Keeping Cool

I have to admit that I haven’t had as much time to observe life these past few months as I would like.  Consequently, from my perspective, it seems as though we’ve transitioned from snow and cold into the full-blown spring and days hot enough to require air-conditioning.  Where has all the time gone?

Speaking of air conditioning, Dave and I had the misfortune to have the condenser konk out in our upstairs unit of the first hot afternoon of the year just before Easter.  Arriving home before me and finding the upstairs temperature reaching 80, Dave shut all the windows, turned on the A/C and then headed off to choir practice.  An hour later when I arrived, the temperature upstairs had not budged.  I could hear the fan working and feel air from the vents, so I let it go and when Dave came home, we went our for pizza.

 Later, when we arrived home, the thermostat had still not gone down a degree.  I was tired but jumped into trouble-shooting mode anyway.  First I opened the back door to listed to the heat pump.  It wasn’t running.  Next I checked the electrical panel; the breaker had popped.  I re-seated the switch, heard a loud angry buzz and then the switch popped.  Unconvinced, I repeated my test with the same result; “BUZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ -BOOOM!  Okay, clearly this was a problem I was not equipped to handle.  There was only one thing to do; open the windows, turn on the ceiling fans and call a professional.

The rest of the story is pretty boring, we called the HVAC folks, they assessed the problem, gave us alternatives, blah, blah, blah, we decided to replace rather than repair, wrote a check, blah, blah, blah.

What I find sharable about this episode is that it ran its course from start to finish without drama.  I didn’t hurl myself into self-pity; convinced that no matter how many steps we move forward financially, there is always something to pull us back.  Nor did I wonder what we did wrong, to have a relatively y0ung heat pump crap out on us, after all, we’d had a service contract and dutifully had it checked twice a year.  I accepted it for what it was, just one of those unpleasant spaces we land on in the game of Life. (Remember the game where you drove a car over the board facing the good and the bad on your way to Millionaire Acres?)

Thankfully age has mellowed me and taught me to handle life’s challenges in stride and for the most part, handle them head on without drama.  That being said, like everyone else, I do have my off days where I can become as whiny as the next person, especially when fatigue is involved.

But in this case, I am proud of my letting go of the why’s and what-if’s and just getting on with it.  It’s too bad we don’t badges for these kind of life achievements like in a computer game like “Bejeweled.”  I so like those merit awards that pop up after a game for so many subsequent somethings.  They urge me to keep playing.

I guess this time, for me, it’s enough to recognize my personal triumph, pat myself on the back and keep the memory handy for the next challenge that comes my way – which seeme to be the new programmable thermostat that came with my new system!