the annual tradition

 a bit late in the morning today*

I post Brahms' "Academic Festival Overture" nearly every year for the start of the fall semester. It's a favorite piece of music and does evoke my (idealized from when I was a child) idea of what campus life was like (no, not the drinking, but the tradition and the music and the general pomp and sense of purpose)

* But today I'm tired and slow on the uptake; my whole house air conditioning is not working. I noticed it Saturday night; it couldn't cool below 78 despite it being set lower. I got an emergency guy out Sunday. It will be expensive: a copper pipe had split and it needed replacing, and ALL the refrigerant needed replacing. 

I thought that was the end of it but the thing ran for 3 hours and it wouldn't drop below 82 F. 

So, I called them back - they basically said "call tomorrow" (I will have to wait until after my meeting, here's hoping it's short) but I do fear the unit's done for (It's only about 10 years old). AT LEAST I still had the small window unit and managed to get it installed in my bedroom so I slept last night (I did not sleep Saturday night; too hot).

It's always something. I'm holding out a slim hope there's something else small that needs fixing, or the guy forgot something, but I can't get the house cooler than the outdoor temperature and that's not good. If I have to I'll camp out in my bedroom for a few days until they can replace the external unit (my mom has promised a loan to do it) but I still hope it's something simple. 

It was 109 yesterday and will be 102 today; a person cannot live without some form of climate control in that, and I don't sleep if it's warmer than about 80 F.

I will note that it's interesting in the past few years to see people flip from "how wasteful it is you use air conditioning! You're ruining the planet for the rest of us!" to "WTF BBQ air conditioning should be a human right" Most of these are folks in the NE where they never had major heatwaves until recently and let me just gently say: now you know, kind of, what it's like for the rest of us. Except we can have spans of 2 weeks where it's over 100 every day, and (WORSE) does not get below 80 or 82 F at night.

so here's hoping it'll be fixed by this evening. I'm prepared for it NOT to be but I very much would like it to be fixed

And yes, I am being "resilient" about it. BUT I AM VERY TIRED OF BEING 'RESILIENT' AND WISH I DID NOT HAVE TO BE