We sort of moved into our lovely new home (by moved I mean a few boxes, an Aero Bed, a folding chair and a TV tray) last weekend. The POD with most of our worldly possessions is sitting in a warehouse in Portland, but we're not going to get it until next weekend due to some over-booking on their part and higher-than-should-have-been expectations on my part. Anyway, it's good that I'm here because I have some on-site client work to do this week and that will certainly help pay for the costly move. My husband, who is still living five hours south of here, was kind enough to let me have the dogs for the week. Now we're wondering if that was such a good idea...The trouble with the situation is...our lovely new home's air conditioning doesn't work, we have a Southern exposure with big windows (which we'll appreciate in the dreary winter) and the part that needs to be reinstalled (the compressor...big part) will take two days. Meanwhile, the National Weather Service has issued a severe heat alert for the area for the next two days, with temps reaching 100 degrees or more. It's damn toasty in here.
So I've been running around the house opening and closing windows and shades strategically to try to keep the heat out and get enough air flow to air out the off-gassing new paint, cupboards and floors (either it's working or I'm getting used to it). Fortunately it's been cool at night, so I've been able to open up the upstairs windows and capture the cool air, then close up during the day. We bought a huge fan that sounds rather like a prop jet preparing for take-off (and that's only on setting one of three) and it, along with the ceiling fan in the stairwell, keeps the air moving, which helps.
Today I have to spend a good portion of the day at a client's site and I'm a little worried about the dogs. The callous people at the Legend Homes office (which I'll rant about another time) had very little sympathy for our plight. The response was "well, I don't have air conditioning and my dogs survive." Ok, thanks. Nevermind that we just spent upwards of $4500.00 extra for the damned air conditioning, which didn't come standard with our house, and IT'S NOT WORKING.
The AC guy (who finally came out yesterday afternoon after I had to call them myself because the "Customer Care" people are all in Corvallis shooting a TV show all week) said the unit was faulty and the ventilation wasn't set properly either. Nice.
Anyway, that's only the latest in a long string of issues we've had with this move. But hey, moving is never a picnic. We've just been lucky in our past few moves. So I'm on to temporary solutions. My husband came up with the best idea, I think: put the dogs in the coolest spot in the house and turn on the giant fan blowing over a bowl of ice from our brand new refrigerator/freezer. Heck, I'm tempted to just open the doors and let the coolness emerge, but I think his idea is a tad more practical.
For now the dogs seem less bothered by it all than I do. I think they think we're camping. It rather feels like it at the moment.
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