Small accomplishments

About 3 weeks ago, our communal mailbox was vandalized. The postal lock was damaged, parts were bent and my box's lock was broken. It didn't appear that any theft happened but how someone could've gotten in and why they did the damage were confusing to all of us. Our front lobby door closer was fixed months ago. The door into the lobby from the garage has a lock and it was not damaged. 

While this was a frustrating situation, the worst of it was yet to come. It took several calls, a few visits and a lot of conflicting information for us to figure out what we had to do with our mail service until we could get our box replaced. 

Finally, this weekend, I found a handyman to remove the old box and install the new one that I found. 

The saga is not over, as we still need to wait on the Post Office to install the new postal lock and there is no ETA on when they will receive one. Sigh. I really want to be supportive of the USPS but they just make it so hard. 

New Fridge!

Two weeks later, I have a fridge again! 

It took two stores (Best Buy, Home Depot), some soul searching to focus on what is most important for me in a fridge (side-by-side, white, ice/water in door, adjustable shelves), dealing with some friendly but not so knowledgeable staff, a long wait on hold with the delivery company, two additional trips to the store and finding the one guy who knows everything, and a pre-emptive call again to the delivery company because their automated call wasn't early enough for me. 

When the guys did arrive, they did quick work of pulling out the old fridge, installing the new one, removing all of the annoying protective plastic and disposing of the trash. Bonus: the fridge space floor has never been so clean.

I'm thoroughly enjoying the ice cubes and water, I've added some freezer organizers (at suggestion of my neighbour) and shelf liners and slowly building back my food stash. 

Your most precious appliance is your refrigerator

So apparently, refrigerators are a hot (😂 see what I did there?) and rare commodity right now. Sadly for me.

My fridge (which was here when I moved in) bit the dust. It died overnight with all of my freezer items pretty much melted in the morning. I had a repair guy come and look at it but there was no hope. 

When I tried to find fridges available to be delivered in the next few days-nothing. I thought I had some options but even those disappeared the next day. 

I was able to borrow space from a neighbour for a couple of days. I found a mini-fridge at Best Buy late on Thursday. Crossed my fingers that they actually had it and I could pick it up the next day. And they came thru! Thank you Best Buy!!

So now I've got the few things I could salvage from my fridge stored safely. A few things remain in my neighbours freezer for the duration. I took the weekend off from fridge hunting, I'll pick it up again this week.

One thing I found online that has been a wonderful salve for the soul is the LA Phil's Sound/Stage series. They are a series of 1/2 hr online concerts, filmed at the Hollywood Bowl in August. The musicians are spread apart on the giant stage, wind players behind a plexi screen. No audience. There have been 2 so far and they have been incredibly beautiful and poignant.