It is truly difficult to get up in the morning when the bed is warm and the rest of the unheated house is so damn cold. This morning (Sunday) I put off getting out of bed for almost an hour. Finally, around 8:00 a.m., I roll out of bed in my long-sleeved school shirt and a pair of knit pajamas pants. I am not out of bed for more than three minutes when my phone rings.
"Are you up?"
It's my landlady. "Yes, I am."
"Can I come over? I mean ... can I come in?"
Uhhhhhhh.... "Where are you?" I ask.
"At your door."
Turns out today is the day the gas company will be taking out some of the appliances. Of course, no one told us they'd be here, but, c'est la vie. I have already cleared paths to the appliances, so I am feeling relatively confident. I let the landlady in, and we walk the apartment, heading to the basement. I know there are still some things too close to the furnace (that needs to be ripped out), so I tell her I will finish moving stuff around. She leaves, confident that the gas company will be able to access everything they need.
Meanwhile, I run to the dirty laundry, grab yesterday's jeans, put on a bra under my pajama shirt, and start surveying my handiwork with moving stuff. I pull an end table around away from the cellar door, and I push the kitchen table so close to the wall that it's practically out the window.
Not ten minutes later, the landlord is at my door, and he has the gas company foreman with him. We all go to the basement together, where we discover that the pipes all need to be brought up to current code (ALL the gas pipes), and that the furnace will need to be cut out by the sheet metal person. Oh, and by the way, the hot water heater can no longer be vented the way that it is.
The verdict is that my new furnace and new hot water heater may have to be moved.
Once people leave, I start pulling the rest of the basement apart in a huge tizzy. I started this project over a year ago, and it resulted in thirteen bags of trash going out. Now, though, most of what's left are things my older children left behind and all of my youngest's sports equipment. ALL of it. Trust me:
Play It Again Sports doesn't have the amount of sports equipment that my youngest has accumulated. It's absolutely daunting.
Since I don't know where the new furnace or hot water heater will end up (nor does the gas company), I get rid of everything that I can, which results in three more bags going out plus an old sports rack for equipment and a very basic treadmill, which I put next to the water heaters and other appliances on the sidewalk waiting to be picked up. I yell to Bruce, the foreman (because we are all friends now -- me and Bruce and Paul and Bob and the kid from Bourne who played lacrosse and the tall guy who almost smacks his head on the cellar ceiling...), "Hey, add this treadmill to the junk pile if you can!"
When the landlady returns two hours later, she cannot believe the work I've done in the basement. Well, since we have no idea exactly when the appliances will leave, exactly when new appliances will arrive, and now we're not even certain where they're going to go, I had to pretty much clean out the whole place. Important stuff I move to the living room, like the weight bench and the weights (thank goodness for my weightlifting days and for all those years of cardio kickboxing and judo, because I move the weights like I own those bad boys). I also bring up the Airsoft guns and the BB's for the rifles.
I get to thinking, though: What kind of mess will they be making down there? So I haul up the Christmas stuff, too, which, coincidentally last Christmas all got consolidated into three plastic bins. I mean, it's almost time to set up the tree, anyway, right? Might as well get the stuff handy.
For a few hours, things go quickly. The hot water heater is drained, the assessor checks out the furnace, the hot water heater is removed, and people are in and out and in and out. The workers come through like it's a revolving door, and I give them updates on the Patriots' game. Then ... nothing. So I start doing laundry (three loads today) and figure whenever they get here, they get here. I just hope they're done by a decent hour. I still need to boil water and set up my make-believe shower/bath so I can get the basement slime of dust and webs off of me before work tomorrow.
The worst thing about it, though, is that I do have to go to work tomorrow. Even though the workers will be here for two more days, I cannot really take time off. I have three school meetings in two days, and I'm going to Boston Monday evening for dinner. This couldn't have happened at a crazier two days in my school year. If only I could take a day off, then maybe I could stay in bed again and recoup that warm time I lost Sunday morning. After cleaning out my basement for the workers, I feel like the gas company owes me that much.
