Boilers and Bananas

It's been a long week, I must admit. And, I'm glad it is over.  My boiler decided to take a leave of absence on Thursday morning.  This is the day I had dreaded all week because I was stacked up. I had several lectures, a meeting for the staff-student liaison committee I'm a member of, followed by a 3 hour frog dissection/muscle contraction lab.  Loooong day.  So, to start it off with realizing my boiler (central heat) was inoperative, was rather discouraging (and cold).  Mind you, it's been really, really cold lately.  I turn my boiler off at night because there really isn't a thermostat here and I'd rather breathe cold air than hot as dream away each night.  In the morning just after I arise (still dark, btw), I first flip on the two switches for my boiler.  One switch is for hot water (seriously weirds me out) and the second for my central heat.  I can see the pilot light fire up and hear the water start to course through the veins of my radiators.  This unit is in my kitchen, where you can feel the draft blowing straight under the door from my back yard. This door is advantageous when I'm cooking because there is a smoke alarm directly above my stovetop, which likes to go off with the smallest wisps of smoke.  My kitchen is so small, if I open the door, cold air flows directly under the smoke alarm, daring it to go off.  'Galley kitchen' is a serious stretch.  I suppose it's a good thing that no one has wasted space on my lifestyle where kitchens are for making drinks.

But, I digress.  So, said boiler went on holiday and being cold enough to ice over my bedside glass of water from the night before, I decided to call my landlord rather than leave for anatomy lecture.  She instructed me to call the company that installed the boiler and turns out they don't want to show up until the next day. I'm not quite accustomed to service without a smile, so I try other companies with the same result.  The roads have been bad for so long, it's been unbelievably cold and I know no one....so, I'm stuck. Until.....my landlord notifies me she got in touch with a personal friend who is a plumber and he will come over the same day.  He did and finally figured out the fan had given up, thereby shutting down the boiler.  All fine and good, but he couldn't get the part until the next day. So, he left me with two space heaters..thank God.  This should give some indication of how chilly willy it was:

Friday morning I go to two lectures and then run home to meet the plumber.  He showed up about 10 minutes after I should have left for anatomy dissection, but I was hugely grateful and was not going to complain. I got home after 530 pm and find the flat warmer...yay. I also find the pilot light out..ut oh.  It's now Friday night and I am not optimistic he will answer his phone. Not only does he answer, but when I remind him I now don't have any heaters, he tells me he will come back out.  He brought his cute little 4 yr old girl and checked out my system.  The radiators got fiery hot and the pilot light kept extinguishing.  Bottom line...it was finally running as it should and never had.  The radiators get to a certain temp and then the system shuts down so it doesn't overheat.  It has never gotten this warm, so I was concerned.  All was good and he left.

That was the end to a good day. I also had an encouraging event happen that morning.  Every morning, I stop by a fruit market that is owned by some Pakistani's and get a banana.  It's really bizarre that there are so many fruit stores because it's obviously not the best place to grow fruit year round.  They display their fruit out on the sidewalk every day and they also have a decent sized inside area.  There is consistently two 'Fruit Connection' vans parked on the street seemingly all day unloading fruit.  It doesn't quite add up, honestly.  With the bad weather, however, I've noticed it hasn't been there as much and the banana supply was dwindling noticeably.  

I'm such a regular, it's gotten to the point that regardless of what size banana I put on the scale, it's always '20 pence please'.  They know I don't like the really ripe ones and want a firm, just-turned-kind-of-yellow banana for my walk to school.  So, waking up to a freezing flat on Friday morning (I didn't trust keeping the two space heaters plugged in all night), I was not in the best of moods especially since everything had to go like clockwork.  So, imagine my disappointment when I went to my banana section to find only really ripe, brown and yellow, baby bananas.  The owner saw me fishing around, came over, broke off two bananas and said, 'Here. You go.' I went to protest and he kind of shushed me away.  I thanked him and was off.  That made my day.  I really appreciated the gesture.

I love it when people 'get it'.

Over-N-Out