( Some background on bells and clappers: )
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So the first thing to note about The Time Wot The Clapper Fell Off The Bell is that I wasn’t actually there. I was at home with Peter, and only found out when![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
sorcyress texted me that I was “missing an Exciting Day at bells today!”
The second thing to note is that it was still, pretty much, my fault.
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---------
So the first thing to note about The Time Wot The Clapper Fell Off The Bell is that I wasn’t actually there. I was at home with Peter, and only found out when
sorcyress texted me that I was “missing an Exciting Day at bells today!”The second thing to note is that it was still, pretty much, my fault.
( Read More )
(no subject)
Dec. 15th, 2018 10:06 pmToday featured bashing my leg on a lamppost base hard enough to draw blood, having the quarter peal I'd been psyching myself up for get cancelled after the fire alarm went off earlier in the afternoon,* and the discovery that TeaLuxe in Harvard Square is going out of business, probably because Harvard is on a short-sighted** quest to buy up all of Harvard Square and then systematically remove all local character in favor of chain-store wasteland.
However, practice went well, and I went out for tea withnineweaving, which was pretty excellent; and bought my brother lots of tea.
* We were doing an afternoon of quarter peals--just for fun/as a learning exercise. This would have been the first time I rang any serious length of Kent, though I've been pushing for it. Anyway, though, during QP #1 either the ringing stirred up enough dust to confuse the fire alarm system, or it simply went haywire. Our sexton did NOT want to risk setting the fire alarm off again if it was the dust, so the rest of the QPs got cancelled. We'll hopefully try again in January.
** And also evil, but I kindof EXPECT that from a large institution in this country
However, practice went well, and I went out for tea with
nineweaving, which was pretty excellent; and bought my brother lots of tea.* We were doing an afternoon of quarter peals--just for fun/as a learning exercise. This would have been the first time I rang any serious length of Kent, though I've been pushing for it. Anyway, though, during QP #1 either the ringing stirred up enough dust to confuse the fire alarm system, or it simply went haywire. Our sexton did NOT want to risk setting the fire alarm off again if it was the dust, so the rest of the QPs got cancelled. We'll hopefully try again in January.
** And also evil, but I kindof EXPECT that from a large institution in this country
Argh.
So there's this dichotomy:
μέν: This morning I processed a couple of letters* addressed to "Herrn X,** Department of Y, Z University". And something inside me wondered, Why don't I get letters to Herrn Schreiber anymore? Why don't I have a REAL job, doing something prestigious, corresponding internationally? Why, basically, am I eating these husks?
δε: On Friday, as some of you know, I left my credit card at a Friendly's. Sunday night, I was attempting to remove the air conditioner that my roommate had lent me from my window...
You know those scenes - in movies, in dreams - where something drops into the bottomless pit, while the protagonist scrambles frantically to hold onto it? Well, I recreated that with the AC.
Fortunately, there wasn't anything underneath it other than my landlady's lawn, so only the AC got totaled.
But now, thanks to my klutzhood, I am temporarily without a credit card, and out the cost of a replacement air conditioner, and it's times like these - note I say LIKE these - that I wonder why I'm even allowed to go on existing at all.
I want to be able to forgive myself, so that I can enjoy this week*** ...but that's going to be hard. And unfortunately, I could call up my parents, but ... ...actually, let's not get into that.
σύνθεσις: 1. Either way, thinking about these things makes me feel terrible.
2. On a partly unrelated note, Maybe I should go back on antidepressants. I stopped because μέν they weren't making me happy per se, δε so I possibly needed some other combination of drugs, but for THAT I really want an actual qualified psychiatrist prescribing 'em, and I don't really have the time to do all those appointments, δε I could manage without the drugs, wasn't suffering from anhedonia or anything. But I'm having trouble...humaning, as I think of the verb.
More about this later, maybe.
3. ...I should finish this up, and try to get my smart phone activated before my lunch break is up.
* among 2000+.
** For non-linguists: Herrn is the accusative form of the German Herr: letters in the German-speaking world are usually addressed "Herrn [or Frau] X".
μέν and δε are Greek particles: both have multiple meanings, but the important thing is that they are used to set up sentences in the form of "On the one hand...but on the other hand..." My Greek textbook REALLY liked this construction, so it got used a LOT, and consequently it's one of the things I actually remember.
*** The non-work parts are going to be pretty awesome! Work, not so much, but...
So there's this dichotomy:
μέν: This morning I processed a couple of letters* addressed to "Herrn X,** Department of Y, Z University". And something inside me wondered, Why don't I get letters to Herrn Schreiber anymore? Why don't I have a REAL job, doing something prestigious, corresponding internationally? Why, basically, am I eating these husks?
δε: On Friday, as some of you know, I left my credit card at a Friendly's. Sunday night, I was attempting to remove the air conditioner that my roommate had lent me from my window...
You know those scenes - in movies, in dreams - where something drops into the bottomless pit, while the protagonist scrambles frantically to hold onto it? Well, I recreated that with the AC.
Fortunately, there wasn't anything underneath it other than my landlady's lawn, so only the AC got totaled.
But now, thanks to my klutzhood, I am temporarily without a credit card, and out the cost of a replacement air conditioner, and it's times like these - note I say LIKE these - that I wonder why I'm even allowed to go on existing at all.
I want to be able to forgive myself, so that I can enjoy this week*** ...but that's going to be hard. And unfortunately, I could call up my parents, but ... ...actually, let's not get into that.
σύνθεσις: 1. Either way, thinking about these things makes me feel terrible.
2. On a partly unrelated note, Maybe I should go back on antidepressants. I stopped because μέν they weren't making me happy per se, δε so I possibly needed some other combination of drugs, but for THAT I really want an actual qualified psychiatrist prescribing 'em, and I don't really have the time to do all those appointments, δε I could manage without the drugs, wasn't suffering from anhedonia or anything. But I'm having trouble...humaning, as I think of the verb.
More about this later, maybe.
3. ...I should finish this up, and try to get my smart phone activated before my lunch break is up.
* among 2000+.
** For non-linguists: Herrn is the accusative form of the German Herr: letters in the German-speaking world are usually addressed "Herrn [or Frau] X".
μέν and δε are Greek particles: both have multiple meanings, but the important thing is that they are used to set up sentences in the form of "On the one hand...but on the other hand..." My Greek textbook REALLY liked this construction, so it got used a LOT, and consequently it's one of the things I actually remember.
*** The non-work parts are going to be pretty awesome! Work, not so much, but...
...So the night before last we were attempting to watch Russian Ark (A rather bizarre film--it´s a tour of the Hermitage Palace in St. Petersburg´s history and art collections, all in one shot). I say attempting, because a) the various video programs on our computers have issues, and b) on Grace´s computer, it kept stalling at chapter 12. Hence, I tried it out on MY computer. And, after some trial and error, manage to get it to actually work. So I invited Grace over to our makeshift couch/daybed, and plugged it in.
A word about plugs. My computer has the standard power converter etc., but German plugs have a different shape than US ones; so while the computer is perfectly happy to run on European current, it needs a plug adaptor. For this purpose, I use an old thing that I think was actually designed for electric rasers.
So you can probably imagine what happened when I tried plugging this arrangement into the (rather old) multiple-plug extension cord under the day bed.
Yep. The lights went out. We managed to remain calm. Grace discovered that the lights over the kitchen sink and in the bathroom still worked; I went out into the front hall and located the fuse box for the building. Unfortunately, it WAS a fuse box...and I have never been initiated into the anceient art of Fuse Replacement. Nor were there any spare fuses, either there or (after some hurried searching) in the apartment.
I called the Hausverwaltung. No response. I looked up the word for "blew a fuse" (man sagt tatsächlich, "Die Sicherung ist durchgebrannt"), and called our landlord´s secretary.
"Herr Burson! How nice to hear from you! It´s been a long time! How are you?"
"Im moment nicht so gut...Die Sicherung ist durchgebrannt..."
We discussed this for a few minutes, discovering in the process that NEITHER of us actually knew the word for fuse. She said she would call her husband, who hopefully would.
Half an hour and a phone call to my landlord later, she was there, with husband, who examined the fuse box and revealed that there were in fact no fuses in the plugs for our apartment. We knocked on the door of our neighbor (whom we'd never met), in the hope of advice and/or spare fuses.
"Do you think it's too late?" flustered Frau Rabe. "I can hear him watching television..." I replied. He proved to be a somewhat irascible old man, but he gave us the vital information that HIS electricity was controlled by a separate panel. Armed with this information, we opened the closet by the front door, and discovered a row of Stromunterbrecher (Argh, what's that in English again?) Mission accomplished.
But I still don't know how to change a fuse.
Meantime, it's Saint Patrick's day. I feel like I ought to be out at an Irish pub drinking green beer, but I'm really not in the mood. Top o' the evening to ye, though!
A word about plugs. My computer has the standard power converter etc., but German plugs have a different shape than US ones; so while the computer is perfectly happy to run on European current, it needs a plug adaptor. For this purpose, I use an old thing that I think was actually designed for electric rasers.
So you can probably imagine what happened when I tried plugging this arrangement into the (rather old) multiple-plug extension cord under the day bed.
Yep. The lights went out. We managed to remain calm. Grace discovered that the lights over the kitchen sink and in the bathroom still worked; I went out into the front hall and located the fuse box for the building. Unfortunately, it WAS a fuse box...and I have never been initiated into the anceient art of Fuse Replacement. Nor were there any spare fuses, either there or (after some hurried searching) in the apartment.
I called the Hausverwaltung. No response. I looked up the word for "blew a fuse" (man sagt tatsächlich, "Die Sicherung ist durchgebrannt"), and called our landlord´s secretary.
"Herr Burson! How nice to hear from you! It´s been a long time! How are you?"
"Im moment nicht so gut...Die Sicherung ist durchgebrannt..."
We discussed this for a few minutes, discovering in the process that NEITHER of us actually knew the word for fuse. She said she would call her husband, who hopefully would.
Half an hour and a phone call to my landlord later, she was there, with husband, who examined the fuse box and revealed that there were in fact no fuses in the plugs for our apartment. We knocked on the door of our neighbor (whom we'd never met), in the hope of advice and/or spare fuses.
"Do you think it's too late?" flustered Frau Rabe. "I can hear him watching television..." I replied. He proved to be a somewhat irascible old man, but he gave us the vital information that HIS electricity was controlled by a separate panel. Armed with this information, we opened the closet by the front door, and discovered a row of Stromunterbrecher (Argh, what's that in English again?) Mission accomplished.
But I still don't know how to change a fuse.
Meantime, it's Saint Patrick's day. I feel like I ought to be out at an Irish pub drinking green beer, but I'm really not in the mood. Top o' the evening to ye, though!
Yes indeed: yesterday there was a knock on the door, and I opened it to admit a large electrician in coveralls, here to have a look at the Waschmaschine situation. I took him down to the basement, and showed him the washing mashine, the taped together plumbing and the non-functioning pump. Then had to do this a couple more times as we were joined by
Another guy in coveralls (Installateur, which more or less=plumber), who opened up the pump (strong smell of sulpher) and the piping (further gush of water and smell of something growing...). In THEORY he´ll be back tomorrow to fix the pump.
Landlord´s wonderful scretary
Representative of the building management, who informed us that they now want to have the possibility of MULTIPLE washing mashines in this part of the basement, with SEPARATE plugs.
By this point, with five people all examining the situation, it really was starting to resemble the New Cooker Sketch...
Another guy in coveralls (Installateur, which more or less=plumber), who opened up the pump (strong smell of sulpher) and the piping (further gush of water and smell of something growing...). In THEORY he´ll be back tomorrow to fix the pump.
Landlord´s wonderful scretary
Representative of the building management, who informed us that they now want to have the possibility of MULTIPLE washing mashines in this part of the basement, with SEPARATE plugs.
By this point, with five people all examining the situation, it really was starting to resemble the New Cooker Sketch...
