Air Conditioning Woes

While I was sitting here at my computer, enjoying my morning coffee and contemplating the newest LOLcats, I heard a "plunk" sound. And then another. Looking around, I didn't see anything plunking, until I noticed Horton pawing at a small puddle forming on the table. I looked up and saw this on the ceiling, directly underneath the new air handler we had installed at the end of last summer:

Hooray, a leak! I shut off the a/c immediately, and Dave investigated the area in the attic and found that the drip pan under the air handler was completely dry. So where's it coming from? Condensation where there shouldn't be any? Was something not hooked up properly? We can't really get up there, and we're not experts, so we need to call the guys who did the installation and have them take a look and try to fix it so it stops raining inside. Of course, it's Memorial Day and everything is closed, so in the best possible scenario we'll see them tomorrow, but trying to get HVAC people out during a heat wave is like... I don't know what it's like, because it's too damn hot to think, but suffice it to say we probably won't get an appointment for a week or two. I am praying we don't need to take apart the closet again to fix this.

It could be worse - the leak could have gone on all day while we were at work and we could have come home to a horrible mess. It could have leaked onto our computer equipment. Honestly, an ugly patch on the ceiling isn't the end of the world, and living in the heat for a few days won't kill us either, so I'm trying to keep some perspective. It's hard on us, though, because we keep having really rotten luck with this house and it's discouraging. We love this place, which is why we bought it, but I'm almost ready to believe the place is cursed. Between the ants and the leaks and the temperature problems, I think it's possible the house doesn't like us and wants us to leave.

Does anyone have an exorcist they'd recommend?

Sonoma

Even in the rain, Sonoma was gorgeous. We stayed at a sweet little bed & breakfast place called the Sonoma Chalet, where most of the guest rooms consist of stand-alone cabins on the edges of the property.
We stayed in Sarah’s Cottage, which was set far back from the main house and fairly isolated. The décor was country-antique-eclectic, with mixed fabric patterns and odd ceramic figurines, and the walls (and floor, and ceiling) were all wood-paneled, like we were living inside a hollowed-out tree in a room decorated by someone’s Great-Aunt Mildred.

I was dismayed to see that we had no TV, because I’m so used to having something to watch, even if it’s in the background and I’m not paying attention to it. How did we pass the time? After trekking around to a bunch of wineries and finding a spot for dinner, we didn’t have a ton of evening left before going to sleep, so we opened up the beat-up Scrabble box under the coffee table and gave that a whirl. We’re not very good at Scrabble. I love word games, but I’m not good with this one, unfortunately. We decided to throw the rules out the window and use abbreviations, acronyms, and I’m pretty sure we made up a couple of words but since we didn’t have a dictionary we just went nuts.

There was a mourning-dove-filled aviary in the yard, and I was woken up at 5:30 by their soft cooing rooster impressions on both of the days we stayed there. I also saw what I think was a quail, and there were cows browsing in the field next door. The porch and garden were beautiful, and it’s really too bad it was raining, because I would have loved to sit out on one of the chairs with a cup of tea and enjoy the view. The place was lush with plants both inside and out, and it was relaxing to be surrounded by so much green.


We ate well in Sonoma. The town square is beautiful and covered with shops and restaurants of every conceivable type, and so we wandered in circles (squares?), reading menus and trying to decide what to try. The first night was good, but not good enough for me to have remembered the name of the place. I had a mushroom and roasted garlic pizza and we ended up snacking on leftovers the next day because it was so huge I couldn’t even imagine finishing it at dinner. The second night was the best meal, at the El Dorado Kitchen on the town square. We sat in the lounge area because we showed up without reservations, but the food was the same and the service was excellent. I tried the bacon-wrapped pork tenderloin with polenta and pickled onions, and it was beyond fabulous. It was plated all elegantly like on the cooking shows – not quite Iron Chef fancy, but definitely a nicer presentation than I ever manage at home or see at any of our regular places. It was delicious. If you are ever in Sonoma, go there!

Meanwhile, the wineries in Sonoma were wonderful and we saw a lot of them, but that’s for another post.

Jen's Library: The Hedgehog's Dilemma

The Hedgehog's Dilemma: A Tale of Obsession, Nostalgia, and the World's Most Charming Mammal
by Hugh Warwick

I know nothing about hedgehogs besides that they are small, spiky, and a friend of mine has one as a pet. His name is Hitch (the hog, not the friend) and while I’ve never had the pleasure of meeting him, I’ve seen him on his webcam and he’s definitely cute.

This book is by a biologist who has researched hedgehogs for quite some time and has developed an affection for them. Apparently hedgehogs are huge in the UK. Well, they themselves are still small critters, of course, but they’re quite popular and common. They’re not often pets, though – they’re wild animals who wander around in gardens and eat slugs and get squished by cars if they venture out onto the roads.

Across the Atlantic, there’s a whole Hedgehog Preservation Society, and some people are so dedicated that they've converted their homes into rehabilitation hospitals for the little guys when they’re found sick or injured. If you go by this book, most folks in the UK are in love with these animals, and frankly, I can’t see the appeal. Sure, they’re cute, but why love them and not squirrels or field mice? The author claims that hedgehogs have more distinct personalities than mice, and they’re a lot more like cats or dogs, but I don’t know how true that is. I guess maybe I could see myself putting out a hedgehog feeder if they were native to the area, the same way I put out a bird feeder for the cardinals (which ended up being a squirrel feeder for the squirrels), so I could see them more often. But they’re not native to Maryland, so their charm will remain a mystery to me. Maybe if I finally meet Hitch in person, I’ll become a convert.

Jen's Library - How to Be an American Housewife

How to Be an American Housewife
by Margaret Dilloway

Sometimes, I get a book recommendation from one of the trashy magazines left in the lab break room. This was one of those times. I can't remember if it was People magazine or US magazine, but I think it had "insider's secrets about the upcoming royal wedding" all over the front cover.

I tried very hard, while reading this novel, not to compare it to Amy Tan's Joy Luck Club, one of my all-time favorite novels. To a degree, they're similar. They focus on mother-daughter relationships between Asian women (in this book they were Japanese, and Amy Tan's characters are Chinese) and their American-born daughters, and the cross-cultural conflicts as experienced by both sides. They're both good. But while the plot is interesting enough, Margaret Dilloway's characters feel flat and lifeless and predictable. It's hard to see them as anything but characters in this book, because they don't feel real enough. I'm not sure if that's because I'm comparing them to the women in Joy Luck Club, but either way, I had a hard time really enjoying the book. I finished it, and it kept my interest through the story, but it was predictable and didn't leave me with that sense of satisfaction as I shut the book at the end.

I can see why it got a good review in the magazine, because it's not a bad book., and I did enjoy it. But I feel like it's not the book it could have been. There was a lot more potential there and I wish it had gone a little deeper and given me more. Woman falls for the wrong man, repents her sins by marrying someone her family approves of, tries to adjust to a new country as an immigrant and struggles to raise her kids in America with her Japanese values. And the daughter of course doesn't understand her mother's weird old-fashioned ways and struggles with being neither Japanese enough or American enough to make anyone happy. So much to work with, but I wish it had lived up to my expectations.

My favorite part of the book was the little quotations at the start of each chapter, from a handbook issued to Japanese war brides, entitled "How to be an American Housewife". But sadly, this is also fiction. How awesome would it be to read that handbook, if it were real?

Golden Gate Bridge

I knew the bridge was huge. I mean, it's this world-famous giant orange suspension bridge, with San Francisco Bay on one side and the Pacific on the other, so you know it's not going to be a dinky little thing swaying in the breeze. But seeing it is not at all like imagining it. It even looks huge from miles away, and it positively looms as you approach it.

Driving across it, I didn't even feel like we were on a bridge. It was wide enough that it seemed like it was just a road, up really high. Yes, I realize that's essentially the definition of "bridge", but I'm bad with heights, and driving on most bridges makes me a little nervous. The Chesapeake Bay Bridge to the Eastern Shore, for example. Butt clenched the entire way across, every time I've had the happy opportunity to cross it. The Golden Gate bridge didn't give me that "OMG I'm going to plummet and die" feeling. Until I tried it on foot, that is.

There was an observation area by the highway on the north side of the bridge, so we got out and enjoyed the view for a few minutes while I rustled up some courage for the big walk. The walkway is nice solid concrete, and wide enough for me to be able to stay on the roadway side of it so I wouldn't feel like I was falling off. I was surprised that the railing was so low along the edge - the big bridge in Montreal has a "cage" to keep people from jumping. Maybe they don't have as big a problem with jumpers in SF?

There were lots of other people on the bridge, and I got a good giggle out of the one girl who decided a mini and go-go boots were just the thing to wear for a windy walk - hope she was doing it on purpose, because a whole lot of people were enjoying views of her undies! We walked all the way to the first giant upright section you can see in the picture, and at that point the wind seriously picked up and I started to feel nervous, which was expressed by my death grip on the railing and my shrinking towards the ground. I kept unconsciously folding up into a crouch as I walked, like I was trying to crawl back to the car, and even though I kept catching myself and telling myself to stand up and stop being a chicken, it kept happening!


I will say that it was absolutely worth the terror, though, because it was a view and experience I'll never forget. The sun was out, the city was beautiful, I was on the Golden Gate Bridge with my husband, and that is a memory to cherish.

Punch Buggy

It didn't take long for us to notice the increased presence of VW Beetles in San Francisco. They were everywhere. This led to us quickly reverting to our most childish selves, whomping each other in the arm and giggling. After an hour or two on the roads, it was apparent that continuing in this manner would lead to suspicious and painful bruising, so we switched to a game of "poke-buggy". I'd say we averaged four pokes an hour while we were on the road.

Some of my favorite moments of the trip were when we'd both spot one at the same time and jostle in the car frantically trying to poke each other. Or arguing about whether that one is the same one we saw a few minutes ago or if it's a new one - because of course you can't double-poke on the same Beetle. When we had my cousin in front passenger seat in the car so he could give us a tour of the city, my dedicated husband reached into the back seat to attempt to poke me for a classic Beetle. Needless to say my cousin was confused. Explaining it to him probably didn't help and he likely thinks we're completely insane. But I can live with that.

I'm pretty sure we've called a poke-buggy truce now. But maybe that's just because we haven't seen one since we've gotten home.

Back from the west coast

That was a week well spent. I'll be making a few posts about the trip over the next few days, because there's too much to squash into one and I need to spend at least part of today doing laundry anyway so I can be ready to go back to (ugh) work.

San Francisco is a great city, and wine country is gorgeous (not to mention overloaded with fabulous wines). We got in on Saturday and managed to see and do so much over the course of the week that it felt like a longer vacation than it was... except that it was too short, like all vacations, in the end.

Since the time change gave us three extra hours in our day, we wanted to take a drive through the city, just to see it. The plan was to leave for Sonoma in the morning, and not be back in SF until Thursday afternoon, but when we realized how much time we had left on Saturday, it seemed silly to spend it at the hotel near the airport. We only planned on a drive-by, because we were warned about exorbitant parking rates in the touristy areas, and we didn't want to spend a ton of money just to get an hour or so in town. Well, the parking gods were smiling on us and we found street parking right near Fisherman's Wharf, so instead of a drive, we went for a walk. I know that area is designed for tourists and isn't "authentic", but I'd have felt silly about going to SF and not at least seeing it.


It was cold and cloudy and very windy, but the rain stayed away and we had a great first afternoon, walking around for an hour or two and having a snack at Boudin Bakery. SF is famous for sourdough bread, and while this particular place is a bit of a tourist trap, I think they make some damn good bread. I almost bought a little sourdough turtle, but he wouldn't have made it home uneaten. Bread is my weakness. I never net a carb I didn't love.

All we really did that afternoon was sit around for a while enjoying the view and the air. We could see Alcatraz across the water, then turn around and see the city, with the Coit tower and Transamerica pyramid poking up, with a soundtrack provided by the wind, the gulls, and the sea lions barking over at Pier 39.

Stay tuned for the wine country portion of the trip!

Surprise irises!

I found the leaves for these earlier in the spring and didn't think anything would come of them because they're in a messy overgrown area of the yard and completely choked with weeds, but look what they are now!

They're gorgeous! I'll move them later this year, so they have their own space where I can enjoy them. I'll be needing good gloves, though, because their current home is basically a bed of dandelions and poison ivy.

This yard has had so many surprises!

DIY Egg McMuffinish things

We're leaving before the sun even considers coming up tomorrow and won't really have time to think about breakfast before we have to hit the road. I know I'm never happy with just a granola bar, and stopping for fast food breakfast costs money and takes time. So tonight, I took a few minutes and I made a yummy reheatable breakfast for tomorrow!

It's the easiest thing ever - just English Muffins, eggs, ham, and cheese. It's best with nice sharp cheddar, but I only had Kraft singles on hand, which is why you see that unnatural yellow layer in my sandwiches. I fry the eggs, trying very hard to keep them restricted to a small round footprint in the frying pan so they won't flop over the sides of the English muffins later. I assume it's much easier with a silicone egg-ring, but I haven't gotten around to buying one yet since I don't make these often. I sprinkle them with salt and pepper as they cook and then I plop them onto English muffin halves. I added a few ham slices and a slice of cheese, and stuck them into a plastic container in the fridge for tomorrow morning. They only need about 25-30 seconds in the microwave to get melty and delicious.

When I'm making them for immediate eating, I heat up the ham in the pan while the egg cooks beside it, and then layer it on top. I put the cheese on top of that and let it melt a tiny bit before transferring the whole thing to an English muffin. That way everything is melty and delicious without the need for a turn in the microwave.

Jen's Library - Little Princes

Little Princes: One Man's Promise to Bring Home the Lost Children of Nepal
By Conor Grennan

This falls squarely into the "couldn't put it down" category.

This guy volunteered at an orphanage in Nepal and learned that most of the children there weren't orphans at all. Apparently, there was a lot of child trafficking happening in Nepal during the civil war of the late 90s and early 2000s - fearing that their children would be recruited into the insurgents' army, poor rural parents paid people huge amounts of money to take their children out of danger and into the city, where they would be safe. Sadly, many of these children were dumped off and left homeless in Kathmandu, or sold as servants. Some were told their parents were dead, killed in the war.

When Conor Grennan discovered this sad truth, he made it his mission to find the parents of the "orphans" and give the families a chance to reunite. His story is fascinating and terrifying - hiking through the Himalayas to remote villages where nobody speaks his language and the answer to "where is the toilet" is "no", finding himself waylaid by armed insurgents demanding to know why he's there, and fighting against a powerful ring of child-traffickers in a country where the government has little power to help him.

As sad as parts of this book are, it's an inspirational and uplifting story about a man who finds his purpose in life and dozens of amazing kids who are getting their families back. He writes well, and his book is a smooth, funny, exciting story that reads almost like a blog. You're a friend and he's telling you about these awesome things he's done.

If you're interested in his story and his cause and want to learn more, his website and nonprofit organization is Next Generation Nepal. Check it out.