Today, I did something I have long wanted to to do.

Something I have yearned to do. With an ever-increasing quiet desperation.

Something that I fretted might never happen.

Something which took on an aspect of impossibility.

Well, can you guess what I did today?

OK……………..I SAT IN THE PARLOR!!!!!!!!

What? You are unimpressed?

Oh! Wait! I forgot something!

I SAT IN THE COOL PARLOR!!!!!!!!

Yes! The cool parlor! And by cool I mean…the AIR-CONDITIONED parlor!!!!!!!!

Oh! What a joy! What an intoxicating pleasure!

 

THE BACK STORY

In the spring of 2016, I disconnected the three AC condensers huddled around the NE corner of the house. Why? Because the condensers blighted the house. My plan was to relocate them away from the house, and hidden behind a fence.

At the time I thought all this would be finished before the heat kicked in.

Oops.

The summer of 2016 proved torturous and never-ending. One person, being given a tour of the house, collapsed and an ambulance was called! Yikes!

So, I was determined to get the damn condensers back in place and on line BEFORE the summer of 2017 kicked in.

Oops.

With each passing day of friggin’ H E A T it seemed as though the Cross House would never never never again be blessed with cooling vapors. With each passing day I ever-more worried about the Cross House becoming a permanent torture chamber rather than elegant residence.

With each passing day…

But today?

Today, after MUCH ado (such as cutting holes in the stone foundation, digging a trench to bury the AC lines, significant and $$$ electrical work, and installing new and $$$ copper lines to carry Freon), Modern Air brought back the three condensers and Rich and Corey spent the day getting them back on line, while Justin raced in, like a caped super hero, to do emergency electrical work.

And all of this heartache and expense just so the Cross House would not be blighted by AC condensers.

All this really begs the question: Geez. What price beauty?

 

 

 

 

THE AFTER EFFECTS

Rich and Corey departed. It was late in the day. I finished up working on the scaffolding and came inside.

Huh? What? Where was I?

Stepping from the scaffolding into the house was like stepping into another dimensional reality. Oppressive heat was traded for enveloping and soothing coolness. Walking through the many rooms of the Cross House was surreal. Rather than every room feeling akin to an oven ready to bake a pizza I experienced…a wholly unfamiliar house. A cool house.

I then sat in the parlor. My beautiful parlor. But for the first time a comfortable parlor.

It. Was. Bliss.

The room seemed completely different somehow. More real. More inviting. More civilized.

It. Was. Bliss.

 

THE WORRY

Everybody who has ever restored a house will know of the following.

At some point, after a bunch of electrical wiring has been torn out, after a bunch of old plumbing pipes have been discarded, and after collapsing ceilings have been pulled to the floor, you begin to feel like you are destroying rather than restoring your fabulous old house. You develop the increasingly uneasy awareness that you are moving away from your goal rather than toward it. This awareness, in micro-bits, becomes like a shroud smothering…optimism.

It’s a terrible feeling.

When I purchased the house in 2014 all three AC zones worked. As did the radiators. But even after spending a scandalous amount of money improving the radiator system it is not functional as this is written. Sigh. And then having the AC also off-line was profoundly disturbing.

Hence, my troubling and heavy concern: I am destroying rather than restoring.

But today…today…I have cooling vapors again. And this feels not only physically incredible but perhaps, more importably, psychologically incredible.