wendy smith - The Week That Was

From "The Blue Notebook"

The Week That Was

Saturday, November Friday, November 28
Kirsten helped bring over fragile and important items to the apartment - meaning my camera equipment and my safe (which is not fragile, but which has all my money and is therefore very important).

Saturday, November 29
The MOVE. Nothing like an event you dread, you plan for and then it happens. Now you know why you dreaded it. And you were right. The movers are lug heads like you imagined and break your boxes, smooch your stuff and discombobulate your order. Never mind the equipment that no longer works once you've moved it. But oh, no, they didn't throw the hard drive around in the truck to make it fit. Oh, no. Not them. Other movers, maybe. Not them. Harrumph. That's what I say.

Sunday, November 30
I can't find anything and nothing is in the right place anymore. As a visual person, when I make piles to my left they need to stay to my left or I can't function. Now my file cabinet is on the right (on top of where I put all my files) and I can't find anything. I get up and look to my left and wander aimlessly around the room wondering where my files are. Suddenly it clicks that they were on top of my file cabinet - now where did that go?? Then I inspect each item of furniture for 10 or 15 minutes and lo and behold there it is on my right. Well, why didn't it tell me so, that it was right there all the time on my right. Ugh. I'll never adapt to this new place. Everything's in the wrong place and the bus route, which is under my window, feels like it's in my head and I can't sleep. Whaaaaaaaaaa........

My friends came to help me unpack and move all the boxes and furniture from the places I thought perfect when I had the movers here, but realize now they're all in the wrong spots. Probably tomorrow, with another night of sleeping here, I'll notice yet another configuration that would be better. That demands another set of friends. Anyway after chatting with these friends and taking the housewarming plants they offered me, I sent them off to do the furniture moving tasks at hand. While Don was fixing a running toilet in the bathroom, Brinda helped me in the other room with boxes and the rest of the furniture. Suddenly what sounded like fire alarms blared and we flew from the apartment holding our ears, to greet my elderly neighbors who were in the hall holding their ears and squinting their eyes too. Since this noise was all new to me, I asked them what should I do?

One annoyed elder, while holding the opposite ear, handed me a paper with emergency numbers on it and told me to call "that number", so I called "911" since that was the only number on the paper. Wouldn't you? When the fire department answered, I explained the situation and asked them how to shut off this alarm and asked if they'd received a call about a fire here. The next thing I knew, there's 2 fire trucks outside the building with ladders coming up to the 18th floor aimed at my apartment. But there's no fire, I'm thinking.... Eight or 9 elderly neighbors are standing in the hall holding their ears staring at me. A smiling woman comes through the crowd not holding her ears (my good fairy) and says to me, "Someone in your apartment pulled the emergency cord in the bathroom, so just flick off switch and the alarm will stop."

Huh? I gasp seeing the ladder approach my window. My friend sheepishly admitted that yes, he did pull the cord in the bathroom thinking it was the light switch.

Meanwhile, the fireman on the ladder has reached my window with his ax poised and 10 other firemen have climbed 18 floors 3 stairs at a time and are not even out of breath asking me, where is the fire? By now, I've flicked the switch off in the bathroom where the cord is and there's no more alarm sounding. My friend and I are beet red in the face as I try to tell these 10 husky 6'4" firemen (I'm 5'2") there's no fire, my friend just pulled a cord in the bathroom and boy was I sorry. Were they mad? Furious? Bent out of shape? YOU BET YA.

The chief of the fire department (I could tell by his frown and age) just stood there giving his forehead wrinkles while the other younger guys slowly smiled and nodded their heads. This was just another FALSE ALARM. They were about to trot down all 18 floors again but the chief held them back. He wanted me to really suffer and made me continue to repeat my story endlessly while he took notes, making me repeat my name and number several times. I'm sure there's a big red dot next to my name at Rochester City Fire Department that means FALSE ALARM. Thus ended the first day in my apartment.

Monday, December 1
The next day, I snuck out of my building early hoping to avoid seeing anyone on my floor or anyone at all for that matter. I don't know why I imagined that I could escape from an apartment complex with 10 floors and 900 tenants, but such was my thinking at 7 am. I've almost left the building and I run smack into the supervisor who already knows about the fire engine story and asks if I felt stupid when the firemen arrived. I was so irritated at bumping into him and also at not sleeping because of the buses taking off under my window next to my pillow, that I felt like asking him if I punched him in the face would he feel stupid? But I decided against it.

I returned "home" (as I suppose I should call it) later that day and as it was now dinnertime I decided to cook a potato for the oven. I turned on the oven and popped in the potato. About 5 minutes later, I opened the oven door to poke holes in the potato, which I'd forgotten to do, and another alarm goes off. Oh my God this was worse than Big Brother. I was being punished for forgetting to punch holes in the potato as any woman worth her salt would know to do! The alarm sounded vaguely like the fire alarm from yesterday but I knew I hadn't pulled the bathroom chord. Vaguely it dawned on me that it was the smoke detector. So, I threw open the window and opened the door, but it didn't shut off. I couldn't stand it. Even with my ears plugged, it was intolerable. What to do? No one was in the halls this time - they knew it was I again. Keeping my door wide open, I walked to the end of the hallway and decided maybe by the time I got back, it would stop, go away or something of this nature. When I got back it was still blaring. By now I had turned off the oven. I then opened every window in the apartment. Finally it stopped. I went into the kitchen with a sigh of relief. I opened the oven door to take out the potato and the alarm sounded again. That was it. I threw the potato away and left the apartment. Thus ended day two at my new home.

Tuesday, December 2
The third day began with my periods. I had spent another sleepless night not just because of buses, sirens and traffic noise but because the toilet kept running. It would only stop running if you held the plunger, which of course you couldn't do all day. Now with my periods here, this was really a nightmare. I had to face the supervisor again and get it fixed. He grinned - "fill out a service report", he smirked. So when will you get to it? I asked. Oh, tomorrow. But I can't use the toilet - it needs to be fixed now. Tomorrow, he says.

I step out into the frosty air to find a public toilet and plan my day. It now takes me 20 minutes to get to the pool to do my exercises, which is totally unacceptable. So, I applied to the YWCA, which is right around the corner, and they accepted me on a financial scholarship. I decide to go there and since I'm short on time, I will just do the bike and won't really need a locker. So, I ask if they can hold my purse. They show me small lockers and give me a key. I lock up my purse and when I'm done biking, I come out to take my purse. But the lock won't open. Strange - the key locked it before, why won't it unlock it? I notice there's a #6 on the key and I've locked my things in locker #4. Could this be why? I ask for key #4 and they say there is none. There is none - we've lost it. I can't believe this; it's like the Twilight Zone. Everything was normal, you lock up your belongings with a normal looking key and now it was the wrong key and the right key has disappeared long ago. So I asked to speak with a maintenance or repairman. Oh, they tell me, he's at another YMCA where there is no phone. No phone? In 1997, no phone? Are you kidding? No, of course not. They're just lying because they don't want to bother him. So I start to get hysterical because I know that I can't get duplicates for my apartment keys, especially not after the fire alarm and smoke detector incidents and my only apartment keys are locked in this unopenable locker. The YMCA supervisor comes out with 454 keys and tries each and every one to no avail. After 45 minutes of trying, none of them open Locker #4. I can't believe this. I take the keys and try myself. Nothing.

We ransack drawers of keys. There are keys everywhere in this YMCA - none of them labeled and none of them opened locker #4. I came out to get my key at 4 PM. It is now 5:30 PM on this winter's night and it is dark and cold. Only the supervisor and me are left. He breaks down and calls the maintenance guy who obviously was somewhere with a phone and he tells him where the keys are. We try all 108 of them. The 108th fits locker #4. At 6:30 PM I finally arrive home to my toilet still running and I'm completely exhausted. Thus ends day three in my new apartment.

Wednesday, December 3, 1997
I begin physical therapy with a new physical therapist at Rochester Rehabilitation Center. The prescription I had is for my shoulder - the supraspinatus needs myofacial work and stretching. But she doesn't know how to do that so she decides to work on my neck, why, I don't know. I get tingling in my left arm and fingers and a terrible migraine. When I get home my left arm is numb. I'm worried. I call her up hoping she'll tell me this is normal. She won't talk to me. I insist and get the receptionist very irate. Suddenly the physical therapist is there and will talk to me. She says she has no idea why a neck mobilization would give me all these neck symptoms so maybe I better see someone else. I tell her I'm confused - that the book she gave me to read on neck pain showed a pain diagram that precisely indicated what I'm experiencing. All she could say was I better see my doctor soon. "So I can get a prescription for my neck now too?" I asked. She hung up on me.

The rest of the day I spent in bed with cold compresses, popping aspirin and listening to classical music to ward off my headache. The migraine persisted and I got no work done on the computer, even just using my right hand. So ended my 4th day in my new apartment.

Thursday, December 4, 1997
I cried all day and felt much better, despite my migraine and numb left arm and fingers. I throw my whole body into it, sobbing and thrashing with frustration. After a dinner of tofu, I went to bed, ending my 5th day in my new place.