The movers came late. I was restless, so I left the old Victorian built in 1892 and went to the new house built in 2011 to prepare it for our arrival and all of our things. When I got there, it was cold. I stood before the thermostat and scratched my head, not knowing how to adjust the temperature.
It looked nothing like my old thermostat or any other I have seen for that matter. I was cold. excited, admittedly flustered. I called my son who told me, “Just press the middle, then turn the outside rim.” When I did, I programmed a new temperature and the thermostat reported that it could take 24 hours before the heat climbed that high. Later I would need to download an app on my phone so I could set the temperature before coming home. With my first tech encounter behind me, I zipped my coat and kept moving.
On to the refrigerator to ensure it would be cold enough to preserve our food when it arrived. I turned the knob inside to colder; nothing happened. I looked for the cord to check if it was plugged in but it was boxed in behind the refrigerator. I wasn’t going to even try to move it. Later, I was introduced to the circuit box in the pantry and when I flipped the switch, the refrigerator hummed. There is no basement in our new home so first floor closets hold everything mechanical. I would learn more about that later. Now I had discovered not only how to heat my home but how to keep the refrigerator cold.
After a flurry of movers and boxes and visitors, we wanted to sit and sip a cup of tea, to relax and lend normalcy to the day. We located a pot in one of the boxes on the kitchen counter, filled it with water and tried to figure out the stove top. Never having used one like it, we assumed power is power and on is on. How hard could it be? We turned on the power and the burner where the pot was placed. The stove switched off. We tried again. Same result. We gave up on tea and researched the stove top. Wrong cookware! When we took out our iron skillet, we were able to boil water in it so we knew it wasn’t the stove top. The next day, we gave our son our pots and ordered new ones. Luckily, we had the iron skillets in the interim.
Two weeks later, adjusting the temperature and cooking on the stove top are learned skills. The refrigerator is keeping our food cold and if a circuit flips, we know where to find it. Now we are on to new things, like how to replace a burned out light bulb. Yes, changing a halogen bulb in a track light is not that easy. I did some research, then took a trip the hardware store. With a step stool, suction cup and gloves, I was ready. After fiddling around on the top step of the stool, holding the suction cup to try and unscrew the bulb, I could not pull it out from the silver ring that held it. I asked my husband to give it a try. He removed the entire light fixture from its socket and then replaced the bulb held in place by prongs. No wonder it didn’t unscrew. How many baby boomers does it take to change a bulb? Two: one to watch you-tube videos and the other to pull down the fixture while balancing on a step stool.
It’s an adventure! That’s where the learning, the fun and the gratitude come in. In the time it takes to figure things out, I stop taking them for granted. I considered what if I did not have heat, refrigeration, light, somewhere to cook. Worse yet, what if I could not research things from home, then apply the information I find? I am grateful for the innovations of the last 119 years and for the opportunity to time travel from the late nineteenth to the twenty first century. It’s no wonder that it is taking me a moment to catch up!