After the initial panic---no elevator for a month?! or more?!---I have started to settle down and work things out. Don't get me wrong, it still completely sucks. But I have to deal with it anyway.
My initial thought, honestly, was: how infrequently can I manage to have to go out? But then I had a chilling realization.
Used cat litter smells. Strongly. As does some kitchen trash, too, but the cat box scooping? I have been taking that down every other day, in happier, elevator-filled times, because it just does not smell good.
So it's not like I will be able to go out once a week and make that work. Following up on that, as long as I have to go down, I can maximize errands for those days. Or, for instance, bring home pizza for dinner.
One of my initial thoughts was dismay about doing the condo checks. But honestly, that isn't going to be much worse than climbing the stairs would be anyway. Stopping on each floor going up? Well, it's not like I can climb five flights without a break anyway, not in these temps and with these knees.
Another 'happy' thought (such as it is) was, at least we have a garage, and can leave things downstairs. Cereal was buy-1-get-1-free, and I left a box in the garage. I'll buy some bottles of wine for Mom, but only carry up one. I'm even going to bring a gallon ziploc bag down and carry up that much cat litter at a time, because why kill myself bringing up 20 pounds at once? It's not like I need that much on a given day.
Yesterday I used a good, heavy-duty tote bag with good handles to carry things, and I also have a backpack in the garage that I can use.
Am I calm about this? Not really. I was already counting down to my vacation and how much I have to do to a) be ready to go, and b) have things ready for my brother when he comes in to keep Mom company. Removing the elevator from my tools for this planning increases the degree of difficulty by an unexpected and truly unpleasant amount. But what are you going to do? I'm not cancelling the trip. Do my best and move on.
Breathing deeply.
No elevator for a month! Can your mom even do stairs? This seems like an emergency situation, honestly. Let's hope the month goes by quickly and your mom does okay.
ReplyDeleteIn theory she can, slowly and holding on, but it's been a few years since she tested that.
DeleteWhat a mess! I don't mind going up and down stairs, but NOT carrying things. If it wouldn't be my knees, it would be my back!
ReplyDeleteYes, the back, and the hands. I'll be using the backpack as much as possible for balance, but it sucks any way you slice it.
DeleteIf I don't take the litter out daily (sometimes twice daily!) it takes over the house. Solidarity!
ReplyDeleteRight?? People without cats don't get the magnitude.
DeleteMind you, the people one flight up have a dog, so they're going out every day. But I've seen him take the stairs when the elevator was working, so I feel like that's not as awful for him.
Oh, ALSO. Life hack. We switched Zelda to the Lightweight Tidy Cats litter. It's SO MUCH LIGHTER. It's a little more expensive, but YOLO. If I had to carry it up a billion flights of stairs, I'd get the lightweight stuff. She was already using a different clumpable litter and she didn't seem to care about the transition at all.
DeleteI'm envisioning the dog neighbor offering to help if he knew you needed it. I wish I could run right over and help. I'm also wishing you could set up some kind of pulley system out a balcony or something to dumbwaiter things up and down so you don't have to carry them.
ReplyDeleteWhoever's working on restoring that elevator could do it faster if they wanted to enough. Is it the labor? The paper pushing? The hassling over any warranty? The trying to get an inspector out? I'm wishing out loud here, and very sorry you're going through this.