Studio Livin'

That's what it's like, people.  Two cats, a dog and two homeowners crammed into a master bedroom while the rest of the condo is a disaster.  The second bedroom and hallway are full of everything that should be in the living room/kitchen.  I can't even bring myself to take pictures of it all right now.  But maybe this will give you some idea of the scale of The Mess.

Those bags contain what were our hardwood floors.  That's a lot of bags, no?  It's all very sad.  Adding to this fun, a couple of other things have come up.

1. My car's "check engine" light came on.  It comes on (and stays on) when the manufacturer feels you should take it in.  This time it was cause I reached 25,000 miles.  This was especially important because I need new tags in August, which require my car to pass an emissions test.  They automatically fail you if your check engine light is on.  So, I took it in and learned that it would cost "a minimum of $330" to change all the fluids and do the 25,000 check.  Next thing I know, I have two voicemails and several missed calls from the dealer and P.  Apparently when they couldn't reach me, they called him.  When I called them back, they told me my front rotors and break pads needed replacing, and that it wasn't safe not to replace them.  When I got my 15,000 mile check-up, I had my rotors resurfaced and my break pads replaced.  This was in 2006.  As you can see, I don't drive my car very much.  It's a 2004 with 25,000 miles, and it was a program car, so it had 5,000 miles on it when I bought it.  I guess that's part of the problem.  I know nothing about cars, but this man tells me that normal breaking will remove surface rust from your rotors.  Since I don't really do much "normal breaking", my rotors rusted through.  Total cost: $714.
2. This whole "studio living" thing isn't so good for interpersonal relationships.  So, we needed to get out of the house.  We met our friend Mike at Wild Pug for "Dog Day Afternoon".  The bar opens its doors to pets and their owners, and all the dogs run around and tire each other out while their people get drunk.  It's a real good time and Fergie loves it.  When we came back home to show Mike the devastation in our unit, we noticed that there was water leaking out of the freezer.  There wasn't much water, but there isn't much floor, so the water was in danger of hitting the subfloor, which can't be good.  I called our insurance company immediately because I had visions of a "well, since you didn't call us about this, this isn't covered" kind of conversation.  They told me to call the adjuster, which I did.  He didn't answer, so I left a VM.  Still waiting for a call back.  I also tried calling the company that did the floor removal but got some poor man in the Hinsdale branch who had no record of our service call.  To that man, I apologize.  I wasn't in a terribly good mood.  I eventually got the correct number.  They've put a large piece of plastic over the door to our living room/kitchen -- it's a bit like "ET".  They set up five air movers and a huge dehumidifier to dry the subfloors.  The A/C sensor is in the hallway, on the other side of the plastic.  So, the living room was pretty hot compared to the rest of our condo.  The freezer began to defrost.  I think we've got it under control now, but it made for a very tense evening.  Again, those interpersonal relationships are hard in situations like these.  

That's pretty much it for the disasters.  Knock on wood!  On today's agenda: move the cable box into the bedroom so we can watch our programs.  Cause we're 80 and are set in our ways.