Basement Dwelling

Greetings from below the earth.

My basement.

Though I normally write my posts from my basement office, today's is a little different. I had planned on writing about today being the last day of school (pass the Chardonnay), and all that goes with that. But Sunday afternoon, in the midst of a Wisconsin heat wave, I noticed my air conditioner was making a weird noise. I walked downstairs and saw my copper piping covered with snow.

Shit.

A call to my kind-of-brother-in-law (step-sister's long-term live-in boyfriend) who is in HVAC school, and he determined I must have a freon leak. He had a freon leak once, he said, and it cost about $600 for the professionals to fix it.

Double shit.

Now, for those that aren't in Wisconsin, let me tell you how it is here in a heat wave. I know, we get snow and we're no Florida, but it does get hot here. This week, it ranges from low 90s to mid 80s, with low 70s projected near the end of the week. Couple that with my plaster walls and drafty 1926-built house, and it gets to be some sort of biosphere experiment.

(Seriously, you can go up the stairs and feel the line where the heat begins. Up both staircases.)

Why must you mock me?

It's just another drop in the bucket for our adventures in home-ownership. I could give you the list of problems we have, that we don't have the cash to fix, but all that will do is depress me, so unless you're going to either A.) Come over here and fix it all for free or B.) Contribute to the fund, I'm just going to gloss over those details.

With the air conditioner on the fritz, it means that suddenly my 1600 sq ft house is now reduced to about a third of that...533.33 sq ft.

We're living in the basement. All of us.

Two nights ago, we had all three kids in the guest bed, and when it came time for us to go to sleep, we moved them into the family room area. One on the couch, one on the loveseat, and one in a sleeping bag on the floor. The same happened last night, too.

Five people were not meant to share 533.33 sq ft. The fighting is at an all-time-high, no one is actually falling asleep at a decent hour, and the cats are very confused.

During the day, we have been outside, enjoying my $20 garage sale purchase from last year: A heavy duty hard plastic kiddie pool. Yesterday morning when I woke up, it was cooler outside than it was in the house. That kiddie pool has never gotten so much use.

I'm thinking of calling the school to see if I can enroll my kids in some sort of extra-curricular summer activities there, where the air conditioning is new and powerful. I'm going to say it's for their own health.

Either way you look at that, it's true.