The Week in Review, Sort of ...

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It was rather a wet week, The Missus Herself pointed out that the lawn is starting to look "like a jungle." As she's never seen an actual jungle, I'm sure she's being rhetorical. Or something.

But the grass does need cutting and when it dries out, I shall deploy my fat butt out there to do so.

Last time I cut it was a couple of weeks ago, last time I trimmed it was about four weeks ago. After returning from vacation (an absence of two weeks) the grass was in dire need of a mow, but I wasn't in the mood to drag the weed whacker out, so I didn't.

As you can imagine, the edges are a wee bit out of control. (Much like the hair growing out of my ears, and that, for those of you who aren't old guys, is an old guy thing. One reason I grew a mustache was so that I wouldn't need to trim my nose hairs as often. TMI? Probably.)

Anyhoo, a mowing of the lawn will be held this weekend as the weather promises to be dry, whether or not the air is the temperature of the sun is another thing altogether. Might have to wait for the cool of the late afternoon. (I know, I know, it's cool in the morning as well, but I don't do mornings. Too many years on night shift in my youth to have any real love for getting up early, though I'll do it in a pinch.)

Speaking of getting up early, this Saturday is the kinda-monthly breakfast meeting with my old comrades from the old job. (Okay, there are two comrades, one is kinda old, one is not. If Liz thinks I referred to her as "old," we might have a case of justifiable homicide. However, Tom could probably claim that as well, as he's younger than me!) We'll be checking out a new diner not far from the old gig and a place I've been meaning to try for a while. So I've got that going for me.

I did mention the maintenance on the mini-splits the other day, one of those "your appointment is at X o'clock but we might come two hours before that, or two hours later than that." That is, it's a four hour block where they will show up, at some point.

The Missus Herself was all "I hate that, why do they do that?" Well, that's a simple one - if the crew shows up at your house and it's a mess, things needing to be moved to reach the units or if the units haven't been cleaned in a while or if the occupants smoke, the job could take longer than expected. I get that, now that I'm retired it's "no big thing."

Unless ...

When I first scheduled the maintenance, they never showed up. Puzzled (and not a little irked) I called them.

"We left you a message and sent you an e-mail."

Turns out, they messaged The Missus Herself and e-mailed her. Two things she didn't check on. Well, now the company has my contact information, not hers. But ...

When I made the new appointment they asked if mornings were okay, reluctantly I said yes, wanting to "get 'er done." So they made the appointment for 0930.

Later I got an e-mail reminding me of the appointment which the e-mail said "1200."

I got up early just to be sure.

Guy arrived at 1330, which was spot on (sort of) for a time block centered on 1200.

Long story short, messed up my sleeping routine for a few days. But I'll get over it.

Oh yeah, why would smoking make maintaining a mini-split harder? Well, smoking is really, really, not a good idea. Clogs up air filters, makes your clothes smell bad, and destroys lung tissue.

I had a nice chat with my mini-split maintainer (great guy) who told me of this one house where both husband and wife were smokers and their mini-split units looked as if the filters had been painted with tar.

Makes me wish I'd quit a lot sooner, better yet, makes me wish I'd never started at all.

Oh well, live and learn.

It is nice to see the tail end of this week though.