Hunker Down

Everyone gets jealous of us Floridians. I think people imagine that we spend our whole days surfing, lounging on the beach, drinking frou-frou drinks out of a pineapple and listening to Jimmy Buffet. The reality is that we have jobs and school and bills just like everyone else, and that it's super-crazy-miserable humid/hot about 70% of the year. Not to say that beaches, Disney World and sunny, balmy Decembers aren't nice, but I think people forget that it's not a tropical paradise all of the time. Case in point, Hurricane Fay, who blew through the Keys and is heading towards central Florida.

Floridians are pretty good at "hunkering down" during hurricanes. Obviously, we evacuate if necessary, but if it's safe to stay home, it's important to get the supplies you need. It's a good idea to get to the store as early as possible, because as soon as the storm starts getting close, the shelves empty of the vital supplies- bottled water, batteries, and of course, canned food. I got to the store just in time to grab all the canned food we'd need for the storm...

Canned frosting counts as canned food, right?

In all seriousness, it looks like it shouldn't be too bad a storm, and it looks like here on the east coast, we'll just get some nasty thunderstorms. Oooh, plus school is cancelled tomorrow! It's like a Florida snow day!

Edit (08-19)- It's pretty rainy out, but no thunder or lightning. It's a little windy, but nothing too bad. In fact, it's not a hurricane anymore- Fay's been downgraded to Tropical Storm.

I grew up in the Midwest, and was scared for my first hurricane several years ago, but having been through several, I can say that tornadoes are WAY scarier. They're less predictable, and while the affected swath is narrower than a hurricane's, with a hurricane you know they're coming days in advance and can prepare/evacuate as necessary.

Bad Robot!

As you probably noticed, my blog has been down for the past week. Turns out Blogger's spam detecting robots thought my blog was spam and locked my blog until a human could review it. It's good they have precautions in place, but frustrating that I was unable to access my blog.
Thanks for still checkin' in.

Oh, and on a side note- my oven's also been fixed. Double hooray!

Oven Exorcism

I really thought today would be a nice, mellow Friday. I didn't have to work, so I woke up and had a light breakfast (Greek yogurt with berries and a cup of Earl Grey), poked around on-line a bit, then went to the library, where I paid my late fines and picked up a few books, including Heat by Bill Buford, which I have been wanting to read for sometime now. I considered several good-looking cookbooks, but decided to wait until I had a working oven. I was gone for maybe an hour, tops.

I am home for maybe ten minutes, and my oven starts beeping. "Hmm?" I say to myself as I head into the kitchen. The "pre-heated" light is blinking on my oven, and it continues to beep, which is normal for when it is preheated, but is not normal now, as the oven is off. I notice a note on the counter- "Replaced timer. Have to order baking element. Tuesday at the latest. -Maintenance Guy." I think that oh, maybe since Guy replaced the timer, it accidentally got turned on, and it's the timer going off. Upon closer inspection, this is not the case, as the timer light is not on, and the display screen mysteriously says "F2". I press the off button anyway. Of course, nothing happens, but I notice the oven (which is set to "Off") is really hot. I open the door, and the broiler is blazing away. This is not good.

I call the office (with the beeping continuing in the background) and explain the situation. Office Lady tells me as soon as Guy is back, she'll send him over. Fifteen minutes pass. The beeping hasn't stopped, and the apartment is starting to smell like a cross between an overheated computer and a hot-melt glue gun. I call again. Lady is polite but unconcerned, and firmly tells me Guy isn't back yet. I ask her to page him, she says she will.

Half an hour passes. The apartment is about 90 degrees, the air conditioning is running furiously, the beeping continues, and I move anything even remotely meltable/flammable away from the oven, which is so hot I can barely touch it. I am a raw bundle of nerves- freaked out, worried and totally pissed. I call the office again. Lady is a little annoyed and tells me Guy went home (?!*@!) but that she just sent Other Maintenance Guy out with some tickets, including mine. She says he probably went to the others first (of course, she probably didn't mention that mine might be kind of important.)

I call Kyle, angry and almost in tears (probably not helped by the fact that I have been to scared to go anywhere near the kitchen to make myself lunch and I am starving), and whine about the situation to him.

Half an hour later and still nothing. My head hurts, and I'm not sure if it's hunger, the beeping (which continues, uninterrupted), stress or the fumes. I call Kyle again. His co-worker suggests flipping the circuit to the oven, and I feel stupid for not thinking of that over an hour ago. I flip the circuit off, and the beeping stops, finally. I put our oscillating fan in front of the oven, grab a banana, and collapse on the sofa.

Finally, three hours and fifteen minutes after the whole ordeal began, Other Guy shows up. "Your oven doesn't work?" he asks. (Clearly, Lady didn't explain the situation to him. Grrr.) I explain the situation to him, and he seems concerned. He fiddles around with the now-cool oven and replaces the new timer with the old timer. When he flips the circuit, everything is back to the way it was before. Not normal, just the way it was before. He tries the oven out. "It still doesn't heat up," he says. "I guess Guy's ordering that part." I tell him I don't care right now, as long as the beeping stops and the oven won't burn down the apartment.

I finally eat something when he leaves- some cherries, some soy crisps and two microwaved s'mores. I'm so frazzled now... It was a long day. So, the devil is still in my oven, but at least its quieted... For now...

Oven Drama

Monday, I boiled some pasta and made a lovely goat cheese and Parmesan cheese sauce. I put it in a casserole dish and artfully arranged tomato slices, chopped kalmata olives and a panko/olive oil crust on top. I put it in the oven for half an hour and... Nothing happened. My oven is broken.
The range still works, but the actual oven itself barely heats up. This is frustrating, as, ironically, all my meal plans this week needed to be baked. Of course.
I called the apartment office yesterday, but no one has stopped by to look at it yet. They're re-finishing the breezeways at the apartment, so I think maintenance is a little tied up with that activity... So it may be a while before I have an oven again, which makes me a little sad, as I had some baking I wanted to do. Guess it'll have to wait.
I also re-worked my meals for this week to use the stove only- luckily, the ingredients for the other meals will keep. Right now I have some red beans boiling on the stove top, and they smell heavenly! Yum!