Thank you for the fresh new thread
@ComtesseRose, to
@TorontoGWM for the new (and aptly fitting) title, and to
@tuffiti for uploading the vlog.
I'm trying to catch up, as the last post and this are going at lightning speed (and I have not watched any vlogs since Sunday night!) It's been a busy week at Casa de T Rex with yard work, meetings for the non-profits I volunteer for, the dogs, and helping my neighbours.
My new neighbours are snow birds (they are in Germany), so we take care of the shared "jungle" between our properties, and whilst he they do have a lawn service, we still go over to spray for weeds in their pavered walkway and driveway. My other neighbour is currently on holiday in Aruba with the "Glam Squad" (they are all fabulous dames in their mid-70s to late 80s- they are a fit, tanned lot with perfect nails and are always dressed to the 9s.) We also take care of what her lawn service does not, and when she is away, we usually fertilize her lawn (because we have to look at it- LOL), and I make her leave me a list of things she needs repaired (because she pays people far too much money and they do a half-assed job for something we can just do for free in 5 minutes.) Last month, she was going to pay a handyman $300 to replace 3 outdoor light bulbs- Mr. T Rex, "NO. Get out your phone, and I will type in the bulbs you need. Pick them up from Lowe's or Home Depot on your way home from tennis, and it will take me three minutes."
Her only thing on the list before she departed on holiday was, "The garage door is making a strange sound." I dragged Mr. T Rex over on Monday to look at it- the whole thing needed maintenance, but as we were closing the garage door "poof"- cloud of smoke like a new pope has been elected. The opener assembly itself is original to the house (almost 20 years old), and a capacitor shyte the bed. While it was something we could repair, we would have had to get the part, and we had our own issues to deal with when our pool salt cell quit working because a lizard got into the power supply housing and shorted out the whole damn board. Lizards are assholes. But, I am of the mindset everything happens for a reason, so we have a new system arriving in a few days (It was old. I get the joy of re-plumbing a new system and the electrics- it's fine.)
I am also of the mindset that the neighbour's garage door opener happened for a reason, as she would have freaked out when it started smoking (worse yet if we were not home- she would have certainly called the fire department!). I called our awesome local garage repair company, whom I told, "It's probably the capacitor, but if you have to replace the whole assembly, it is okay- it is original to the house." Any other company would have fleeced her for a new opener, but Marco, "It's just a cap- yeah, the unit is old, but it is still good." While we we there, Mr. T Rex realized she had some ancient lighting (the lightbulbs in her kitchen were a hodgepodge of incandescent, CFL and LED bulbs)- he went to Lowe's and bought her new MATCHING lightbulbs and installed them. "Cheeseus, no wonder she is a terrible cook- she's been cooking in a cave!" "No bae, she just hates cooking!"