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shocked in the greenhouse
Wednesday, December 24 2014
It was so rainy today that I never actually took the dogs for a walk even though Gretchen woke up late and immediately had to drive to Woodstock to work (she would end up selling over $6000 worth of books, which is something that doesn't happen often at independent bookstores in the twenty-teens). It wasn't just rainy; it was also unseasonably warm, with temperatures peaking at around 50 degrees Fahrenheit. This morning, I thought I'd do some more debugging of the electrical problems in the greenhouse, so I took a three-pronged plug terminating in three exposed terminals and plugged it into the extension cord going to an outlet in the downstairs ceiling. The idea was to check which wires were shorted together. But the moment I plugged the plug in, those exposed terminals brushed against my left hand and immediately began shocking me at 120 volts. I haven't been shocked by household current in a very long time, perhaps not since I learned what alternating current really is. I could feel it pulsing at 60 hertz in my hand as I shook the wires away. They shorted together, arced cinematically and released a cloud of smoke before tripping the circuit breaker up in the shop. Clearly, that outlet was still energized. I'd assumed it was part of the circuit I'd disconnected yesterday, but evidently I'd assumed wrong. That there is the hidden danger in electrical work. Where I'd dropped the ball (and where I've rarely dropped the ball in the past) was in not steering clear of those exposed terminals until I'd tested them.
Ray and Nancy came by this morning so Ray could borrow the Subaru until he can get a replacement for his recently-totalled Jeep (now an "art installation" in their front yard). They'd brought a bottle of Sandeman Ruby port as a holiday present.
This evening, after Gretchen's $6000 day at the bookstore, she decided she wanted to unwind with a glass of port. I decided to do a taste test, so I poured two glasses, mixed them up, and gave them to Gretchen. Amusingly, she selected the Presidential Ruby I'd gotten her as her favorite. But when she conducted the test on me, I picked the Sandeman Ruby. So now we have his & her port, in addition to other his & her things. We have his & her 64 oz. containers of peeled grapefruit because of contamination of one of them during her recent cold. And we have his & her bottles of omega-3 supplements. (The rupture of a gel cap in one of the bottles doesn't bother me, but it does bother Gretchen.)
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