treats. The window expert, a dog lover, said “I don’t mind if she follows us around,” but I did — it’s currently easy for an overstimulated dog to knock me off my feet. It is embarrassing to realize that one of your primary daily goals is “Don’t fall in front of people,” but it’s also kind of funny; it’s not like I’ve ever been graceful.
Monday is also laundry and cleaning day, which used to be a nonevent and is now exasperating due to my slowness. We have a laundry chute, which helps, but it’s also a fire hazard that will eventually need to be blocked off. (Our next home, Crankenstein and I have decided, will need main-floor laundry and other amenities, like a walk-in shower, conducive to aging in place.) By 2:00 pm, I was hunched over and shuffling at a snail’s pace, sweaty and exhausted, all of which the neurologist attributes to YOPD.
That night, an hour before bed, I turned on the dishwasher for an express cycle. A series of unfamiliar beeps soon summoned me; the display showed an error code indicating improper drainage. None of our leak sensors had been activated — I have several placed in the kitchen, bathrooms and basement that alert my phone if they detect moisture — but I quickly grabbed some towels as a precaution and went to investigate.
YouTube tutorials showed that accessing the malfunctioning part of the dishwasher would require removing numerous screws, too many for uncooperative hands. Crankenstein doesn’t help with such tasks; she focuses on her work and leaves household stuff to me. That meant I would again need to call an appliance repairman, but not the one who fixed our oven last month. During his followup visit to replace a bad igniter, he made the unusual decision to ask “Why would you choose to live here?” Referring not to our home but to the area in which it’s located.
“You couldn’t pay me to live here,” he said emphatically and without explanation. None was needed. He’d already espoused some belief in conspiracy theories; the rest was easy to piece together because it’s an attitude I periodically encounter from men in his demographic. We live in a heavily Orthodox (Jewish) part of a racially diverse city, neither of which is his cup of tea. He then asked “Why would you choose to live here?”, as if he couldn’t fathom wanting to reside within spitting distance of a world-class university; great museums, restaurants and nightlife; and some of the best hospitals in the country.
How do you respond to something like that? He’s entitled to his opinions, however odious I personally find them, but his lack of professionalism was jarring. I was particularly chagrined at the thought that my neighbors might see his van in our driveway and call him in the future, not realizing they’re the same people “you couldn’t pay [him]” to live near. Rather than answer “To avoid having neighbors like you,” I replied that we’re close to all our favorite places and that my wife loves having a short commute. The ‘wife’ word seemed to surprise him and the conversation petered out; we’d learned as much about each other as we would ever care to know.