July 20th, 2019:

	What a week...

	My mother-in-law passed away on Wednesday.  As mentioned in my 
previous entry, she'd suffered a stroke last Saturday and, despite some 
initial signs of hope, never recovered.  She left us at 1pm Wednesday 
shortly after we arrived at the hospital.  We're pretty sure she held on 
until my daughter (her little angel) came by.  They were really close.

Mrs. IPX has been keeping herself occupied with the paperwork end of 
things, taking care of the cremation, memorial, and handling her mom's 
estate.  She's been pretty stoic, but I had to remind her to grieve.

We also got to hang out Thursday afternoon with my sister-in-law, who came 
in from Toronto to be with her mom during her all-too-brief hospital stay.  
That was fun, my wife's younger sister is a fun, creative person, and my 
daughter absolutely adores her.  Just wish it was under better 
circumstances.  My wife and I took her to the nearby Jewish deli (which 
we've adopted as our hangout) before walking around the area.  They used 
to go for walks with their mom in the same area, so it was cool they got 
to reminisce.

Today, our air conditioner crapped out.  Mrs. IPX noticed it was getting 
rather warm in the house, and there was nothing coming out of the vents.  
I went outside to inspect our central air conditioner, and it was making a 
loud buzzing sound while the fan remained motionless.  I ran inside to 
turn it off at the thermostat, then shut the breaker off at the panel.

I told my wife the AC was out, and she broke down.  She'd been holding 
back all the stress and emotions from her mom's passing, and this "One 
More Thing" broke the dam.  Due to health issues, my wife can't be without 
air conditioning, so we had to bite the bullet and call a repair place.

The company had a repair person at our door within an hour.  He had me 
turn the breaker back on, then turn it back on at the thermostat.. and the 
damned thing started right up, blowing cool air again!

Pissed that I (as an IT guy) never thought to "Turn it off and on again", 
I expressed my surprise to the repair guy.  He said that it's not unusual 
for the compressor to crap out when it is overloaded, it'll work again 
once it's had a chance to "rest".

He connected his gauges to the AC's test ports, and confirmed that the 
compressor is working much harder than it should, telling me the AC unit 
isn't going to last beyond the season.  He pointed out damage to the 
unit's exterior (some fins were actually dissolved due to dog urine - the 
previous owner's dog must have pissed on this thing routinely) which 
contributed to the compressor's workload.

"Can't give you an idea of how long it'll last," he said, "it could go 
tomorrow or the next day, or it might last you a few months."  I really 
didn't like the uncomfortable parallel I subconsciously drew here...

He washed the AC unit's exterior, and gave me a quote on a new one, 
mentioning that if we buy a new one within seven days, they'll discount 
the bill from today's service call from the purchase price.

I paid the man and went in to break the news to my wife.  She'd been 
pricing out new AC units online (unbeknownst to me) and said the guy's 
quote was in line with everything else in town.  They work with Manitoba 
Hydro (our province's gas & electricity provider) and we can finance the 
thing through our Hydro account (they just add it to our monthly bill).

As I write this nearly four hours later, the AC is still running, and the 
house is cool for now.  Monday, we're making the call to get it replaced, 
for my wife's health...

Mrs IPX and her sister are going over to their mom's apartment to begin 
the clean up.  Praying they stay strong.