Well, things are on their way to being fixed.

The air conditioning guys came out yesterday (when they said they would!!! That is quite unusual for workers in this part of the country). They looked everything all over, determined that a small amount of refrigerant needed to be added. That was all it took.

Well, there's one other matter. One of the guys asked me "Ma'am, where's your filter?"

Um, yeah.

No one told me when I moved in here where the filter was at. Over the years, when nothing went wrong, I kind of convinced myself that I had some kind of magical heating and air conditioning system that didn't need filters.

Turns out, there was NO filter. The guy pointed out the cold-air return (which I had helpfully vacuumed out before they got here). He said there should be a filter there.

Actually, I'm telling this a little out of order. The refrigerant-adding was the last thing. The first thing was the filter question. When the guy saw that there was no filter, he kind of groaned and said, "The coils are probably all full of dust and that's why it's not working right. You probably need the system cleaned." So he took various doors off of the thing and looked at it. And to his surprise, found that the coils were actually clean.

(So maybe I'm not such a bad housekeeper after all? I mean, if it's been however many years I've lived here, and no dirt and crud have gotten into the coils despite the absence of a filter?). So they looked everything over, added the refrigerant, and said that it should be good for the rest of the summer.

He asked me if I wanted him to order and install a filter set up. I decided that I had been living on borrowed time before, and since now I KNEW about the filter, something would probably go wrong without one...so yeah. He's coming back Friday to put it in. And maybe this will mean less dust in the house.

But my house is cool now. That's what's important.

I don't know how much it will cost for sure; one thing this company does is that if there is more than one "service call" needed, they only bill you on (and for) the last one. I don't know if other places do that, but it's nice. I like this company; they're super professional and they don't treat me like I'm an idiot. (Even if I kind of was about the filter thing). And they have a receptionist. I like that they have a receptionist who schedules the times when the people come out, rather than you having to call the guy - and maybe interrupt him in the middle of a job - and try to get him to estimate when he's free.

The car - well, hopefully it will be done early this afternoon. The guy called me yesterday afternoon to tell me that the man he had working on it had got heat exhaustion and he had to send him home. I kind of cringed and remarked that the friend who was driving me to get the car had an evening meeting today (the man first suggested, "could you get it Wednesday evening?"). He said to call after lunch today and see - and if not, HE'D come and get me - he needs me to take the car after it's done - he needs the space because he's got other work that's come in (I guess he must be good?).

I have to say - I'm sure he's a perfectly nice man. He's a father - his teenaged daughter was running around the garage calling boys on her cell phone on Saturday - but the idea of riding for 1/2 hour with a man I do not know well, to go get my car, creeps the HELL out of me. When I call Jane I'm going to BEG her to be willing to miss the meeting if necessary. Or I might try hitting up one of my colleagues. I don't know. Maybe I'll be lucky and it will be done right after lunch today.

Or I suppose I could ask Jane to drive me down and just leave me there, and I could get it when it was done. I could bring a book or something. (Probably not knitting; the waiting room was hot and stunk of stale cigarette smoke.) If it weren't so hot I could walk to the used-book store I had been planning on going to Saturday. Well, if it weren't so hot and if I weren't spending so much on a new transmission.

it wouldn't be so bad if he'd offer to have someone drive the car up to me with him, and then him drive the person back - in fact that would be wonderful. But that wasn't the offer and I don't envision that happening.