Blog Reprise

In the category of little, but important, things I want to revisit my blogs of April 4th and March 24th.

In the April 4th blog I chatted about the wonderful shopping carts here which allow a complete range of motion.  I just can't let it go, so I uploaded the short video on YouTube so you can get the real flavor of my epic revelation.  Try this:  The Shopping Cart.

Secondly, on March 24th, soon after both of us were settling in, I recapped the 'Green Monster' adventure in which we slogged our way through the Czech language owners manual to get the machine to cooperate and recover some much needed fresh laundry.
Well, I guess we did not show enough deference to the 'beast' because last Wednesday we both were frantically preparing for the evening's two sessions with the Discussion Group when the power went out in the entire apartment (including our accountant neighbor who shares an office in the entrance way).  Heading into the hallway we noticed something amiss in the bathroom; there was water all over the floor and the distinct smell of burned plastic.  It seems - careful not to assign any blame here - the drain from the washer (which must be manually placed in the sink) was overlooked and left hanging over the 'beast'. The water had entered the top and shorted out the electrical control panel.  A mess.  But, no problem, simply unplug the machine, open the breaker panel and reset the breaker (and clean up the mess).  But wait ... Problem.  It seems the primary breaker panel is located outside on the front of building-- makes sense from a safety perspective in that emergency services can disconnect power in a burning building. But the outside main panel has a special key which we did not have.  [Quick technical note; there is an internal breaker panel but the washer had tripped the local breaker and the main outside.] So, here's the accountant standing with her hands on her hips, with a client at her desk, in the dark.  As fate would have it, the hardware store just around the corner had the special key and we were able to get everything back to normal ... sorta.
The good news ... we got a new washer out of the deal (our landlady was very understanding!!)