It's About Time

I was filling out my timesheet at the end of last week and thought for moment what a unique and versatile word “time” is. It can be used in so many ways and is the basis of so many expressions. For giggles (I have no life), I Googled it just to see what I could come up with and I was amazed at what was there for this one small word (because, again, I have no life). “A blog post?” I thought to myself. “Only if you want people to think you’re nuts.” Myself answered. Time will tell…

Seeing as I thought of this at work, some really simple things came into my head. Things like working part time or full time, what time is quitting time or can I take a month of vacation time (the answer to that question was a resounding “no.”)

Song titles with the word time in it? You would be surprised at how many you can find. I told you this word was amazing. You have Big Time. You can Love Me Two Times. Have Time In A Bottle (because who doesn't love Jim Croce...me). And Time After Time, Time Is On My Side (yes, it is). If you’re hungry, you can do the Breakfast Time Hollar (come and get it, come and get it). And that’s enough of that because It’s Howdy Doody Time.

I tried songs with the word time in the lyrics but that was just too much. The list is endless and I don’t have the patience for that. So I looked up television shows with time in the title. Just to name a few because most of them I don’t recognize, mainly due to the fact that I don’t really care for TV. I do remember Good Times which was pretty much dyn-o-mite. Timecop? Never heard of it. There was the fictional Tool Time…a television show within a television show. Much too confusing. And finally, Timmy Time, which is a kids show that is mostly annoying since it’s about a young sheep boy who goes to school and the dialog is all in animal language. Elijah loves it so it’s still on once in a while in our house.

There weren’t too many movie titles. All I found that I recognized were things like The Time Traveler’s Wife (read the book and hated it), A Time To Die and The Time Machine. And then I found Land Before Time…all eight, yes eight of them. I suffered through them all whilst I was raising my babies and am suffering again since Elijah just loves anything dinosaur.

One thing I didn’t have to look up was expressions that involved time.  Those are easy. I had a list in no time. Things like time is relative. Of course, if you have relatives like some of mine, time is endless. That’s when the time is ripe to hit the road, after saying a good time was had by all…whether it was or not. But then again, time heals all wounds, hopefully mine when some of those relatives read this post.  Quite honestly though I don’t see them wasting time getting angry over a few words because, after all, time is precious.

Well, speaking of time, what time is it? Must be almost bedtime. And I want to take time to post this before I fall asleep. And it’s only a matter of time before that happens, I hope. Here’s hoping you take the time to read this. I was able to write in up in no time.

 

"They're coming to take me away, ha ha hee hee ho ho..."

Hot and Bothered

It was a dark and stormy night…seriously it was. And it was also hot and humid (humid being that it was raining). We learned two things on that Thursday evening a few weeks back. One of those things was that having your air conditioner crap out during Louisiana’s 90° days (or 75° nights) is considered a maintenance emergency. The other thing we learned was that, even though maintenance would come to your apartment at 10 p.m. on a weeknight, they weren’t really prepared to do much. Our guy just kind of shrugged his shoulders and said the equivalent of “I dunno.” But he brought us a window unit to see us through the night. And we, in our innocence, thought it would be just one night. How wrong we were.

Now I’m not a spoiled brat or anything…ok, yes, I am. But when the weather is hot, which it is quite often here and I rarely complain about it because I like it, I do like to sleep in a nice, cool room. But I digress, as I so often do.

Day one consisted of a lot of “hmm’s” and “uhhh’s”. Not much got accomplished. Day two, which was Saturday, was pretty much the same. Sunday…oh, no, we don’t work on Sunday’s. By Monday, I was ready to blow a gasket. They decided that it was wired wrong and proceeded to “rewire” the inside unit. The outside unit, which was built before I was born (and that’s a long time ago), was fine. Or so they said. After two more days of this, they got it working. Then discovered that it was blowing warm air and wouldn’t shut off. Wednesday was when they decided they needed to order parts. My reaction? Not pleasant, I assure you. “We don’t know how long it will take to get the parts in seeing as tomorrow is a holiday.” But to pacify me, they brought another window unit. Which went in my daughter’s room because , amazingly enough, my bedroom window is sealed shut. Because it’s in the back of the building on the ground floor.

So my ceiling fan stayed on high, making me feel as though I were sleeping in a wind tunnel. An 80°+ wind tunnel. I tried sleeping on the couch because the other window unit was in my dining room which connects to my living room. While my couch is quite comfortable to sit on, a bed it is not. Too short, too narrow and it has this high back on it that gets in my way when I try to roll over. So I’m used to sleeping in divine comfort on a queen sized bed. I admit it. I can’t help it. And as I’ve already noted, I’m spoiled.

We’re moving on to week two.  Elijah has been sleeping with his mother, since her room is cool and comfy. I’m spending as much time as I possibly can in the living room. But I have to sleep some time. So back into the wind tunnel I go. When I walk out of the room, I have feel as if I’ve been listening to extremely loud music for a very long time. My eardrums are pulsating and my head is humming.

Parts ordered are received. We’re back to having two men’s asses sticking out of the cabinet that houses our inside unit and water heater. A lot of cussing and head scratching (I’m grateful that I work during the day and got to miss most of this part). The maintenance men insisted that we keep the fan running at all times to keep air circulating in the apartment. They didn’t seem to realize, or perhaps didn’t care, that it was blowing warm air. We didn’t take their advice and shut it off each evening after they had left for the day. 

After another agonizing four days, the unit was replaced and it was turned on for the first time. It blew a deliciously icy blast and I sighed in relief. The only downside was that new unit is extremely noisy but hey, I can live with that as long as it cools my home. The window units were removed and we all were back in our own bedrooms. My ceiling fan, which had become my best friend in the two weeks of the repair, was off. My ears slowly returned to normal. And I stopped dreaming that I was wrapped in a cocoon of sheep’s wool in the middle of the Amazon rain forest.