It's Official

Summer in Texas has arrived.

Only three more months... Only three more months... Only three more months...

The saga continues...

We are now approaching a full 4 weeks without functional air conditioning. As I mentioned in my last post, it's been fixed on several occasions, worked great for 12-18 hours, and then stopped again. The breaking point came over Labor Day weekend. After many appointments with two different repair companies, it was working as of Friday afternoon before the holiday weekend. We had been out of the house for the previous two weekends and I was so happy and excited to think about enjoying the long weekend at home in our nice, cool house.

Then, as I was driving home, I got the dreaded call from Jason that he'd just returned home and our house was over 90 again. At this point our landlord finally agreed that a full replacement of the air conditioning unit was necessary, but it was still going to be another week or two to get the parts and get it installed through his home warranty company. (Note to self: NEVER purchase a home warranty when we buy a home... the service has been terrible and the work orders are placed at the bottom of the stack for all the vendors that are contracted to do the repairs. There is no sense of urgency-- presumably because they're being paid at a lower rate than their non-warranty jobs-- and thus we've gone a month without air conditioning.)

Since our landlord had been paying for hotel rooms intermittently, and offered to again over Labor Day weekend, we decided we might as well go stay in a hotel in a new city. So we headed off to Fort Worth. I was in a pretty bad mood about our third consecutive weekend out of the house, when all I really wanted to do was tackle our last boxes and start working on the baby's room, but we actually had a really good time... we enjoyed a few good meals, hit up the zoo (which is one of the top 5 in the country and really pretty), toured the Kimbell Art Museum, visited the famed stockyards, and indulged in some In'n'Out, a west coast favorite (newly opened in Fort Worth and Dallas.) Mmmm...

Hanging with the flamingos (we only took pictures at the end of the visit, thus they all feature birds...)

Moving on to lunch...

...totally worth the wait.

Nom, nom, nom!

Overall, we really liked Forth Worth. It was very pretty, and definitely felt like a smaller town. Very laid back, and very different than Dallas. If our AC had to break (again), it was fun to get away for a spur of the moment trip. I kept reminding myself that once the baby arrives, these types of weekends will be few and far between, so it felt a little like a special, impromptu babymoon.

When we got back to Austin on Monday, we were greeted with highs around 90 (shocking!) and predicted lows in the low 60s (even more shocking!) It slowly got warmer throughout the week, but we made it through this past Saturday with a steady rotation of fans and opening all the windows in the very early morning to circulate that nice, cool air. Now it's back in the 100+ range (up to 111 today), and the repair company should be coming tomorrow or Wednesday to install the new unit. Meanwhile, our landlords are on vacation, so they've offered us their house until the repair is complete. I felt kind of weird about it at first, but now that I see 111 on the forecast, I have no qualms about packing my overnight bag and heading right on over there. I will be enjoying a swim in their pool this evening.

Fingers crossed that this is the final installment in this air conditioning saga... If nothing else, I have a trip to Maine to look forward to this weekend, and it's supposed to be in the 50s there.

Full of Hot Air

We are currently on day 6 of no air conditioning during a summer of record-breaking heat here in central Texas. (For reference, the high today is supposed to be 105, and 109 by Friday. Awesome. Can't wait.)

This saga began last Wednesday evening when we arrived home to a very warm house. It was unpleasant, but with a few industrial sized fans blowing right on us, we managed to sleep (somewhat.) We figured that the AC repair crew would make it out on Thursday, and the problem would be solved. When they didn't arrive until 5pm the next day, we became a little concerned... and then a lot more concerned when they told us the compressor was out and that they would need to order a new one. I don't know much anything about air conditioners, but, as I understand it, the compressor is essentially what pumps in the cool air. So, you know, it's kinda important.

That night we stayed in a cheap motel on I-35 with high hopes of a cool house by the weekend. Said hopes were dashed when we found out that the compressor would not be in until Monday at the earliest. That meant a full weekend with no AC. Let me provide a little color... with a drafty, poorly insulated house from the 1920s and outdoor temps well over 100, that means it is no less than 94 degrees inside our house at any given time. You could, if given enough time, bake cookies on our kitchen tiles.

We managed to get a portable AC unit to tide us over, and very quickly discovered that the portable unit is fantastic if you only want to cool approximately 3 cubic feet of air immediately in front of it. Unfortunately, if you want to cool your whole house, or even one room, no dice. Necessity being the mother of invention, J has rigged up a little contraption whereby we put the AC unit at the foot of the bed, duct tape our sheets over it, and then prop up the sheets between the AC unit and the bed with... wait for it... golf clubs. This creates a small wind tunnel of cool air on our legs. It's still 94 degrees on our face, but the cool air under the sheets makes sleeping somewhat tolerable.

Cooking is another story altogether. After eating out for 3 days, we decided that was no longer sustainable and now it's become every man for himself, foraging in the fridge for whatever assortment of foods we can throw together that require no heat whatsoever to prepare. Last night we had leftover pasta, cold rotisserie chicken, and grapes. What's that you say? You want an invitation to dinner? Come on over!

After a weekend spent full of creative ways to spend time indoors in other people's AC (aimlessly strolling the aisles of Target, getting stroller demos at Buy Buy Baby, lengthy visits to the grocery store... and pharmacy... and Lowe's, a movie, church, a couple more meals out), we are plum out of ideas. And patience. The compressor wasn't in yesterday, but thankfully arrived today. Can they install it today? Of course not. That would be too easy. So we're crossing our fingers for tomorrow.

This enormously whiny post is just to say... it's hot and we're tired of it, but, boy, are we thankful that we even have a house with the possibility of AC. I've seen a few homeless people since this ordeal began, and my heart goes out to them. I am really conscious of the homeless during the cold winter months, but have never really thought about their needs during the summer. If anything, this experience has given me the conviction that I need to be more intentional about helping out the needy in the off seasons-- not just around the holidays when it's top of mind. And when that air conditioner shudders to life (hopefully) tomorrow, I will never, ever take it for granted again.

It's hot here. Really, really hot.

I interrupt my all baby all the time broadcast to bring you this... the 5 day forecast for Austin. Really? Really?? 108 degrees? There really are no words. I know it's hot pretty much everywhere right now, but I just need to whine a little bit. Sigh. So. Many. Days. Until. October.

Fortunately, I am headed to Portland on Thursday to celebrate my brother's wedding. Just look at that beautiful forecast...

I haven't been this excited about anything in a long time. Sleeping with my window open! Bringing a jacket for the evening! Jogging outside after 7am! Oh, um... er... and celebrating with my brother and his lovely fiancee as we toast their future lifetime of happiness together.

In 80 degree weather.

Priorities. ;)

Schadenfreude

There's a fancy ten dollar word for you. I have no idea how to pronounce it and had to Google the spelling. But I know what it means. And unfortunately so does Tiger Woods: taking pleasure from someone else's misfortune. Now don't get me wrong: in no way do I condone infidelity. He made some very poor (and let's be honest... skanky) choices, and he'll have to face the consequences. But the three ring media circus going on this past week would lead you to believe that he was, oh, I don't know... a president of the United States who got caught doing something funny with a cigar and his intern, and then lied under oath about it.

Let's be clear. He's a professional athlete, he cheated on his wife, and he follows in the footsteps of (unfortunately) numerous other athletes, politicians, and public figures who've done exactly the same thing. Yet, we seem to be making a MUCH bigger deal over Tiger's indiscretions than anyone else's. John Edwards, a state senator and candidate for office of the Presidency of the United States, was revealed to be cheating on his wife who has cancer, and then it was subsequently determined that he is likely the father of his mistress' illegitimate child. And he got less press than this. Jeez. And I can think of numerous professional basketball players and football players who have done much worse things... at least Tiger's affair(s) were consensual.

I'm not arguing that he doesn't owe his wife some serious groveling followed by intensive counseling, but I think the media needs to lay off. If he wasn't a Stanford-educated billionaire who happens to be one of the most famous athletes in the world, people would be a whole lot less gleeful about this mess. He doesn't owe us a public apology-- the only people he owes an apology to are his wife and kids.

OK, end rant. And because I do have a sense of humor in spite of my feelings above, I'll leave you with my favorite quote out of this whole scandal:

"He ain't a Tiger... he a Cheetah!"

Alledgedly

... Austin is a super green city. Allegedly. So many people have told us this since we moved here (although I suppose I should mention that most of them are from Austin... hmmm...) Turns out, not so much. Indulge me my mini rant...

First of all, my office does not recycle. What?? OK, they recycle paper. But only white paper. And only in one minuscule bin that you have to get up and walk halfway across the office to get to. What happened to the blue recycling bin under everyone's desk? Apparently that's unheard of. What's even more unheard of-- to me anyway-- is that there is no recycling for plastic containers, colored paper, or, most shockingly, cans. What office doesn't have a recycling bin for soda cans? Do they not notice how many Diet Cokes are consumed on a daily basis around here?? My first few days here, I was all confused... wandering around looking for the elusive recycling bins. Now that I've been clued in, I've taken to bringing my own paper bag to collect my recyclables so that I can take them home once a week and dispose of them properly. Does that make me the crazy hippie from the Northwest? Probably. But, seriously, throwing away a can physically pains me.

While our apartment complex does offer a bit more in the recycling department, they do not have a program for recycling glass. Again, what?? How difficult could it be? J is actually 10x the OCD recycler that I am, and this seriously keeps him up at night. He claims he is going to find a way for us to recycle our glass items, so he insists that we keep everything until he does. This means we have 2 months of glass containers (let's be honest: wine bottles) piling up in our closet. And two months of "glass containers" is a significant quantity.

Further, I am going to out the University of Texas on this one, because I think it's particularly shameful. I would have to imagine that the school has a robust recycling policy in effect somewhere, but at a school-sponsored tailgate event I recently attended, the only place the hundreds of attendees could put their empty Miller Lite cans was in the trash. And UT + tailgate + free beer = a shocking number of cans in the trash. If the school can't set a good example, I'm not sure who's going to.

Essentially, what I'm saying is that any random, podunk town in Washington is greener than Austin. Red town, blue town, tiny village, or big metropolis, recycling is just kind of a given. Until Austin gets this most basic of green activities under control, it most certainly cannot pride itself on its green-ness.

End rant.