More Philly Hall Adventures!

Since my last post about apartment life, several random things have happened, and it's high time for another series of snapshots.  All these tidbits have to do with appliances of various sorts and sizes.

1. The Stove.  I was sitting in a chair minding my own business after church one evening.  Lelia and Emily (my roommates) were moving stuff our to the car and had left the door open.  Suddenly, I looked up to find the manager of Philly Hall in my living room.  (This is not the usual place to find the Philly manager!)  He and his wife came the rest of the way into the house and informed us that our gas stove was leaking and we needed to move out of the apartment immediately.  (It was nearly eleven o'clock at night.)  They seemed quite concerned about us, called maintenance, and unlocked another apartment for us to move into.  Maintenance turned off all the gas to the stove, opened the windows, and told us that we could stay in the apartment providing that we aired it out.  One difficulty was that we had no way to cook food.  Fortunately, there were enough carrots and oatmeal in the house to sustain life...  The other difficulty was that in the scuffle, the folder with my Hebrew homework got lost and didn't turn up for a week.  It was hiding under a couch cushion...:)

2. The Air Conditioner.  Living on the second floor can be quite warm during the summertime.  Our apartment was short one air conditioner, and it was getting pretty miserable.  After chasing several rabbit trails that were supposed to lead to air conditioners, Lelia and I made a trek to the basement ourselves, braved potential spiders, selected the air conditioning unit closest to the door, and carried it up two flights of stairs to its new home.  Once safely in our apartment, we commenced the delicate task of inserting it into the window.  After several adjustments, the unit was finally fitted into the window, but, alas, the window would not seal properly.  So we kept trying, filling our heads with grand illusions of our home improvement skills.  Finally, the great moment came: we turned the unit on.  And nothing happened.  So we pushed some buttons.  And nothing happened.  So we turned some knobs.  And still nothing happened.  So Lelia cleaned the filter.  We did eventually get air conditioning, but not until our friends Phil and Paul dismantled the unit, pronounced it dead (maybe that's why it had been sitting closest to the door), and brought us a new one from the basement.  Now, the apartment is a cool retreat from the warm outdoors (when I remember to turn it on when I leave for work).

3.  The Stereo.  The stereo system that I'm babysitting for Isaac over the summer has suddenly decided to play the radio instead of whatever music is on my computer.  I decided not to fight with it...

This post may seem a bit dismal, but cheer up!  The one thing I have been successful at is washing the large pile of dishes in the sink!