An Ode to Air Conditioning

Me -- this morning.

I woke up this morning and it was a nice chilly 70F in the house. I actually needed to pull a quilt up to shield me from the COLD.

Thank God.

Anyways, the AC repair guy came yesterday around noon and restored normalcy to our household. Our AC had never been serviced before, and apparently we needed to have another recharge of freon. No big whoop. I learned a lot from AC RepairMan re. regular maintenance and blahblahblah. I'm probably just going to buy some annual maintenance package so that they come and check the unit and the entire HVAC system in our house.

Not actual unit --- but these all look the same to me.

In case you live in Fairfax, I highly recommend AbleAir-1. They were referred to me by our neighbor, CD, who also had AC probs earlier this week. I didn't feel like I got ripped off, the pricing was reasonable... plus I was so delerious from the heat that I probably would have written the man a blank check to turn our house into an icebox.

Some random reflections on Air Conditioning and Sweltering Heat:

• I spent most of my childhood without central air (I had a window unit when I was growing up), so this experience brought back many memories of hot disgusting summers in Philly.
• My first two cars (85 Honda Accord, and 87 BMW 325e) did not have AC. I remember that with the Honda I had to manually roll down the windows.
• The brutal heat of this past week (especially in our house) was reminiscent of my trips back to the Philippines. A trip back to our compound in the province consisted of sequestering myself for two weeks to my AC'd room and watching Filipino soap operas, or going to the Mall (everyday) via fume-spewing tricycles.

Transportation - filipino-style. I always preferred to ride in the sidecar. Always keep a hankie handy to cover your nose and mouth.

• Always remember to drink LOTS of water and stay hydrated. I seriously think that the heat was cooking my brain after awhile. Yesterday afternoon, after the AC was up and running, MB and I CRASHED big time and napped for a good chunk of the afternoon.
• Always have a hankerchief handy to wipe off the profuse sweat from your brow.

Things to do when your AC is broken include:

• Sit around and bitch about it;
• Go to the movies and the mall (didn't get a chance to do either);
• Do LOTS of errands requiring you to drive around in your "AC-mobile" to other lovely AC'd locations;
• Sit in front of a fan and type angry emails, IMs, and blog postings while you still have the energy;
• Lie completely still and experience the life force being sapped out of you.
• Go to your sister's house across the street and mooch off of her functional AC. (I crashed on her couch the other night when it was completely unbearable to sleep in my house)
  

So, those are my laments for now. If your AC unit is approaching 5 yrs old and you haven't had it regularly serviced, look forward to having it conk out on you.