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vacuuming when you have company
Tuesday, July 25 2017
This morning Quentin and Natasha and their dog Coach Eric Taylor came over to walk in the forest with Gretchen one last time before they all move to Eugene, Oregon. After that, we all sat around in the dining room drinking coffee and eating Trader Joe's crumpets with faux butter and real jam. The main attraction was, as always, Janet the Kitten, who was so bold that Coach Eric Taylor seemed a bit jumpy at times (he doesn't have that much familiarity with cats, though he knows enough to chase them if they run away).
Janet three days ago, cuddling with Ramona and on Neville's foot.
(Click to enlarge.)
Janet yesterday encircled by Ramona.
(Click to enlarge.)
Later this afternoon, while I was in the middle of a long videoconference, Gretchen took Gilly to the bus station so she could continue her East Coast travels.
One little surprise that came today in this fallen world was learning that Matthews Fan Company, the folks who built the fancy dual-motor orbiting ceiling fan, has great customer support. They had advice for me right away and a promise to replace my defective fan cage. I was able to get the non-defective one to fit around a fan blade with enough room for the latter to run once I had the fan installed as far as possible on the motor spindle. As for the failure of orbiting, a guy on the phone at Matthews suggested that a canopy attached to the hanging rod was rubbing on the orbiting assemblage, and that proved to be correct. With all that operational, I was content that I wouldn't have to be shipping the thing back, so I proceeded to make a warranty-violating modification. I drilled a hole through the center of the pan designed to conceal the inner-workings in the central pod around which the two fans orbited. There was a gear in there driving a speed-limiting centrifugal brake designed to keep the orbiting from going too quickly. In the center of the gear was a place to attach an eighth-inch brass nipple, through which wires to a light could be run. This nipple could be part of the stationary system, around which the whole assemblage (including the pan I'd drilled a hole in) would orbit. I attached a single porcelain bulb socket to this nipple, and tried out a number of light bulbs. In the end I went with the biggest faux-vintage LED one I had, which puts out a murky amber light that is a far cry from the circa 200-watt incandescent-equivalent I'd been getting from the grape-bunchesque array of small dimmable LED bulbs (which Gretchen wanted me to get rid of due to their ugliness).
Tomorrow, Gretchen and I would be leaving for Uganda, and towards the end of my shift in the remote workplace, I began straightening up a little to make the place nice for our house sitters. I pulled a bunch of weeds in the garden, attached fallen tomato vines to sticks to prop them up, and took a weed eater to the small part of the lawn that our house sitters might want to sit around in. This evening's plan to maybe do some cleaning up inside was jammed up by the arrival of Sarah the Vegan and Nancy, who hung out in the teevee room for hours fussing over Janet the Kitten. You can't really do vacuuming when you have company.
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