If you don't have a nail, use a needle

Written last night:

Tonight even Zing is not here.  (Zing is at the kennel because I’ll be spending tomorrow at San Francisco. )

I am alone in a big bed, and about a yard to the left of it is a sliding glass door with a narrow  (4 + foot) balcony and beyond that is the night, then a tall building with lots of lighted rooms and a three-story (at least) high piece of light art at the top, randomly flowing from red to pink to purple. It’s big public art, for birds and planes and me to see. That building is not directly across the street: a federal office building comes first, and it is somewhat lower, without public art — unless you count the doubtful symbolism of the horrible pointy prongs on the iron fence around its parking lot.

I just stepped out onto the balcony to make sure: yes, the big office building is one street over, on Capitol Mall, where the Thursday lunchtime farmers market is. The night kind of squeezes all the distances together. What I see from my window is blackness, with lights in windows and what I hear from the balcony is a soft thrum of traffic with the random voice talking loud on the street, but not so I can understand. Over to my right I can see the Capitol all lighted up and to my left is a piece of that yellow bridge across the American River, also lighted. (I have learned it is supposed to be gold, like the Golden State.)

This is not the view from our porch on Dellwood Drive in Tallahassee! But I like them both. There are plenty of friendly people here. I feel like Clark has placed them in my path. On the elevator this evening a man with a rapt smile, that reminded me of my Irish cousin long ago, was glowing at me, describing his two days in “The City” — San Francisco. He’d been there for a conference and then heard music and had dinner on Union Square all alone and rather late, but everything was lively still, he said. “You’re going to love it!” he said to me, after I told him I’m heading to “The City” tomorrow.

But back to this morning: At 7 a.m. someone from the retirement office of the City of Miami, where Clark worked, called me. I had called her the other day with a question. It’s so funny to speak to someone who has been up for hours when you have not yet had coffee and your dog is barking to be let out before he pees on the floor by the door. How to explain? How to act serious? “Can you please call me back in 15 minutes?” is the best I’ve come up with.

And after my coffee I was determined to understand both the air conditioner and the toilets. Perhaps you are one of those naturals who understand these essentials. I am not. This was Clark’s bailiwick; or if not his, then his to call defeat.

Unlike any of the other services I’ve dealt with lately, Honeywell, the A/C company, answered immediately. I mean, a person! Like marriage, I could not quite understand him, but I desperately did not want to let him go! Gradually this person led me to remove the plastic A/C thing from the wall. There are a couple of layers, and I removed them one by one. Turns out you can just yank the whole thing off the wall. I was afraid I would ruin my entire system, and possibly the cooling of the world, if I did it wrong. Never mind that then our phone call was disconnected. I called the number back. “We have been experiencing difficulties. We apologize,” said helper #2. And indeed he was as helpful as #1, leading me through various button-pushing exercises. Finally he said, “I suggest you call a professional. It seems you need a new “ — whatever they call it! I’ve forgotten all these hours later. So in the end I called an A/C service. But I now know I can click the A/C button thing off the wall and nothing magic or terrible will happen. And for the moment the air conditioner seems to be working.

After that I tackled the toilet. I have two of them. Neither seems to flush with vigor. My research (Google) led me to remove the lid, then check the chain and that plastic floater thing. I have lost my repugnance at touching anything related to the toilet. It’s just water. The big revelation is that there’s a line around inside the tank, where the water is supposed to rise; mine are at low tide. The Googled solution for this was to take a small mirror and look inside the top rim of the bowl. Yes, you can do it! As we all suspected, there are holes in there, where the water comes out for flushing. Those holes might be full of gunk. So you take this small mirror — I used a makeup mirror — and tilt it so you see the holes. When you’ve got one in site you rub it with acid-based porcelain cleaner (Be sure to wear gloves and goggles.) Then you take a small nail and work around in the hole to clean it out. I used a sewing machine needle. Don’t hold me to it, but I think my toilets flush better now, or it might just be my imagination.

For fun I strolled the farmers market at lunchtime and bought a bunch of flowers and a half-pound of almonds. They are not as good as Georgia pecans.