Kim and I live in this red converted church. There are a few quirks to our apartment, such as the fact that our shower likes to get hot or cold at least once per shower. I thought we discovered one of the last quirks we'd learn about ten days ago over dinner.
It was Friday, and I had made something that needed baking in the oven (probably potato wedges tossed with garlic and herb oil--we've mentioned our current obsession with potatoes, yes?) and we were eating at our table in the kitchen. I was nearly finished with my meal when I heard a weird popping noise come from the oven. I'd forgotten to turn it off, so I did that and peeked inside to see what was going on. What was going on was a small flame coming from the heating element.
I believe my reaction was first to say, "Kim? Our oven's on fire..." and then to be in the cupboard looking for the baking soda. I'm not sure if turning off the oven or pouring the baking soda onto it put out the fire, but one or the combination of the two worked. After we finished eating, we opened the oven back up to see if we could figure out what had happened. We hadn't spilled anything that ignited, but instead it seemed like the element had cracked.
A call to our landlords later, we were ready to have a weekend full of stove-top dishes. Of course I did some internet research and learned that some people whose ovens had spontaneously burst into flame couldn't even turn on their stove tops without the oven igniting. Luckily ours wasn't that bad. By Tuesday evening we had a new element put in and made celebratory baked goods. The oven worked so much better after that fix. All in all, I think we ended up gaining for the experience.
Unfortunately, this wasn't the end of our "Things break and we wait and are inconvenienced while the landlord fixes it" adventures. This last Saturday we woke up to a cold apartment. By cold I mean just under sixty degrees. Luckily there was hot water, so we warmed up with showers. Of course we put in a call to the landlord and were happy to hear noises of what we imagined to be fixing coming from the boiler room.
That afternoon Kim and I bundled up and left our cold apartment to go downtown and check out the ice carving competition with the full expectation that we'd return to a cozily warm apartment and have more baked goods to keep celebrating the return of our oven.
Watching people carve ice is something I'd never seen. I don't even remember seeing an ice sculpture before. When we walked onto the commons, there were both finished sculptures and works-in-progress to look at. I think what struck me about the finished ones was how transformed the blocks of ice were. Here was something taller than me made of this clear substance that glinted in the light. Later in the evening, the strings of white lights that garland the trees and twined around the pillars would make the sculptures sparkle in the twilight.
The in-progress ones were rough and chunky compared to their finished counterparts. As I watched, the sculptors used water to fuse two pieces of ice together. It was only then that I thought to look for seams in the finished products. When watching, you had to be careful of where you stood so you wouldn't get the wind blowing ice dust in your face, especially when the artist got out the chain saw.
However, I forgot my camera, so here I invite all the curious to go to google (or your preferred search engine) and type something in like, "Ithaca ice wars 2011," and browse.
We got home cold, and discovered three space heaters on the floor and a message on my cell phone. The two-year-old boiler was broken, but it'd be fixed Monday. Until then, we would have to get by with the space heaters.
Our water was cold, and we huddled by our space heaters in an attempt to warm up our fingers and toes. I made brownies and we put down towels and blankets on the coldest parts of the floor, and our spirits couldn't help but lift. We'd get by. It would be just a few days.
Then Monday came, and the boiler was still not fixed. Tuesday got us word that the part to fix the boiler was supposed to be in Monday, but would definitely be in on Thursday. It's Wednesday now. We'll see what tomorrow brings. I'm hoping for hot water so I don't have to repeat this morning.
This morning I gave in to the feeling of unwashed hair and boiled two pots of water on the stove. I poured those into our kitchen sink, diluted the water with cold and stood on a towel (to keep my feet warm) in front of it. Yesterday Kim managed to gracefully wash her hair in the sink. Her long-sleeved shirt even stayed dry. I, on the other hand, am either uncoordinated, unpracticed, or simply too short. My left hand was terribly awkward and wouldn't follow the right hand's lead. I had to stand on tip-toes to reach, and even then I would lose my balance in my attempts to lean properly over the sink. My arms ended up wet up to my elbows, and I definitely got water in my ears and eyes.
I did end up with clean hair, so I guess it was successful.
For now I'm hoping for a proper shower on Friday morning, and a good laugh later about how loud two of our three space heaters are.
UPDATE 12/15/2011 at 9:06 pm: We have hot water!
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