i had time to kill between 5 and 6:30, so i decided to go to the homely despot and scope out window air conditioner units, since i had been thinking of getting one for home. (i have two portable units, of i think 10,000 btus apiece, but they had trouble coping some times last summer when it got very hot out, so i thought if i added a third, i would be sitting pretty all summer long.) since the bedroom had been very hot (as the portable units were in the kitchen and the living room) and sometimes i had trouble sleeping as a result, and also because obviously the electric circuits in the living room and the kitchen were already spoken for, i decided to put a new unit in the bedroom window if i got one.

so i went to the despot just south of roosevelt on clinton — thinking that all the apartments in that area would have central air, and therefore there would be a good, un-picked-over selection of window units — and wound up buying an LG LWHD1006R, a 10,000 btu unit for about $200. i lugged it out to the car, loaded it up, and … found it to be only 5:25. what to do, with an hour yet to kill, an air-conditioner in the car, and nothing to do? i decided to drive the a/c home and unload it, and then return downtown for my 6:30 spinning class at Loopy Yarns.

this plan was perfect, except for the part where i got stuck in traffic.

it took me twenty-five minutes to traverse jefferson st. north from roosevelt to madison. that is ONE MILE, y’all.

i decided at some point that if i hadn’t made it to milwaukee ave. by 1800, i was going to turn around and just go back to the yarn store.

fortunately, i diverted west to halsted and then jogged west on chicago, thus arriving at chicago and milwaukee at exactly 1800. i decided to continue on home. i made it home about 1810, and unloaded the a/c and then …

well, let’s just say that you haven’t lived until you’ve hauled an awkward 150 pound box up two flights of curved stairs, by yourself, in 90°F temps.

at that point, i decided to heck with the spinning class, i was going to (a) call for a pizza, (b) try to figure out how to install the a/c unit, and then (c) collapse. so i unpacked the a/c unit, and promptly got lost for 45 minutes by the terribly vague instructions. but then the pizza guy arrived…

and he brought the wrong pizza. i had ordered “cheese, sausage, pineapple, and mushrooms.” i got “cheese, sausage, pineapple, and shrimp.”

i ask you. who the hell puts SHRIMP on PIZZA???

i like to think of myself as reasonably culinarily adventurous, and besides it would be another 45 minutes if i called to demand a replacement pizza that did not involve tiny pink seafood, so i gave it a shot. — friends, while i am willing to entertain the possibility that that combination of pizza toppings offers some merits, not among those merits is “delicious.”

further complicating the pizza debacle is the fact that, since i very rarely order pizza, when i do, i order a large pizza with the intention of putting most of it in the fridge to enjoy later. however, this time, i have one tupperware thing full of pizza in the fridge, and rather than taking care to wrap up the bits that didn’t fit in the tupperware, i just pitched several pieces. it’s just plain not very good pizza. it’s sort of desperation pizza. even picking the shrimp off didn’t help, because they infected the cheese with shrimp flavor.

i am forced again to ask — who the hell puts SHRIMP on PIZZA???

also, i miss my mushrooms. i always get mushrooms on pizza! dammit.

so i retired to irc to go help solve someone’s mysql woes so i could feel at least somewhat accomplished. during that time, i had an epiphany about some of the bad a/c assembly instructions, went back to work on that some more, solved the problems, got the cabinet basically ready to be mounted… and then i noticed that the instructions expect me to drill into my window. my nice newish vinyl double-paned windows that are not at all wooden and crappy. so i gave up on the a/c for the evening. i was not sure what i would do to solve this problem, but i was certain that i wouldn’t be doing it today.

and it was about then that i realized that in my haste to get home after being stuck in traffic, in order to unload the a/c in a hurry so i could run back downtown to go to the spinning class that i wound up blowing off because, frankly, hauling that much weight up those twisty stairs by yourself is a pain in the ass and you wind up with sore hands, i had completely forgotten to go by the laundromat and pick up my clean clothes. so now i have to get in the car and run over there real fast before work in the morning, or else, like, wear a skirt to work. which is obviously not going to happen.

…

anybody got a saw and want to make your pal niqui a nice plywood frame for her bedroom window so she can mount her shiny new a/c unit and not have it fall three stories to the ground? i’ll bake you cupcakes…