It's been a week

What with vaxxing and biopsying, and firing and clock changing and chirping.. 

So, the evening of Diwali, i heard slight chirping, figured it was the downstairs smoke alarm. Next morning, all my helpers being unavailable, I climbed up myself, and changed the battery. 

Next day more chirping, sounded like the loft. So I hauled the steps up two flights, climbed up and changed the battery. At this point, knowing about the fire, I thought maybe residual smoke drifting in.

Last night more chirping, so I hauled the steps down one flight, climbed up and changed the second floor battery.

This morning MORE XZ*X*ZXZ**XG CHIRPING!

So I went around listening and checking. And found it was the CO detector.  Same manufacturer, same chirp. Second floor.

Changed the batteries. Chirp went high decibel. Removed one battery. Now a steady shriek. Removed other battery, muted chirping. Needs a shopping trip to replace it.

The good thing is that all my smoke alarms have new batteries. Probably didn't need them in fact. And I will have a new co detector.

My nerves may need a reset. 

I'm sitting watching birds flittering in and out of the old trees across the way.

Rain's down, soup's up, spirits middling 6WS

Today needed a reboot.  I woke before dawn, still dark o'clock, to a chirp.  Gah, why do smoke alarms notify about batteries in the night time? the next chirp confirmed that it was no use trying not to hear it.  
 
So I staggered downstairs in search of batteries and stepladders, found a battery, stepladder nowhere to be seen.  Not in the place it spozed to be, nor anywhere else that I could see with half-open eyes. Upstairs again for a second sweep, chirp still going, then back down and found it, um, in the middle of the living room...I didn't notice it because it was in the wrong place!  it was there from another adventure last night, unhooking an S hook from the ceiling, to lend it to friend next door, too complicated to explain now.

 So I finally got the steps upstairs and situated in my least favorite place, at the head of the stairs, where the alarm is.  Replaced the battery, after prodding and banging to find out how the little door opens.  Climbed down again, all smug.  Chirping continues. Took out and replaced battery.  Chirping.

Realized it must be the CO alarm on the nearby wall.  Got that off, wrenched open the little door.  And found it needs three AAs.
Back downstairs, rifle through kitchen drawer full of seeds and clips and rubber bands and batteries, amazingly found three AAs.

Back upstairs, install them, more or less got alarm hung back on wall, silly keyhole openings in the back you can't see to hang.  Got out phone and put in note to self to get more batteries.

Then breakfast for all, and catch up on email.  This is where the morning suddenly sped past, since I found I'd fallen asleep upright and woke up about an hour later. So the day did reboot.

Made a wonderful spicy soup as a consolation prize and good lunch for a cold rainy day.  Can't reproduce this, since it included all the rest of the steamed green beans from last night's dinner with Handsome Son, a bowl of spicy vegetables donated by Indian friend, chicken bones from last night, two containers of the water you get when you wash the blender after making pesto, onions and garlic, usual base in olive oil.  And very good it was, spicy but not too much so.  Hot biscuit to go with.  This restored me a treat. And made me feel a bit less incompetent about being unable to find a stepladder in the middle of the living room.

Thanksgiving 2014 and attendant excitement

Exciting evening before Tday, when I went to use my phone and it was
gone.  Massive search of the house for a couple of hours,  for my only phone
communication form, yielded nothing.  Emailed son explaining not to
expect early a.m. text in case I hadn't found the phone.

Hadn't even left the house, but I'd done a ton of things, on all three
floors.  Searched every single drawer, every piece of folded laundry, all the
prepped food, bathrooms, cupboards, art supplies, even riffled through the
groundcover near the front door, in the sleet, in case when I threw
out my tea leaves the phone sailed with them...

Finally gave up and decided to go to bed, all disgruntled. And when I
undressed found my phone....in the inside of my pant cuff!  no way of
guessing how it got there from the little pouch around my neck it
usually lives in.  Then I was overcome with falling-down-laughing at having 

carried the phone around with me for all the hours I spent searching for it. 

Then I did get to bed, and was promptly woken by smoke alarm chirping
every couple of minutes.  Had to get up, and it being way too wrong a
time to ask neighbor to climb up and replace the battery, did so
myself, climbing bravely up a set of steps placed at the head of the stairs, 

and actually managing to get the little door open and the battery replaced

without actually being able to see it properly, wrong angle for my specs.

Then figuring it was about midnight and realizing I'd forgotten my night
decongestant, took a pill and went to bed, then noticed it was 5 a.m.
 So that made it impossible to get up for a few hours, this stuff
rendering me practically comatose...

Up then finally, and glad most of the meal prep was done yesterday! looking
forward  son's early afternoon arrival.  Snowing gently, very unusual
for us at Tgiving.

Wonderful Tday with Handsome Son.  All the food went over very well,
and a large plateful all set up went home with HS for today's post
Tday meal for him.  And he left me some of the pumpkin pie and cheese
and crackers.  All very happy.

Except for one minor excitement: in the middle of things, a sudden
CHIRP!  OMG, it started again, but this time good old HS with better
directional hearing than I tracked it down to the CO alarm, changed
the batteries and blessedly it went quiet.  Enough excitement from
alarms.  But why it should go off so soon after the other may only be
a coincidence.

I remember the last time we had a CO chirp event, after a couple of
chirps from it, ALL the smoke detectors began to chirp, even though
they're not connected with the CO at all. 

I wonder if there's some sympathetic vibrations between computer chips, 

since the same chip seems to be used in all these alarms, that starts them up in a chorus.
 Or they have ambitions to be crickets in a future life...and I wonder
why the chirping typically starts up in the evening and into the night.

Well, after all the lovely day and the excitement and lack of sleep
yesterday, I slept in today and woke feeling very rested, two hours
later than usual.

And had a nice postTday breakfast

And found a nice flock of emails in my box from freecyclers wishing me for the holiday and reminding me of the transactions we'd done!   bonus there.

Memo to self: put batteries on shopping list, all kinds.  

Also check why my fonts keep changing in size without my asking them.  Perhaps a sympathetic vibration with the alarms.

Survivor Spaghetti and Meatballs

I rarely have any interest in eating meat other than chicken, but with the long season of vegetables and variations thereon, I suddenly thought, hm, get some nice Italian sausage, make meatballs.  Using breadcrumbs from my homebaked bread. To go with the spaghetti sauce I have in the freezer, made from farm tomatoes.  It seemed like such an innocent decision.

So I made the meatballs, which involved baking them in a very hot oven.  Which started up the smoke alarm.  Much waving of newspapers, then blessed quiet while I got on with my cooking, only to start up again once it got its breath.  

Meanwhile, under all this row, don't ask me why the builders put the smoke alarm so close to the open kitchen that a slice of toast will set it off, anyway, I took out the bag of frozen spaghetti sauce and put it in the microwave to start thawing.  

Then, while I was watching and checking the progress of the spaghetti, and waving newspapers at the smoke alarm, I noticed a red tide in the microwave.  The bag had opened, ziploc fail. 

So now I had to rescue the sauce, clean up the microwave, watch the meatballs and the spaghetti and wave newspapers at the smoke alarm. No, you can't turn it off by removing the battery, it's wired into the system of the house.

Finally, meatballs done, last blast from the smoke alarm as I took them out of the oven, spaghetti just right, sauce recovered and heated, red peppers found for sprinkling with parmesan cheese, and I served myself a nice dinner.  

Before putting it on the table I thought I should close the curtains where all the plants are, so as not to be eating on a lighted stage.  And found I was standing in a puddle of water.  One of the big plants had burst its banks.  So now I had rapid cleanup, since laminate floors and flooding hate each other.

Finally, dinner got on the table. Too spent to make pix at that point, but here's the leftovers for today's lunch.  

And I must say it tasted wonderful. Best meatballs evah.  Which may be as much a reflection of what I went through to get them served as anything. Like a nice glass of water at the top of a mountain.  And the glass of red wine that went with wasn't bad, either.

We are survivors!