The nice young man from the HVAC company got here around 10 AM, which was enough time for me to dust and spray a little air freshener (I vacuumed everything yesterday). He immediately got to work, and a half hour later we had a laundry list of things that needed to be fixed (which I already knew from the checkup visit back in March).

First and foremost, there was a leak in the downstairs unit’s condenser coil and it had lost coolant. Apparently coolant costs $675/three pounds and we needed 2.5 pounds. You do the math. In addition to that he was going to do a leak check and use leak sealant to (hopefully) seal any leaks, then blow out the drainage from the drip pans.

Which are apparently plumbed into our sewage system—the PVC pipes that lead outside are only emergency overflows. I had no idea. He wound up blowing out about two gallons of gunk and our master bath sink drain (which is where the downstairs unit’s drip pain drains into—I am so damn glad that I cleaned the master bath yesterday) is now clean as a whistle and will drain perfectly. We’d had problems with that line since we moved in and I’d snaked it out multiple times, but apparently there was a lot of buildup in the line leading from the drip pan. Bless his heart, that couldn’t have been pleasant.

And yes, he did indeed find a leak in the coil and applied sealant, then added the replacement coolant. I gritted my teeth and proffered a credit card for the total. Downstairs is now at a civilized temperature and the inside humidity (it was 60% this morning) is dropping like a rock, which is a goodness.

In related news I have to sell a buttload of jewelry and book covers, and will take any editing jobs going. But hey, at least we’re comfortable.

I don’t want to go into extreme detail here, so let’s just say that I woke up with an issue today that prompted a visit to the local Urgent Care place, Just To Make Sure. They confirmed my diagnosis and prescribed the meds that I would need to treat the issue, sending the scrips over to the pharmacist at my local Walgreens.

Who filled the scrips, sent me a text saying they were ready, and closed a minute later. Whee. To make matters even more fun the HVAC guys will be here tomorrow some time between 9 and 11 AM so I won’t be able to pick up said meds until they’re done.

Now, I will not die without these meds. I won’t even be majorly inconvenienced without them (mainly because I already had some on hand). But come on, don’t send a text saying “Yeah, you can come get your pills” and close up shop ONE MINUTE LATER. That’s just amateurish.

In the meantime I’m bracing myself for the repair costs that will be coming our way tomorrow. I’m hoping that it won’t be that bad, but we already know that this system is on its way out and there may be more things that have gone wrong than just a gunked-up drain line. Oh, well. We’ll pay for it somehow.

Yesterday it was warm enough for us to turn on the downstairs AC unit so I flipped it on before heading into the garage to finish up a piece. I was in there maybe ten minutes, and when I came back into the house the unit had shut off and the downstairs thermostat was flashing an -AC error.

I informed the Brit who immediately did some research and found out that -AC meant the power had been shut off at the control panel up in the attic, most likely because the float valve (which senses the amount of water in the drip pan under the condenser) had triggered, or a fuse had blown. He went up there today and lo, the drip pan was completely full of water. Since we don’t have the equipment to blow out the drainage system he tried scooping it all out and we let the pan dry out, at which point the thermostat started working again. So we switched the A/C back on. Three minutes later it cut out again with the -AC code.

On one hand, this means we have to call our HVAC company out on Monday to come blow out the drainage system and get it working again, and we really, really didn’t need a major repair bill right now. On the other hand, at least we know what’s wrong and the outside unit is still functional, which is a relief because we were told we’d need to replace it sometime this year. Hopefully the drainage thing won’t be too terribly expensive.

In the meantime we’re letting the cool air drift down from upstairs to cool off the downstairs. It’s a bit stuffy down here, but the weather’s only in the mid-80’s at the moment so it’s liveable. I grew up in Chicago during summers like this with only a window AC unit in the living room—if I could deal with it then, I can deal with it now.

So I got my second bivalent COVID booster yesterday, and today WHO announces that COVID is no longer a public health emergency of international concern (basically because it’s now an established and ongoing health issue like the flu). I’m sure this is so reassuring to everyone with Long COVID and the immunocompromised who still have to worry about catching it.

I’m fine, by the way—my arm is sore and I’m a little hot and achy, but that was my reaction to all of my previous boosters so this is expected. And people are still wearing masks even in this reddest of red counties in Texas so there is still clearly concern about catching it. At least the pandemic made mask wearing normal so people … well, I was going to say that they don’t catch flak about their masks but I’m sure that in some parts of the good old US of A they still get called names for wanting to protect themselves.

I freely admit I stopped wearing masks back in November when we went to Arkansas to visit my aunt. We traveled from Texas to Arkansas, had dinner in multiple restaurants and went out to a bunch of stores, and we never caught it (or if we did the RATs didn’t pick it up). But I’m not running the same kind of risk that someone who is immunocompromised or elderly is, and if I go on a plane or to the doctor’s office I still wear a mask. And if someone does ask me to put on a mask I always have one in my purse and will respect their wishes.

Long story short, I feel better than I got my booster, but I’m not sure that the WHO’s move was the best one.

And also with you. Yeah, I know, but I can’t help it.

In other news I just got back from Walgreens with a booster dose of the Moderna bivalent vaccine in my arm, so let’s see if I develop some cool superpowers THIS time. I mean, really, is it too much to ask for teleportation or the ability to fly?

I also think that I’m going to hire an appraiser to come appraise our house so that we can submit a protest for our property tax rate hike. At first I thought, “Eh, just let it ride,” until I found out that the tax is set by computers measuring comparative prices for houses in our neighborhood. A human can do a walkthrough and say, “Oh, hell no, this place isn’t worth that much.” And it’s worth the upfront fee to get that sorted. Also, apparently the state tax office legally has to accept the appraisal from a state-certified appraiser as the basis for our property tax. It’s worth the fee, as far as I’m concerned.