Home, Cabinets, Alone, Cold

I. Home, Where My Thought's Escaping

It's been more than two weeks since I got home. Whew. It took me most of a week to recover. Monday through Friday of my week back from the Netherlands, I worked in the day and pretty much collapsed at night.

But, I was *very* busy while I was in the Netherlands. I never want to let an opportunity like that slip by.

My only regret from my time in the Netherlands: I wish I'd biked more. I was unfortunately somewhat constrained by the weather, somewhat constrained by limited time (and having more stuff that I wanted to do), and definitely constrained by the fact that the Monkey Bikes I had available to me were only available in The Hague and Rotterdam. So I couldn't do something like bike up to Amsterdam and leave the bike there. (Yeah, I could have brought it back on the train, as all the first cars were labeled for bikes, but that would have been a pain).

In an ideal world if I ever returned to the Netherlands it would be in the less rainy season and I'd rent or buy a bike throughout the trip so that I could go all over, with the intent on staying a day here or there in different parts of the country (so that I could bike one-way for the day).

But I loved the day of biking I did, and I only regret not doing more from how much that one day stands out, despite the rain.

II. Home Improvement

Speaking of trips, on my first day away from Hawaii, 'lo a month ago now, our cabinets arrived. Just as I had predicted. These are to be the foundation of our Family Room design. I actually had to have Kimberly call my dad so that he could move Julie (the Benz) out of the garage to make room for their arrival. And so when I returned from the Netherlands there were four palettes of cabinets and miscellanea in the garage.

Kimberly and I let those sit the first week I was back because I was worn out. Then we cleared the boxes from the family room and opened the first of 21 boxes to discovered there was indeed a fully assembled cabinet. Yay. And then she got her bivalent booster and it knocked her out for a week(!).

So the last several days, Kimberly and I have finished the work. We've gone through the boxes and opened them all up and itemized everything. With two problems. First, we're missing a box. (2 of 21.) Second, the freight listing is different than our Home Depot receipt, so we're not sure quite what's what.

I'd been a little worried about the timing because of the weeks delay but it turns out we have 45 days to flag problems. We've started flagging. All we've learned so far is that the manufacturer sent us an _additional_ shipment last week(!). Is it the missing box? Is it stuff on the shipping manifest that wasn't in the 21 boxes that were supposedly sent? I suspect the latter, but we need to talk to a fixer at Home Depot to get it straightened out.

The downside is that we can't get our carpenters out because we definitely don't have all the parts. I'd really hoped to have them working this week. So the eternal Family Room project continues.

III. Alone Again, Naturally

It's been a weird week because I did my regular contract work on Monday and Wednesday because I drove my dad and Mary to the airport on Tuesday morning. We went early because there was tree trimming on the highway. It only delayed us 10 minutes or so, but ah, living on an island where there's only one road into town.

Now they're off in California visiting granddaughter (and daughter and s-i-l) and it'll also be a weird few weeks because my usual evening walks with my dad and our Sunday gettogethers will be kaput.

IV. The Cold Never Bothered Me Anyway

So the AC slowly flaked out in Julie (the Benz) over the summer. I cleverly waited until Fall to deal with it.

Well, really it was because I just don't like the only place on island that will service the Benz and so I tried to avoid going there.

Why?

1. Their administrative work like scheduling and stuff is Hawaii flaky.
2. Dropping off a car is always stressful because of the lack of anyplace to put it.
3. They pretty much never deal with a car in less than a full day.
4. They're in town.

So I often have my dad drive me in one day to drop off Julie and pick it up the next, but that's a pain. But when I got back from my trip, and felt more able to deal with this all, I just set up an appointment and didn't worry if my dad would be available to help or not.

That was today. (So he was in California.)

I got there at 8.30 (after somewhat stressful morning as I had to juggle a braindump meeting for RWOT11 with dodging rush hour traffic and that tree trimming to get into town). I was the first person to drop off a car for the morning. In the morning you apparently park on the street by popping two wheels over the curb onto the sidewalk. OK. The staff-guy learned that I was hanging around in town to wait until I got Julie back and said they'd get her quickly for me and there was just one car on the "AC machine" ahead of me.

Great!

So I wandered off to wait for the call.

I ate lunch at Safeway. Delicious sandwich!

I went over to Kukui Grove and worked for a few hours at one of their many shaded tables. Productive!

I got bored and wandered all the way down to Nawiliwili Harbor and back. Doing a circuit that's actually a non-negligible walk, 4 miles or so. But I enjoyed seeing lots of things that I usually speed by in a car like a hidden valley in the center of Lihue, a lost train track, etc. It was very pleasant and definitely got me my exercise for the day. Healthy!

I was definitely ready for Julie to be ready by the time I got back at 2.30 or so, but no go. I tried to do a bit more work, did a bit of reading, but mostly was too distracted because working out at Kukui Grove just wasn't super comfortable. (I did turn up a literally lost and unpublished newsletter for Traveller while exchanging emails while there! That was a worthwhile bit of the afternoon!)

I restrained myself from calling until 4.30 or so. because I don't want to be that a**hole Karen on the island who doesn't respect the slow pace of island life. But I decided that if they told me they wanted to hold Julie overnight, I wanted to catch the 4:52 bus home. (And they closed at 5.30.)

I called and the staff-guy had no idea who I was. He went and talked to his techs and learned that Julie was all done and no one had told him. I suspect she was done many, many hours earlier. Apparently the problem was that Julie was the first car in and they'd somehow lost track of her as a result. *)@#($*#@. (The staff-guy was really apologetic. He obviously realized something had gotten f***ed up. I was totally OK with it. Internally annoyed, but genuinely honest when I said, 'It happens, no worries.')

Oh, and Julie's not fixed. They looked her over, put her through the "AC machine" and found a "bulletin" from Mercedes that said that she needed a "harness" replaced and that it was keeping her "control valve" from working right. I get the impression that this only got reported out when I called and by then they couldn't even call Mercedes about the part.

So, I did get Julie back, but the AC still isn't fixed, and I'm going to have to go through this whole rigamarole some other day.

Maybe next time I just take the bus home instead of waiting in town all day. It *seemed* like a good idea, but I never found somewhere that I was comfortable enough to get good work in (though that was a good walk other than the constant flow of whizzing cars).

Hopefully we get the part ordered tomorrow and are at least on the right path ...

Maybe we'll have AC for Winter.

When you still need to run it, here on Kauai.