cushtie.com

45, not out

Today was my birthday and it started as stressfully as I could manage, because City Light were meant to come to the house some time between 7:30 and 9 am. I got there for 7:25, and nobody had shown up by 10:30, despite me calling and leaving multiple messages.

Eventually, sleepy and worried, I went climbing for half an hour and then went home to have a nap. At which point City Light arrived, disconnected the power and left again.

The reason for my stress is that we’re moving the electrical meter down 16 inches, so that it’s compliant with the building code, but to do that we were expecting City Light to pull through 16 inches of slack on the cable from the utility pole to our house, so we’d be able to reposition the meter. As they hadn’t done that, I was freaking out that we wouldn’t be able to move the meter anyway.

I eventually realised there was nothing I could do and went to have another nap. At three, my electrician friend went round to the house and texted me to ask why City Light hadn’t pulled any slack through.

Thankfully, with him on the roof and me on the ground and another neighbour holding onto the ladder, we got enough cable pulled down to make moving the meter box possible. A huge weight disappeared from my shoulders and I went home to open my birthday presents – chocolate, matches, a candle and some books from my wife, a dice rolling box from my kids, and, when at last USPS deigned to deliver my mail, a fridge magnet and a special pen from my parents (together with some dollars to buy a new sweater here and not pay exorbitant postal charges). Destroyer made me a wonderful birthday book for me to solve some puzzles, which was also joyous.

So from about five this afternoon, as I prepped myself for my meat of the month, I could finally relax and feel calm. I guess it’s another lesson to remind me to not worry about the things I can’t control.

I did eat an awful lot of meat though. No more meat until Christmas…

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