Dancing in the dark

[austin_dern]

A few months ago one of the fluorescent bulbs in my living room burned out. I got around pretty slowly to the process of fixing it because. I felt that it was something I just had to call the maintenance office for, but since waiting for an appointment can take up unpredictable chunks of the day I wanted to wait for time when I didn't have company or more urgent tasks or anything, and besides, with the other light things weren't that dark.

It turns out the maintenance office feels that it's not their job to replace light bulbs, which they might've said somewhere in the documentation on the apartment, but anyway. I got up on a chair and reached high enough -- the ceilings are pretty tall -- to pop off the cover, which turns out to be one held in place by contact rather than by a screw thread, and had the fun of unplugging the circular light and pulling it past the three metal posts which held it in place by pressure. Around that I started to procrastinate the job of fixing it, since I wasn't sure where to buy another of the same diameter or what its diameter was and I was really not looking forward to squeezing glass against metal to put the new one in. And, besides, with the other light it isn't that dark.

Yesterday, the other light went out. Now I'm just going to have to do something about it. I can still see somewhat thanks to the light in the dining room alcove, but it's nowhere near enough. Plus given that the two bulbs were probably changed together when the apartment was renovated before I occupied it, that would probably suggest the dining room light is about to burn out too. Also something in here made a quiet but unmistakable ``beep'', and while I can't figure out what and it didn't sound particularly ominous, it is a noise I've never heard anything here make before.

Trivia: The second round of Peanuts figures, with nodding heads, was made in 1959 by the Lego Company (Germany). Source: Peanuts: The Art of Charles Schulz, Chip Kidd, Editor.

Currently Reading: New Jersey in the American Revolution, Barbara J Mitnick, Editor. I've got the disconcerting feeling that I may have had her as professor for one of the history courses I had to take as an undergraduate, but I'm just not sure.

Comments

[orv.livejournal.com]

Last time I heard a quiet, but insistant, "beep" it turned out to be the smoke detector demanding a new battery.

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

Yeah ... my parents' smoke detectors are like that, except they beep just long enough for the echo to make it impossible to tell which one is complaining, and just rarely enough that you can get off the ladder (there's no reaching theirs without one) before it beeps again.

But this hasn't repeated any, yet. Though I should go nag my smoke detector batteries anyway, since I haven't thought about them in ages.

[moonfires.livejournal.com]

I had a biology professor who was a two-time finalist (1990, 1992) for the Governor General's award for French Language Fiction. Not the same but possibly even more interesting.

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

Yes, that would be more interesting, I think. If this is the professor I'm thinking of, most of my impression of her class was that she was trying to provoke class discussion in as generic a way as possible, and getting absolutely no response from the class from that approach. Also it was on an inconvenient campus and I had to have lunch during the busiest hour (noon to 1 pm) to make her course; I like eating in the off-hours. But scheduling isn't really her fault.

[skylerbunny.livejournal.com]

I remember that light going out, of course...it seemed it happened the day I arrived, didn't it? You seemed surprised it wasn't working correctly when I first walked in the door.

If you're down to that dining room lamp, you're either going to need to get it fixed, or resort to a lamp. I could see that working on one of your endtables, if you liked lamps. There's always the Ikea store off the Queenstown stop I never used...it's Queenstown, right?

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

Yes, it was just about to the day you arrived. I just need to get it fixed, particularly since the dining room light gives off so little light in the living room that it gets me sleepy hours before I usually get to bed ... well, that might not be a problem, really, but still, I should have the option of seeing where I'm going.

And yeah, the Ikea is at Queenstown. The Ikea Blue station.