The morning was devoted to Miss Madeline. She helped Grandma Linda put the toys away before lunch. Brendan arrived around noon and began packing up her stuff. They left at 12:30 PM to get her home in time for her nap.
We unwrapped the box spring mattress foundation and discovered several defects. We bought this at the Sears Outlet Center in Novi and it wasn’t very expensive. Most of the appliances at the outlet center were visibly dinged, dented, and scratched so perhaps some defects should have been expected. The plastic bag, however, was intact. The defects appeared to be the result of improper handling, but that is not to say that XPO was responsible. The bottom dust cover fabric, which is very thin and flimsy, was torn but Linda was able to stitch it back together, at least enough to dissuade the cats from climbing in. There was also a small puncture, about the size of my finger, in the top surface, which again was a very thin material. Since it will have a mattress on it we did bother fixing it. There were also smudge marks on two corners. Again, they will not be visible with the mattress and linens in place so we did not worry about them.
We had e-mails from Kate inquiring about our availability to attend the Thursday evening performance of “Meshuggah Nuns” at the Meadow Brook Theatre. That worked for us so she suggested we meet at the Rochester Mills Beer Company for dinner first. Linda checked the menu online and it looked like it would work for us, so we agreed to the plan.
We spent much of the evening doing online research for a new refrigerator for the bus. The old one is still running and maintaining the temperature fairly well, but it is rather old, not particularly energy efficient, and very loud when running. It has also been repaired twice by our friend Butch and is very difficult to service because of how/where it is installed. As often seems to happen, there were almost no new units available with the same dimensions as our current unit. One of the things we are considering is getting a smaller, 24″ wide, model and building a tall, narrow, 29″ deep slide-out pantry in the unused space.
The smaller fridge would still be a compressor based residential unit, just smaller than the current one. Linda will have to decide if that is a fair trade-off although if I stop drinking Ice brand water it would reduce the need for storage volume. Our current Jenn-Air is a side-by-side and we mostly keep milk jugs full of frozen water in there for thermal mass to help with temperature stability. With a better fridge we would not need nearly that much freezer space as our frozen foods on the bus are usually one or two pizzas, a couple of Amy’s frozen entrees (for when Linda really does not feel like cooking or going out), and perhaps a container of non-dairy “ice cream.”