Patti O'Shea's Blog

Tuesday afternoon, I heard a siren. I thought briefly about getting up and looking out the window, but I was in the middle of something and it didn’t last long. Deciding that it was on the freeway, I went back to what I was doing.

A while later, I went out to get the mail. And saw 7 fire trucks and assorted police vehicles blocking the street!

Yes, that siren I heard was from a fire truck. I’m assuming the other emergency vehicles didn’t run their sirens because I would have gotten up and checked what was going on if I heard multiple sirens wailing. Even I couldn’t get that involved with something. I think.

A neighbor across the street and a few houses down had a fire in their house. It’s unclear if someone called the fire department or if some alarm system sent the alert, but from what I heard, the woman put something on the stove and took the dog for a walk. Yeah. No offense meant, not even to the woman who did this, but are you kidding me? I hate cooking and quickly get bored. I’m notorious for putting something on the stove and wandering into another room. I’ve burned more than one attempt at edible food, but I’ve never been more than a room away when something was cooking. This just seems like common sense.

The family was lucky–no one was in the house when the fire started so nobody was injured. Since it took 7 fire trucks, I’m assuming the interior damage was severe, but I didn’t see anything on the outside of the house. Of course, I didn’t walk down to get a closer look, so who knows?

The police had the street blocked off so that no one could get through. One neighbor had to park his car on the street and walk to his house. This guy’s wife is a flight attendant and a coworker was picking her up. A police officer ended up carrying her luggage for her and they walked to where the driver was waiting. When I went for the mail, I saw more neighbors out in their front yards than I’ve seen all summer. Everyone was checking out what was going on.

One troubling piece of information from the fire is that the fire hydrant (which happened to be one house away from the house on fire) didn’t work. They had to truck water in to fight the fire. Awesome. Hopefully, this will get that hydrant fixed and maybe get a few others checked.

This is more excitement than we’ve had on the block since a neighbor had his car stolen out of his driveway a few years ago.

About a month ago or so, I got a new coffee maker. Prior to this, I’d been using a 4-cup maker without a timer function on it, so getting a full-sized coffee maker with a timer was a big deal for me. Anyone who follows me knows how much I love my coffee! How cool would it be to wake up on the weekdays to fresh-brewed coffee?

Once everything was all cleaned out, I read the instructions on setting the timer and went at it. And I woke up to discover that I had less coffee in my cup than I had with my old maker. Huh? It wasn’t overnight evaporation because I set up the other maker the night before, too, so that when I woke up in the morning, I could just turn it on without have to measure while I’m blurry eyed.

I shrugged it off the first time and thought, hmm, maybe I didn’t pay attention and the water level was less than I thought it was. Okay, so about 4 ounces is a long way to mis-measure, but you never know. I tried again.

And got the same results the next morning.

I took my old coffee pot, measured the correct amount of water and poured it in my new pot, thinking that maybe the measuring was different for some odd reason. But no, the measurements were equal. I checked to see if the water was sitting somewhere in the pot and everything else I could think of, but nothing seemed off. Not knowing what else to do or where else to check, I started adding extra water to make up for the difference.

Now, I was getting the right amount of coffee, but the mystery remained unsolved. This was something sitting in the back of my brain, nagging me. Not enough to investigate further, but enough so pop into my mind at odd moments.

And then, out of the blue, the question was answered. I made coffee on Tuesday afternoon when I got home from work. I generally don’t do this. If I’m going to have a second jumbo cup, I usually make it at the day job, but that day, I had a must-do project and I was drooping. I knew I needed a boost.

As I’m putting everything together, I glanced at the clock on the front of the coffee maker. It’s not a digital clock, but an electronic face clock, without any numbers on it. The time on the maker said it was an hour later than it really was. Huh? Did the power go off while I was at work? But a quick glance at the other clocks showed they were still set correctly and nothing flashed at me.

I looked back at the coffee maker. Still an hour fast.

Yes, I set the time on the coffee maker wrong. Instead of starting to brew 15 minutes before I get out of bed, it was starting an hour and 15 minutes ahead. That’s where the missing water was going. The coffee was being heated away while I slept!

Embarrassing, yes. I do know how to tell time, but once I set the clock, I never looked at it again. It never–not in a million years–occurred to me that I’d set it wrong. Sigh. I moved the clock to the correct time, and this morning as I was getting up, I heard the beeping telling me that brewing was complete. I’ve never heard that before, but then I’m usually sound asleep an hour earlier.

The mystery is solved. I’m relieved to have this out of my head now, but my face is red.

Friday night storms rolled through. It’s been raining a lot in Minneapolis–thirteen of the first fifteen days in June had rain and it just hasn’t stopped–but we haven’t had much severe weather. Until Friday.

It wasn’t only one storm either, but three of them converging on the Twin Cities one after another. One of the storms had tornadoes associated with it and it and another one had a history of dropping good-sized hail, some as big a tennis ball. I was not looking forward to having to take shelter in the basement, but I was ready to grab my laptop and go if the need arose.

Storm one wasn’t that bad. Storm two, well, that was another story. It brought high winds that drove the rain sideways. Water started dripping from the wood molding around my patio doors and I had to grab a bowl to catch it. I’ve been in my house four years and I’ve never had rain come in the woodwork before.

Power flickered off and on. Off and on, but it came back up. Whew! I hate it when the power goes out. And still the storm raged on, seeming to last forever.

Finally, it moved on. And as it eased up, the power did go out.

Sigh. I’ve said this before, I’ll say it again, if it was up to me to be a pioneer, America would still be thirteen colonies. I like creature comforts and electricity tops the list.

For a while, I worked on the laptop, but after about an hour, I had to shut down. No television, no computer, no way to read because it was dark outside with the storm and I had no lights. So after an hour, I went to bed. Yep, Friday night, I was in bed by 8:30. There was nothing to do except sleep.

Power came back on at 1am and I had to get up and turn off all the lights that I’d left on. I should have thought of that before I went to bed, but didn’t.

Saturday night, Mother Nature came back for an encore performance. This time, however, I was lucky and the bad stuff went north and south of Minneapolis. The power stayed on.

Friday, May 14th at 6:10 am, I’m cleaning my glasses at the Evil Day Job (EDJ), when tragedy struck. My glasses broke at the solder point between the bridge and the rim around the lens. The thing that’s ironic is just two days earlier, I’d been talking to my parents about picking up some new glasses, but earlier that Friday morning, I’d decided I didn’t feel like going shopping on Saturday and maybe I’d wait until the next week. That decision was taken out of my hands.

But now I have a problem–my glasses are in two pieces, and while I could drive home without them, I would really be nervous doing it. I used to carry my sunglasses with me, but I’d taken them out of my tote months ago. I also did a check of my desk and my purse for a spare pair of contact lenses, but of course, I came up empty.

This was boarding on emergency territory, but I work with engineers and they like to fix things. I put the problem to them. The first fix involved a large paperclip unfolded and tape. It was devised by an avionics engineer, but even 45 minutes later, it was starting to come undone. One of my structures engineers came in and I put the problem to him. He came up with a fix that involved safety wire wrapped around both pieces of the glasses. It worked.

(In fact, it worked so well that I continued to wear them for the 12 days it took for my new glasses to arrive. Sure, things were getting a little loose and shaky toward the end, but it was better than trying to wear my sunglasses in the office.)

So Saturday morning, I headed out to get new glasses armed with a 2 for $99 coupon and my mom to help me decide on the right frame. My dad also came along as well.

It quickly became clear that my mom was going to be no help on choosing one new frame, let alone two pairs. Every time I tried one on and asked, “What do you think?” she’d say, “I don’t know if it’s because I’m used to you in the others…” Not helpful.

Finally, desperate for a little guidance, I turned to the young man working at the optical place. How are you at knowing whether or not frames look good on someone? I asked. As it turned out, he wasn’t bad at all, and with him helping me, I chose my two frames.

Yes, I did buy two pairs. Why? Well, not only did I have the coupon, but I’d found myself in a jam when my glasses broke. The previous pair before this one had broken as well and that meant my next newest pair was years and years out of date. For a really long time, I only wore contact lenses and only had my glasses on while they were being cleaned, so I didn’t bother buying glasses for that stretch. A cost-saving measure I’ve come to regret. So not only did wearing those old glasses mean I would see as well, it also meant dealing with enormous frames. When was the last time big frames were in style? That’s how old those glasses are.

Of course, the two pairs didn’t end up being $99. It was more like 2 for $190. I went with the ultra light lenses–tack on $40 per pair–and one of the frames I picked wasn’t on sale. Add $30 more, plus tax. Sigh. But if one pair breaks, at least now I’ll have a backup while I wait for new ones.

The saga doesn’t end here. There was a rush put on the glasses and I was promised it would take about a week. The week came and went. No call.

Finally, on Day 11 after ordering (12 days after breaking), I was told my glasses were in Minneapolis, but there was a problem with them and they had to be sent to the lab to be reground. I about cried. I was promised I would have them the next day.

At this point, I was like I’ll believe it when I see it, but it was true. My rush glasses arrived in 12 days (13 after breaking). I like one of the pairs a lot better than the other so I’ve only worn the one. They look really cool and hip. Maybe if I wear them long enough, some of that hipness will transfer over to me. I can hope, right?

When it comes to numbers, I think I’m dyslexic. Not with words. I never look at a word and have my brain transpose letters, but I can look at a number–even a short one–and see the numbers mixed up.

It can make things like balancing my checkbook a challenge and I have to double check amounts when I’m paying bills. It’s way too easy for $12.99 to become $19.29. When I used to pay by check in stores, it’s led to more than one embarrassing moment when the number in digits didn’t match the number spelled out on the line below. Oops.

It’s something I have to be aware of at work, too. Our maintenance tasks have numbers, and when I want to look up a specific task, I need to have the numbers right. I’m working on a project now that has had me stopping more than once because I’ve entered the wrong number and the information didn’t match what it was supposed to match.

You’d think if I was dyslexic in one area, that I’d be dyslexic across the board, but that’s not the case. Words always come out right. If something is transposed there, it’s because I typoed, not because I didn’t see it right.

Remembering numbers? Very difficult for me. I have to write down phone numbers and even then I’ll transpose numbers. I try to always repeat it back to the person I’m talking with. I can, however, repeat much of Hamlet’s famous soliloquy. I can name all 195 countries. I could easily memorize dialogue when I participated in theater in junior high. Just don’t ask me to to type in “6722.”

Seriously. Somehow, some way, it became 5272. Don’t ask me why my brain saw those numbers, but it did. The more tired I am, the more off I can be, too, and I am tired today.

I try to be careful and I usually catch myself. I think. I hope. But every time I’m forced to work with numbers, my life becomes an adventure. No doubt.

You’d think finding a winter hat in a neutral color wouldn’t be that difficult. You’d be wrong. Or at least I couldn’t find one when I started looking in December. Maybe I’m too picky, but I didn’t want a knit cap that would smoosh down my hair and leave it full of static electricity when I pulled it off.

When it quickly became apparent that the stores were sold out, I tried online shopping. I found a couple that were okay, but when I tried to order them, they were all out of stock. I kept searching and coming up empty.

I thought I’d finally hit the jackpot when I found a hat seller on eBay. Okay, so they were located in Asia, the hat was cheap, the shipping wasn’t outrageous, and it was cute. I ordered it and waited impatiently for it to arrive. It finally came folded up in an envelope that left permanent creases in it. I decided those would work their way out eventually and it really was cute. I tried it on and discovered it was tight, but the big problem was that it didn’t go down over my ears. Since I didn’t want to wear an earmuff in addition to a hat, this wasn’t going to work.

I continued to wear my old hat. This hat is wool and super cute, but the color clashes with my new jacket and it’s a huge Glamour Don’t to wear the two together. It’s bad enough that one of my engineers noticed and commented on it. I resumed my hat search. Unsuccessfully.

Then I received an email from a shoe website I frequent. Hats!

Immediately, I clicked over. Most of what I saw was for men and I didn’t like a lot of the rest, but there was one hat for women that was cute. Afraid that this, too, would be sold out in neutral colors, I clicked through and surprise, they had them! Wow, half price, in stock, neutral color and cute! Awesome. I placed my order.

My hat arrived yesterday. In a box so big that I couldn’t figure out what was on my doorstep until I read the return address. I opened it and they had it packed with paper to help it keep its shape. Again, awesome. Not like the other hat that arrived all folded up. I unwrapped my new hat. My excitement diminished. I could see through the weave of the hat–that couldn’t be warm.

I tried it on. It fit. It was cute. I could flip up the front brim. The only problem was that it sure didn’t feel like a winter hat. I examined it more closely and discovered it’s a summer hat! No wonder they had them in stock!

Now that it’s March, I guess I’ll give up the hat shopping. If it wasn’t in stock in December, I’m sure not going to find a warm, cute winter hat now. I guess I’ll have to hat shop in July if I want something neutral and non-smooshy. I just hate the idea of thinking about winter clothes in summer. There’s something wrong with that.