No free pizza today, alas, and in fact it took me about fifteen minutes just to get out of the building this afternoon at lunch.
See, the building has this “green initiative,” whereby they try to use less electricity, particularly during the summer months when city blackouts are more likely. And the building’s management is to be commended for this…except when they accomplish their eco-friendliness by shutting down half of the elevators during the busiest time of the day. I watched many, many elevators — or, rather, the same two elevators, but many, many times — go up and down, too full for me to squeeze on. And eventually, a bunch of us just took the stairs, even though we’re not supposed to. It apparently triggers a silent alarm in the lobby, or that’s what I’ve been told, and they’re meant for emergency purposes only. But I’d probably be waiting there still if I hadn’t taken the stairs.
I had high hopes that when I got home this evening, it would be to a new air conditioner and an easily activated new cell phone. But both took several hours, the AC installation guys not arriving until almost 9 PM (after many phone calls and promises to my parents throughout the day), and my phone would not activate until I spent forever and a day chatting with tech support online. Luckily, both were finally working around the same time, and now I have an air-conditioned bedroom — a little chilly right now, actually — and a shiny new smartphone.
That’s something.
Meanwhile, started reading The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet by David Mitchell, for a change of pace.
