Just a Day

Thus far it's one of those nice, uneventful days. I got as much as I could done at work (I'm missing a second or third look at some sections for a daily project and I'm slipping behind on assignments/planning for the next one, but there's only so much I can do until they perfect cloning or they hire someone to take at least one of my jobs away from me) before heading home. It's warmed up above freezing, so the snow is starting to melt, but it's not to the point where everything is slushy and gross — the roads and sidewalks are just looking clear and the rest of it is still white, albeit not as deep as it was last night.

Thinking of last night, we had a surprise visit from Evelin's folks. They were flying back to New England from Florida with a change of planes in D.C. that turned into a missed flight and an overnight stay. I didn't see them too much (getting up at 3:00 a.m. means I'm finding myself going to bed relatively early, and I was long gone when they woke and left for the airport), but it was a nice, quick visit.

We also had a surprise phone problem. Evelin called me at work and asked me to call home. The line was dead whenever she tired to dial out, so she wanted to know if there was a problem when I dialed in. (I got a busy signal.)

We thought it was maybe weather-related, so when I got home, I checked the outside wiring. There was a dial tone there, so the problem was inside.

Like a couple of other things in this house, the phone wiring has been done and redone and adjusted over the years, creating a situation that doesn't always make sense. We have some jacks that don't work and one or two rat’s nests of phone wire that's just spliced together. It turns out that when Evelin was quickly straightening up the guest room, she pushed the bedside table back into one of those rats nests and caused two wires to cross, creating a connection that gave us a busy signal from the outside and no dial tone from the inside.

After a little while with some wire strippers and electrical tape, I cleaned up the wiring a bit (I need to do a more permanent job with it, and put in somesort of outlet or junction box so we don't just have wires sitting there for little hands to tug in a few months) and we had phone service again.

Maybe I'll try to clean up some of those wires while Celeste has her nap ...