diary of a householder

Ants. Our cat sitter from the trip three weeks ago warned us that ants had started to appear, and sure enough, they appeared in the kitchen sink overnight any time something of interest to an ant might have been left in there. Vigilance kept them away, but then they discovered the trash can. During one such visit, the trail was heavy enough that I was able to track it back to its origin point, which was an unfinished slat between the floor and wall behind the refrigerator. Several visits to Home Depot later (because the local real hardware chain went out of business), I finally got a sealant cement of workable viscosity and sealed up the slat. Then a day later, I sealed up the hole in that, then the hole in that. In the process I got lots of practice moving the refrigerator. That put paid to the ants for a few days, until they discovered a way in on the other side of the garage wall. Now wait until I can track that exact point down.

Laundry. Usually I can fix whatever is causing difficulty for B. in the washer or dryer, but not this time. Visit from a repairman confirmed the dryer's electronics were shot, and it wasn't just a switch problem. Back to the store where I bought out new washer a few years ago. Didn't like the dryer they showed me: confusing labeling, and a control wheel so stiff I thought it didn't work if the machine wasn't on. No, it was supposed to be like that. I picked a different one, but it had to be ordered, and it comes tomorrow. Meantime I took my own laundry to a local laundromat, first time I'd needed to use one here. I liked it, especially for the countdown timers on both washer and dryer, something you rarely see in a laundromat; except that it lost one of my socks. I know, that's proverbial, but it had never happened to me before. And this was one of my expensive support knee socks, so unhappy.

Scores. Two years ago I was dismayed to find that the local college library, to which I have access, had declared all its music scores noncirculating. This put quite a damper in my concert-review research, but I was relieved to see that they've rescinded this, so I was able to check out the Bartók collection for my upcoming Banff festival trip, since it's going to be another Bartók immersion program. I mentioned at work that I was going to be hearing a lot of Bartók there, and someone thought I'd said "bar talk." Well, a lot of that too, actually.