La Bene Vita

Water Heater Woes

I missed Main Character Mondays yesterday. Oops.

At the music school, the hot water heater died. I got a quote from a plumber to replace it. It's up in the loft above the bathrooms, accessible by ladder in the music lab, and I swear the building was built around the stupid thing. It's surrounded by duct work and rafters, or whatever you call the metal framing that holds up the roof in a retail strip mall. The space was a coffee shop before it was a soccer store before it was a music school, so it had a 50 gallon hot water tank, where we really only need 20. So getting the new one in wasn't a concern, but I did ask about getting the old one out. Quote guy says to me, this isn't our first rodeo.

Fast forward to installation today. It was supposed to take a couple hours. They started at 11:00, and at 12:30, they didn't look like they were super close to done, so I confirmed they would be done by 4:00 when the students were scheduled to arrive. They were clearing a clog in the old tank before they could remove it, but he thought it would be about an hour more. 4:00 was no problem at all, supposedly. So I left.

Reception contacts me at 3:00. They can't get the old tank out because of all the framing and duct work.

...You don't say.

At this point the clock is ticking, so they decide they're going to install the new one, but leave the old one up there, and we could worry about how to get it out later. I'm like, um, are you at all concerned that maybe the combined weight of the old tank plus the weight of the new tank plus water might exceed the weight of the old tank when it was full, which is what the support structure was designed for? (In case you're wondering, which I know you are, I asked during the quote if a permit was required, and rodeo guy said no. I said, even though we're changing the size?, he said nope and assured me that they were licensed and bonded and he knew what he was talking about.)

The teachers decided to move the lab out into the lobby temporarily since the plumbers were clearly not going to make the 4:00 deadline.

Amazingly, they managed to get the old tank out after all, so I don't have to have heartburn over the weight issue.

Then the day got more fun, because the plumbers were unable to test the new water heater. That's because, right around the time they were plumbing it in, a water main broke in our plaza and we lost water to the store completely. According to the landlord, it would be restored by (either 9pm or 6am? Receptionist wasn't totally clear on which.)

Which meant we also lost the bathrooms.

So reception starts contacting all the students to cancel lessons for the rest of the night (third time in as many weeks, thanks to Snowmaggeddon and Minimaggeddon) and she's about halfway through that when the water comes back on. After the plumbers are gone, of course.

So that was work today.

I don't have students on Tuesdays, so I worked on the business website (michelletuesday.com, if you're interested - it's still purple) more and wrote my two poems for PromptMaster:

For the prompt, "The most suspicious thing likely to make a librarian raise an eyebrow.": "Library Tryst" 

For the prompt, "Write a poem using a very limited vocabulary that is at least 8 lines long.": "The Band Director's Resignation" 

Y'all, Jayne truly is the PromptMaster. If you're not already participating, I highly recommend it.

Goals are below.

G'night,
Michelle

Goals for 2/10/26 - 2/16/26
Min 10 min/day on current novel
Review work tasks list 3 days/week
Two poems for "PromptMaster !" 
One short story for "The Bradbury" 
One themed blog post (music/writing)
One review
Current assignment for "26 Paychecks " 
Current assignment for "The Sprawling Ink Society"