Other Big Steps

First night away.

Tonight will be my first night in my apartment. I bought an inflatable mattress for camping and will use it until I can get the bed moved over. Spent Saturday at the new place, cleaning mainly, though I did move a couple of van loads of stuff over. As sad as the divorce is, it was peaceful being alone in the apartment, getting caught up on the Clay and Buck and other podcasts without interruption.p as I cleaned and organized what I had brought over at that point. So peaceful, in fact, that I brought work over with me to do in peace. I also got to enjoy my beloved incense for the first time in months.

The apartment is not as clean as I would like so I have been scrubbing the kitchen and sprayed the bath yesterday with mildew killer. It is not filthy, but not hotel clean, more like camp ground clean. Camp ground clean is okay for a short stay camping, but not for moving in.

The landlord did clean and polish the stainless steel countertop and sink, the white layer of film from imperfectly buffed off polishing agent was the main give away. My efforts yield results not worth them. Still, the unstained portions and the cabinets inside and out are sticky with grease. The cleaning wipes I bought were not up to the task, though they did help, so I will scrub again with stronger degreaser. The gas valve for the stove is frozen shut and needs to be replaced. I am awaiting word on when that will be.

After measuring it to make certain it is tall enough inside for my popcorn popper, I bought a used microwave too. Refrigerator and washing machine are to arrive Thursday morning. Still need to get wifi.

There are/were a couple of other issues. The exhaust fan over the stove would not turn on and the toilet would not stop refilling. Both have been fixed, the toilet is a wonder, a frightening one at that and fits into much of what is being discussed about the future. The toilet is some kind of new, to me, automated system. Here I thought the float valve that has been in use for well over a century was good enough of an automatic flush system. Nope. Dummy me.

There is little room for flushing water in the tank as it is filled with a mind boggling array of plastic and wires, or at least appeared to be from the quick glimpse I got of it as the repair man worked on it. Works fine, but the handle is not to be used. Instead, the wall mounted remote controller must be used. So, I guess, the toilet is useless in a power outage? If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it, but TPTB demand that everything be connected to the IoT, which they will control, of course.

As the cats turned my pillows into their toilet, I now have only one newly purchased one. So, I needed to make a quick trip over to the apartment early this morning to drop it off and brings over blankets and a sheet. I brought one crate of kitchen stuff too. Meant to bring a change of clothes, toothbrush and toothpaste and the like but forgot. Not wanting to abort the mission nor carry an extra bag of clothes all day, I found coin lockers near the main station in my town and dropped the clothes bag in it.

I am now in a izakaya near my new place enjoying draft beer and butter, stir fried mushrooms. Umm ummm good!