I'm Not In Amityville...
Nevertheless, the house seems to be out to get me. Or at least, it's taking unfair advantage of my lack of coordination.
Wednesday and Thursday nights last week were unseasonably hot and muggy for May in this area, and I didn't sleep very well. Since Friday looked to be more of the same, I decided to put in my window fan (the house, it is old and has radiators - and hence has no air ducts, and no central A/C).
Now, the window in my room is a temperamental bitch of a thing. Some of the windows were replaced with modern thermal versions by the previous owner; those are almost exclusively on the ground floor, though, not the upstairs bedrooms. Whatever counterweight device holds the rest of the old-style windows in the house up when they're opened is long since gone on this one, and it usually has to be propped open either with the fan or a block of wood I keep on the sill for that purpose. When I pushed it up it Friday evening to insert the fan - it stayed open. As if inviting said fan. "I'll be a good window," it seemed to say. "See? I'll stay up so you don't have to hold me up while wresting the fan into position one-handed." I swear it managed to form a little halo over itself.
I was a fool; I trusted it. So of course, no sooner did I have both hands occupied with settling the fan into the window frame, the window itself crashed down like a frikkin' guillotine, smacking my left hand just below the knuckles. Insert much swearing and semi-violent manhandling of said fan into said [expletive deleted] evil window, before I slunk downstairs to put some ice on my poor abused metacarpals. (Three days later, there's a lovely green-black bruise forming there. *sigh*)
Score - house:1, me: 0
Saturday's cleaning (did I mention this was spring-cleaning / "we have contractors coming in later this week ZOMG deadline!"-related?) went pretty smoothly, but I think The House was just lulling me back into complacency, damn it. Sunday morning, the decision was made to walk to the neighborhood McDonald's for breakfast, on the grounds that there had been much carrying of stuff the previous day plus walking there and back would cancel out at *least* a tenth of the calories of such a breakfast.
So down the driveway we strolled, and almost at the foot of the drive I decided to kick our Sunday newspaper off to the side because we share a driveway and when it gets left in the middle our neighbors (who are otherwise charming people) have a tendency to run it over with their minivan. I kicked, gravel moved under my foot, the ankle turned, and - boom - next thing I know, there I was on the pavement on hands and knees going "OW F***!"
Back up the driveway we hobbled. Irony moment: the right knee - which already had a smallish hole in the jeans over it - is only bruised. The left knee - over which the denim was still intact (and remained intact!) - got all scraped up. Go figure. The other 2 Mews settled me on the loveseat, fetched me ice for ankle and knee, and then continued on the breakfast quest without me.
Score - house (and surrounding property): 2, me: 0
Overall, this made me very little use in the cleaning yesterday - with one kind of amusing exception. Late in the afternoon, the others started demolishing one of the sets of shelves that line our garage. They went out to Home Despot and brought back a sledgehammer and two crowbars for this purpose - why pay the contractors to do it when it gives us an excuse to buy more tools and get destructive ourselves?! - and I could hear them ripping on those garage shelves.
Now, I come with a warning label: "Dangerous When Bored." And by then? You guessed it - oh so very bored. My friendslist was far too quiet this weekend, nothing I was reading online had new chapters, I tried to work on my thingy for thehouseofmews challenge (yes, I'm late for my own challenge; can I at least partially blame the cleaning project for this? ^^;; ) but by that point my hands were none too steady and I didn't have the reference pictures I wanted. Plus, I was just bloody sick of being parked there. So I grabbed my umbrella-which-makes-a-passable-cane, hobbled out, and watched them tear down one shelf.
Then they prepared to take the sledgehammer to the next one, to loosen it up and make it easier to pry apart.
Me: ...I could do that.
Them: *look at each other and shrug* Sure, give it a try.
Me: *gimps over, picks up sledgehammer* ...groovy. **WHACK WHACK BAM CRASH TAKETHAT YOUSONVUA&@$^@%#^&%$@&^$%Q@^#$!!!**
Them: ... ... ... O_O
Me: *after thwacking it until at least one nail jumped out of the wood, and knocking a hole right through the plywood in one place* ...that was therapeutic.
Score - house (and surrounding property): 2, me: 1
And I went back inside, feeling somewhat vindicated. Watch out, house - I'm catching up.
Also, finding a huge fic trove for a cartoon series I loved from years ago? ...can be hazardous to the content of my dreams. *snicker* Oh man, Galaxy Rangers, even though you're dorky I still ♥♥♥♥ you.
Wednesday and Thursday nights last week were unseasonably hot and muggy for May in this area, and I didn't sleep very well. Since Friday looked to be more of the same, I decided to put in my window fan (the house, it is old and has radiators - and hence has no air ducts, and no central A/C).
Now, the window in my room is a temperamental bitch of a thing. Some of the windows were replaced with modern thermal versions by the previous owner; those are almost exclusively on the ground floor, though, not the upstairs bedrooms. Whatever counterweight device holds the rest of the old-style windows in the house up when they're opened is long since gone on this one, and it usually has to be propped open either with the fan or a block of wood I keep on the sill for that purpose. When I pushed it up it Friday evening to insert the fan - it stayed open. As if inviting said fan. "I'll be a good window," it seemed to say. "See? I'll stay up so you don't have to hold me up while wresting the fan into position one-handed." I swear it managed to form a little halo over itself.
I was a fool; I trusted it. So of course, no sooner did I have both hands occupied with settling the fan into the window frame, the window itself crashed down like a frikkin' guillotine, smacking my left hand just below the knuckles. Insert much swearing and semi-violent manhandling of said fan into said [expletive deleted] evil window, before I slunk downstairs to put some ice on my poor abused metacarpals. (Three days later, there's a lovely green-black bruise forming there. *sigh*)
Score - house:1, me: 0
Saturday's cleaning (did I mention this was spring-cleaning / "we have contractors coming in later this week ZOMG deadline!"-related?) went pretty smoothly, but I think The House was just lulling me back into complacency, damn it. Sunday morning, the decision was made to walk to the neighborhood McDonald's for breakfast, on the grounds that there had been much carrying of stuff the previous day plus walking there and back would cancel out at *least* a tenth of the calories of such a breakfast.
So down the driveway we strolled, and almost at the foot of the drive I decided to kick our Sunday newspaper off to the side because we share a driveway and when it gets left in the middle our neighbors (who are otherwise charming people) have a tendency to run it over with their minivan. I kicked, gravel moved under my foot, the ankle turned, and - boom - next thing I know, there I was on the pavement on hands and knees going "OW F***!"
Back up the driveway we hobbled. Irony moment: the right knee - which already had a smallish hole in the jeans over it - is only bruised. The left knee - over which the denim was still intact (and remained intact!) - got all scraped up. Go figure. The other 2 Mews settled me on the loveseat, fetched me ice for ankle and knee, and then continued on the breakfast quest without me.
Score - house (and surrounding property): 2, me: 0
Overall, this made me very little use in the cleaning yesterday - with one kind of amusing exception. Late in the afternoon, the others started demolishing one of the sets of shelves that line our garage. They went out to Home Despot and brought back a sledgehammer and two crowbars for this purpose - why pay the contractors to do it when it gives us an excuse to buy more tools and get destructive ourselves?! - and I could hear them ripping on those garage shelves.
Now, I come with a warning label: "Dangerous When Bored." And by then? You guessed it - oh so very bored. My friendslist was far too quiet this weekend, nothing I was reading online had new chapters, I tried to work on my thingy for thehouseofmews challenge (yes, I'm late for my own challenge; can I at least partially blame the cleaning project for this? ^^;; ) but by that point my hands were none too steady and I didn't have the reference pictures I wanted. Plus, I was just bloody sick of being parked there. So I grabbed my umbrella-which-makes-a-passable-cane, hobbled out, and watched them tear down one shelf.
Then they prepared to take the sledgehammer to the next one, to loosen it up and make it easier to pry apart.
Me: ...I could do that.
Them: *look at each other and shrug* Sure, give it a try.
Me: *gimps over, picks up sledgehammer* ...groovy. **WHACK WHACK BAM CRASH TAKETHAT YOUSONVUA&@$^@%#^&%$@&^$%Q@^#$!!!**
Them: ... ... ... O_O
Me: *after thwacking it until at least one nail jumped out of the wood, and knocking a hole right through the plywood in one place* ...that was therapeutic.
Score - house (and surrounding property): 2, me: 1
And I went back inside, feeling somewhat vindicated. Watch out, house - I'm catching up.
Also, finding a huge fic trove for a cartoon series I loved from years ago? ...can be hazardous to the content of my dreams. *snicker* Oh man, Galaxy Rangers, even though you're dorky I still ♥♥♥♥ you.