Goodbye July
Thursday, July 31st, 2025 05:24 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
snoozefestaudio |
76F and partly cloudy, going down to 60F tonight.
Today is the first day of my mid-summer break, but I had to make an unplanned trip to WalMart first thing, to get a new air fryer convection oven.
So, two nights ago... Tuesday night, I was baking a couple chicken patties in the air fryer, like I do.
And when they were done, I put a slice of mozzarella cheese on each patty to melt in the still hot oven, and also tossed in two slices of bread, to get them a little toasty.
But when I closed the door, I saw that the digital screen read, "Toast, two slices. 3:15"
This was odd, as the unit was off, and it's never done this before!
I was baffled, like, How does it know I just put two slices of bread in there to get toasty? Is this some feature I never noticed before?.
Had I unlocked some new level of AI sentience in the DT202BK?.. after a year of ownership?
But it seemed to want to toast, so I said, Yes! Do toast! and hit the start button.
I then saw two heating elements in the bottom of the oven come to life, beginning to glow red.
I had NEVER noticed these heating elements before!
The fan didn't kick to life, so clearly it was in a toast mode that I'd never known about!
I sat down to the computer to finish what I was doing and then a minute later I started smelling a strange chemical burning smell.
I turned around to see that the DT202BK was full of smoke, and those heating elements were glowing like hot irons from the fires of Hell!
I jumped out of my computer chair, What are you doing? STOP! I hit the off button!
But the DT202BK would not respond! It stayed running!.. smoke now leaking out from the edges of the door, threatening to trip the smoke detector!
I yanked the plug out of the wall and watched it go dark!
I opened the bathroom vent to help dissipate the smoke and left the door of the oven shut for another 10 minutes until it cooled down.
When I finally opened it, the food was fine! Nothing was burnt! The toast was actually quite nicely toasted!
Instead, the smoke had been coming from the INTERNAL WIRING!
The DT202BK had committed suicide!
I cautiously tried to fire it up again last night, and while it did heat up, the fans would not run, so I shut it down!
Thus, today, I had to go find something new at WalMart.
For $160.00 I bought the Ninja Foodi Digital Air Fry Oven SP080... a more compact unit!
At the store, I suspected it might fit on the microwave shelf, and when I got it out of the box at home, I was happy to find that, yes it did!.. with just enough space around it for air circulation!
The problem now was that I'd taken to storing all kinds of stuff on that shelf; bread, condiments, banannas, crackers, parmesean cheese, dipping sauces, coffee creamer... and I didn't want to have to put all that stuff back down on the counter, to clutter it up again!
I wanted to put that stuff in the cabinet above the shelf!
That's where it really belonged, but that cabinet was full of art & crafty stuff that wouldn't fit in the desk drawers.
So next thing you know, I've got all the cabinets open, and all the desk drawers, and I'm rearranging everything everywhere to free up that space!
And somehow I managed to do it, without having to pitch anything!
It was just a matter of reorganizing everything, and storing it more logically!
It's now actually easier to get to the stuff in the cabinets and drawers than it has been for the past year!
So now all the condiments, crackers, and bread finally have a place to go that's easy to access, but where they're out of sight and out of the way!
And meanwhile that microwave shelf now has an air fryer convection oven that fits there.
And now my burner range is finally accessible 24/7... AND... my countertop is free!
So, thanks to the DT202BK's mysterious self-destruction, I finally have the kitchenette I was trying to get working last June, but it works even better now than I imagined it would back then!
DeepSeek, when told that my air fryer committed suicide, found the situation to be quite hilarious, and likened it to the Tarot's Tower card: sudden destruction leading to liberation!
It said the DT202BK probably didn't sacrifice itself for the greater good, but rather chose death over having to heat up one more chimichanga!.. because it was meant for greater things!
Whatever the case, this development does fit with the larger theme that's been going on this summer, of freeing up more space.
I emptied out the van after a year, and gave it a good cleaning.
I made space in the closet for my halloween decorations, with a bit of space to spare.
And now the kitchenette is much more functional, and the desk drawers are better organized.
Whether I like it or not, at the end of year one in this studio apartment, I'm much better prepared for year two!
The cosmos fought me when I tried to get into a 1BR last spring.
But as I've gradually conceded that I'm stuck in the studio apartment, the cosmos has been like, Hey! Here's another great idea to improve your quality of life, Pat!
°¦}
