The Storm, Outside and In
Our old refrigerator went nuts and filled the freezer compartment with enough snow so that if I opened the door, it would fall on me and the floor. We bought a new refrigerator form Crane Appliance. They brought it, installed it and took away the old one. Only one thing wrong: the new refrigerator has no handle and no holes to attach screws for a new handle. We have been trying to get them to give us a new door or a new refrigerator, but so far no luck. I am getting angrier by the day. I have broken three fingernails. In order to put anything in, I have to putdown whatever I’m holding and open the door manually. I would certainly never buy another appliance from Crane Appliance.
We were planting bulbs – daffodils, tulips, crocuses – when the storm came. We got some rain, not nearly as much as the weather sites and TV weather people predicted, but much higher winds than they said would hit us. Ptown got 90 mph gusts.
Thursday we had no internet . We lost power briefly but it’s back. No email, internet, no TV, no landline.That’s how I do business. I couldn’tt do much except write, which was fine fora while. The night of the storm Woody and I couldn’t sleep for the howling of the winds. For one thing, acorns kept bombing the sunporch translucent plastic roof all night. That’s right outside my bedroom. Xena kept going out through the catdoor onto the sunporch and then coming back and telling me with her body language and mews that something was very wrong. Finally we gave up and rose very early. We put some time into straightening up the storeroom downstairs, finding ancient food items long forgotten and only fit to be put into the compost or taken to the dump. Now it’s organized, at least for a while. That helps as I had put items on the grocery list like green olives, but it turned out we had four jars of them lost on the overcrowded shelves that are no longer crowded.
We still have bulbs to plant today and it’s time for me to pot herbs that must come into the house for the winter and also any of the tender ornamentals I want to keep for the next year if I can. I started on rosemary yesterday, potted 5 of them. I’m hoping the wind, that has been still quite busy, diminishes today. Woody left a window open in the downstairs bathroom and the wind blew a box of tissues off the edge and made everything very chilly.
The TV finally came back just in time to see some of theChiefs/Broncos game. We were so exhausted we went to bed at halftime. It was a runaway for the Chiefs anyhow. Such games unless they’re your team winning are boring. And the officiating this season interrupts the game every two or three plays. They’re killing football. Soon games will take as long as baseball games. And half the penalties are stupid. Then they miss plays that should have been called. We need robot officials.
This weekend is Oysterfest so we’re holing up here and won’t venture out till this evening when it’s over till Sunday. Martha gives a party every Saturday night of Oysterfest. Soon many drunks will wander the streets, Main St will be closed and lined with nonprofits begging for money and some of the oyster selling booths. We are eating oysters this week but not because of the festival. I can’t object to it as locals make some money, although the beer company sponsoring it makes the most. Many of the booths of artifacts are just what you’d fine at any of the local fairs and have nothing to do with Wellfleet. But the restaurants all put out good food if you can make your way through the crowd to buy some. The oyster shucking contest always draws a crowd. One year Woody worked the beer concession for the fest and he was astonished how much beer he sold and how much he was tipped, but once was enough for him.
BREAKING NEWS: Crane is going to exchange refrigerators, although we don’t know when. So maybe I won’t break any more nails.