Michael A. O’Neill

Category: Home

  • A fire at my neighbor’s house

    The power went out around 5pm in southeast Redmond yesterday, including in our neighborhood, the English Cove HOA.

    OMG EMERGENCY! Said the children. Who couldn’t get on screens. Oh the humanity!!!!!

    My wife, Katie, and I were already feeling lazy about dinner—it’d been two straight months on lockdown since returning from the Canby, Oregon funeral of my wife’s aunt on 14 March 2020. That was just a day or two before both Washington and Oregon banned events of more than 50 people.

    Preparing three meals a day at home, week after week, was wearing thin. Especially because our two kids, Quinn (8) and Joe (5) were picky eaters and demanded different meals.

    We had placed an order with Rocky’s Empanadas just a few minutes before the power went out. It’s a takeout place that we have passed at least once a day since we moved from Seattle to Redmond in 2015. We’d never been to Rocky’s before, but with so few restaurants open for takeout, and the menu items hit-or-miss, we were looking for something different. So we finally placed an order on Rocky’s website just to get some variety. And the option to buy some empanadas frozen to eat later? So much better than the make-shift, leftovers-wrapped-in-a-tortilla lunches I had become accustomed to over the past couple months.

    The pickup was a little chaotic. Their lights were out, of course. And I couldn’t enter the place: they had placed a desk blocking their door. You could open the door, but you really couldn’t get in. I definitely couldn’t see in the back. Still, we were lucky—our empanadas had just come out of the oven when the electricity cut out.

    Back home, with our poor, internet-deprived children playing out of doors for the first time in ages, we had a delightful dinner sitting in our driveway with a bottle of wine. The empanadas were amazing!

    About ninety minutes later, around 6:30 pm, the power came back on. Within minutes, our kids had reapplied Krazy Glue to their eyeballs and pressed their screens tightly to them. The evening was proceeding per lockdown usual (fine, we had been in Phase 1 for two weeks, but it wasn’t much different from lockdown, except emotionally).

    And then the smoke detectors started blaring. I jumped up on a chair to push the “stop it” button but it didn’t work. I ran through our entire townhouse looking for… well, anything amiss. It took a bit to realize it wasn’t our smoke detectors. It was the heat alarm system that was connected to the other three townhouses in our building.

    Then a knock on the door: it was Kalyani from next door, telling my wife, Katie, there was a fire. Katie yelled to me upstairs “FIRE!” I ran downstairs, a bit confused, I had checked the entire house and there was no fire, but… you know. Get out, right?

    Kalyani was in a bit of a panic, and all of four of our kids were completely freaking out. But… I figured it couldn’t be that big, based, of course, on no evidence whatsoever.

    I broke open the fire extinguisher by our door, went into their house and saw a maybe five-foot high column of flame billowing up from the right front burner of their range. Lots of black smoke, but not a big fire. Pulled the trigger and… Of course, the extinguisher didn’t work: I forgot to pull the pin. I was already coughing from the smoke, and couldn’t see anything other than the fire. I went out, pulled the pin, went back in, squeezed the trigger for maybe two seconds, and the fire was out. Still tons of smoke and I could feel the burn in my lungs.

    Outside, folks were wondering if we should call the fire department. I figured there was no point: the alarm was connected to Redmond FD, and a station was just across Fall City Road.

    Then Kalyani asked if we should go in and turn off the range. Oh. The range was on? Right. Yes, I had just put out a fire on her range. Of course it was on. Duh. I grabbed an N95 construction mask from my garage and went back inside Venkat and Kalyani’s place (why didn’t I grab the mask earlier?). The range was molten red and the metal pot on it was melting. No point going through all that smoke to turn off the burner, though: I told Venkat we should just kill the power at the breaker box in their garage. When we got to the panel, the microwave breaker had already tripped. I killed the range, and then figured I’d just kill the power to all the kitchen appliances. Why not?

    Then the Redmond Fire Department showed up. Couldn’t have been more than two or three minutes from when the alarm started. Must have been a non-event for them, I guess. The fire was out.

    We all stood outside for 20+ minutes, watching the firemen open up Venkat and Kalyani’s place to let the smoke out, and make sure there was no fire smoldering in their kitchen.

    Then one of the firemen pulled me aside and did a quick health check. He said I seemed fine, but recommended I go to the ER to make sure I didn’t have carbon monoxide poisoning. He was concerned about the huge lungfuls of smoke I’d inhaled during my three trips into my neighbors’ townhouse. Of course, Katie had already told me I should go to the ER—a suggestion to which I was predictably dismissive. I accept and embrace what I know Katie must have been thinking at that moment: “MEN!”

    I grudgingly agreed as the fireman and my wife ganged up on me. I would visit the ER at Swedish less than a mile away. Katie wanted me to take the car—she wanted to drive me, frankly. The fire truck was blocking the driveway so we couldn’t get the minivan out, and… I’m a dude. So… I rode my Vespa.

    Listen, I’m a guy. It’s genetics. I don’t ask for directions, I don’t go to the doctor, and if I need to go to the ER, I’m bloody well going to get there on my own even if I’ve got a limb falling off. Riding my Vespa so that I could get checked out for a condition that might make me dizzy and pass out? RAWR!

    Besides, I hadn’t been on my Vespa in months.

    All the doors at Swedish were locked shut. Just the one door to the ER. There couldn’t have been more than a dozen cars in the parking lot, either.

    The guy at admitting said I could go to the ER or to Urgent Care. Well, he said that after he handed me a mask and asked me several COVID-19 related questions and handed me a face mask. One of the questions was “do you have a dry cough?” My answer “well, I just did inhale a ton of smoke.” We both laughed.

    When he said “ER” all I could think of was the bill we got when Katie had an ER visit a while back. I can’t recall what it was for, but I do remember it was serious business. And I have fantastic health care through Microsoft, so the real cost must have been insane. I chose Urgent Care. Cheaper! I’m a dude!

    There was no one there. I can’t ever recall going to a medical facility whose waiting room wasn’t at least half full. But I was the only person there that wasn’t an employee. Still, I had a 15-minute wait. It would’ve been wrong to be seen immediately.

    The physician’s assistant checked my oxygen levels and listened to my lungs. She said I could go to the ER and get a blood test and an x-ray if I wanted, but… she didn’t think it was worth it, considering how little time I was exposed to the smoke, and how I wasn’t really showing any symptoms of carbon monoxide poisoning. Sounded good to me.

    When I got home, Katie had both kids in bed with her. They were stressed out, and nothing was going to get them to sleep except their mom.

    But… kids are kids, and Joe was poking Quinn, even in a king-sized bed. So Quinn came to Joe’s room, where I’d been sleeping recently. Katie had been sleeping with Joe because of how her stress-induced Shingles (i.e. Coronavirus-induced Shingles) were keeping her up at night. Her tossing and turning would surely keep me up too, but Joe sleeps like a log.

    And while I didn’t feel an ounce of adrenaline or worry or fear when I went into Venkat and Kalyani’s place to put out the fire, when I finally got home from Swedish I was all wired up. I lay there next to my daughter for at least thirty minutes before she succumbed to sleep. Me? I didn’t fall asleep until hours later, well after midnight.

    As I tried to unwind while the rest of the house was asleep, I couldn’t stop thinking about how our two families stood as we watched the firemen close things down.

    For two months, Venkat, Kalyani, Katie and I had consciously prevented our daughters, Quinn, Manushri and Pravasti, from playing together. We had kept at maximum distance from each other in the rare times we were in our joint entryway, and kept even further away when we exchanged a few words.

    It wasn’t just about following the rules: less than a week after the funeral in March, one of Katie’s aunts tested positive for COVID-19, and several other members of her family exhibited symptoms. We had all spent plenty of time together that weekend.

    The fire was a strangely normalizing event despite its abnormality. All eight of us stood, shoulder-to-shoulder, along with a few of our neighbors. All thoughts of social distancing and COVID-19 were gone in the face of a fire.

  • The kitchen is done. Sorta.

    It’s been almost two months since I’ve posted on here. It’s been a busy time at home, work and on CarlessinSeattle.

    New_counters Home, it’s been about remodeling. I spent a couple months waiting patiently for Peter Anderson, my chosen contractor, to finish up a couple of existing jobs, and in the interim, I started hating the badly stained butcher-block counters, cheap stainless steel sink and tacky red tile in my kitchen.

    So I decided to get them all replaced. Well, I decided to get the sink and counters replaced, and mom, Katie and the realities of construction convinced me that the tile backslpash–even if it hadn’t been tacky–would have to come out.

    So, several thousand dollars later, I have dark green granite counters, a copper sink, oiled-bronze faucet and… a backsplash waiting for new tile. (photo right) I figured I’d hold onto the tiling project myself. Still need to decide.

    And, of course, I need to paint. The ceiling in the kitchen needs new paint, because of the new, Craftstman-style lighting fixture I put in. And the wall by the fridge–my first experiment with glaze painting techniques–doesn’t work. And the other wall still has the cold, light gray-blue in which the entire apartment was painted. And it’s worn and stained.

    But the hard work is done. Below are some before, after and during shots.

    Old_counters

    Main_counter_interim_2

    Old_sink_2

    New_sink_2

  • New bookshelves

    I’ve been meaning to post this, but have been so focused on my transit blog, I haven’t had the time.

    Anyway, camping out in a hotel room in rainy Port Angeles, working with my computer and camera, I thought I should post this picture of my beautiful new bookshelves.

    Yes, I know the diner booth doesn’t work. I’ll figure it out at some point.

    Bookcases

  • /wrists

    Timurlane

    It’s so pathetic.

    I’ve known I have a computer game addiction for a long time. It’s games in general, not any specific game. I just can’t stop playing, especially when it’s a truly well designed game. Civilization III was the last one. I could play that for an entire weekend.

    It’s one of the reasons I never play computer games. Well, almost never.

    But Civ wasn’t as bad as World of Warcraft. Jason introduced me to it just after I moved to my new place. Unlike Civ III, it has no end. You just keep playing. Forever. And ever. And ever.

    Hiking, cooking, unpacking, blogging, work, photography, phone calls to family and friends. WoW has taken a massive toll on the last month+.

    I couldn’t stop. I tried using parental controls, but I had the password, so that didn’t work. I couldn’t make myself stop. So, I cancelled my subscription. It ends on Tuesday. I’ll log in tomorrow night to check on my auctions, then uninstall. It’ll be done. I hope.

    Not that it was all a horrible waste of time. Finn loved watching me play, and Ellie and I created a Princess character together. I bonded with Jason and Duncan (though Duncan better understood the addiction). And it was fun to learn a bit about the gaming culture that’s out there.

    Unfortunately, Timurlane won’t go away. Blizzard will keep my level 32 undead warrior indefinitely, in case I’m ever weak again and re-subscribe.

    I couldn’t quite log off this evening, of course, knowing it was my last day to play. I cleared my quest log today, but wanted to wander around in Tirisfal Glades for a bit. Just to look at the gorgeous graphics. And swat a few critters. I spotted a lvl 9 Shaman, and decided to twink him a bit. He asked if I was bored. I said yeah. He asked if Timurlane was my first character. I said yeah. Can’t recall how the rest went, but the last comment he made was "I can’t even count the number of times I’ve ‘quit’ playing."

    Not a good sign.

    But, what can I say. "/wrists." It has to be a command in the game. Seriously. /wrists.

    /cry

  • Dinner was burned. Badly

    Not my dinner, mind you. I didn’t leave work until 9:40pm last night. No, it was my downstairs neighbor’s dinner. The entire apartment reeked. Needless to say it, but I will anyway: the hall closet smelled like the dinner was burned right in there.

  • My closet still smokes

    There’s still a chain-smoking boogeyman in there. I’ve moved all my coats to the storage locker–my biking jacket smelled when I pulled it out this weekend. I haven’t found a place for the other cloth goods in there. But I will.

    This weekend, I used an expanding foam to fill the hard-to-spackle holes, re-caulked all the seams, and spackeled the remaining holes. No dice. It still smokes. I have all but convinced myself that, if I lifted up the floorboards, I’d be able to hear/see a ceiling fan in my downstairs neighbor’s ceiling.

    I think two weekends from now, I wil buy the floor leveling compound from Home Depot and seal over the hardwood floor. Either that, or get my own ceiling fan. Except I’ll put it in the floor and have it blow the smoke back down.

    Grumpy, grumpy, grumpy. It’ll be nice to have Chanel and the kids up this weekend. It’s hard to be grumpy around Finn and Ellie. I can pull it off, of course, but it is harder.

  • My closet smokes

    Seriously. Every time I open the hall closet, it smells like someone’s been locked in there, chain smoking.

    It’s the downstairs neighbor, of course. Their smoke rises through all the holes in the floors and wall of my hall closet. I have unpacked all but three boxes (excluding office/desk stuff–I no longer have a desk, so I just put that all in storage until I get one). Most everything is put away, too, so I emptied out that closet and started going after the seams and cracks with joint compound and, when I couldn’t get a putty knife in–caulk.

    One big hole stuck between two pipes was a problem. Everything kept falling through the hole. So I rolled up some newspaper and stuffed it down there. That held the first layer of caulk up. I’ll fill in the rest with joint compound.

    We’ll see how it smells tomorrow when I get home.

    As my friend Dennis said in the note with his apartment warming gift (a giftcard to Home Depot): "Welcome to homeownership, where the fun never ends."

  • Somewhere, resolved

    Yup. Only two boxes were buried more deeply than the one with my sheets. I had to move 39 boxes–nearly all filled with books and binders and paper.

  • Somewhere…

    The move went swimmingly. The packers were done after just three hours Monday morning, and I treated myself to a massage that afternoon. My muscles needed the relaxation. This morning, the movers arrived, and by 1 p.m., my apartment was empty. By 3:30 pm, all of my worldly possessions were in my new home.

    By 7 p.m., Angie and I had completed a walk-through of my old apartment. My experience at 1217 18th did not prepare me for a walk-through of a relatively new building. I didn’t bother to point out the minor carpet stains when I moved in, and despite scouring the grease traps, they weren’t clean enough. I was used to gaping holes in the walls, brown tap water, broken windows, exposed wiring, utterly filthy floors, doors that didn’t close. Who cares about an ink stain? *sigh* I think it helped that my landlord was also my real estate agent.

    And so I returned home, planning to grab some sushi and a beer, stare at my boxes, unpack my bathroom sundries and linens, and go to bed by 9 p.m. to nurse the cold I contracted last week at work. Probably from my boss.

    But it’s 10 p.m., and somewhere…

    Somewhere in my new home is a box carefully labeled "sheets, pillows, comforter–unpack first." Thankfully, the movers used all of my books as a base layer in the truck, so those boxes were the last to be unloaded. Dozens of painfully heavy boxes of books thus surround all the other boxes stacked up in the corner.

    Somewhere, in a box, buried at the back of my living room, are pillows and an alarm clock and sheets and my bedside lamp. Somewhere behind all the books.

    Somewhere are the bits I need to sleep comfortably in my bed.

  • Home improvement: Day… I have no idea what day it is

    It’s ready. I mean, I still have to freshen the trim in all of the rooms, I need a towel rack, the hall closet desperately needs some work, the bedroom window is cracked, there’s no lighting in the living room…

    Peach But it’s ready for me to move in. The painting is done. It took all day yesterday to prepare the living room walls and put on two coats of the base color. I was actually quite concerned after the base coat went on: it was this very feminine peach color (photo right). Not at all what I was hoping for. True, it did warm the room so drastically compared to the cold gray/blue the prior owners chose. But peach?

    I thought about running back to Home Depot first thing Sunday morning to get some new color scheme, but I thought I might as well give the color wash that Tiffany and I decided would work well (Tiffany is a coworker at Microsoft who actually has some style).

    I was also worried about the color wash technique because it required three different shades of paint. The extra $20 for another gallon made no difference.Color_wash I was worried it would take forever to apply three different colors to the wall. I was also worried about how quickly the glaze dries. The whole idea of the color wash is to blend the two darker colors, while at the same time re-exposing the lighter base coat. The glaze dries so quickly, I had portions of the rag and sponge techniques that came out odd because I paused in the middle. The color wash was so much more complicated.

    Or so I thought. It was actually easier and faster than the rag and sponge techniques. And the results are so beautiful. I love it. I love it I love it I love it.

    I also managed to freshen up both closets. I put in black-and-white vinyl tiles on top of the scratched and the ugly dark gray/blue paint some prior fool of an owner had laid down overCloset_before_1Closet__after the hardwood floors. Actually, at some point there was carpet. Carpet without any padding underneath it. The tacks were still in the floor of the closet.

    I also painted over the medium blue/gray paint in one of the two closets. In the process, I ripped out four pieces of wood that had probably been used for drawers or shelving some long time ago. Of course, when I ripped out the last piece of wood, I ripped out a good chunk of the plaster on the wall as well. I used up almost all of my joint compound filling that gaping hole.