So my plans for today included some Christmas shopping. Since I get around mostly on foot and I can never predict what exactly I’ll find in which shops, I have to get organized now. I’m feeling the pressure already and it’s not even December yet.
But the universe had other plans for me. I woke up to a refrigerator on the fritz – for the second time in two months. Though the fan was running and the light was on, the freezer wasn’t even cold enough to keep my bread frozen.
After an emergency evacuation of the costlier items in my freezer to a kindly neighbor’s apartment, I called housing and told them I needed a new fridge. They said okay – they would bring one on Sunday. Since it’s colder outside than in my fridge I told them that wasn’t good enough. They promised to try harder.
A repairman came and of course by then the fridge had recovered somewhat. I think it was the rocking blow I dealt it earlier on. Hey – it works for vending machines. The repairman only spoke Arabic so I couldn’t explain any of that to him. I simply smiled and nodded and sent him on his way. I did get a call saying my new fridge was on the way.
When this happened before, housing brought me a loaner fridge while they took mine for repairs. For any newcomers here, I live in a fourth floor walkup. Take a look at my stairs:
Since it seems ridiculous to keep taking the same fridge away to “fix” it, I hope the new one is actually new and will last a bit better. I’ll bet the housing guys do too!
In the meantime, since my plans for going out were shot, I did some shopping online. Made a fair bit of progress. It’s a good thing I didn’t buy my sister’s present in person or I would have kept it. I can’t tell you what it is because she might peek! (Sorry sis!) And you know that I had to get myself a present as well – not sure what the psychology is, but I seem to buy myself a pair of shoes every December and say they are from my mom.
Aren’t they gorgeous? (Thanks mom!) I’ll have to wait until January to get them because getting these shoes required some elaborate shipping and retrieval planning involving neighbors who are spending the holidays in the US, but I think they’ll be worth it!
