A VIEW FROM BELOW …

Also known as, the daring not so young man on the wobbly ladder. Let me spell it out for you A…C…R…O…P…H…O…B…I…A! Acrophobia is the fear of heights. It is more general than aerophobia (fear of flying), and is not the same thing as vertigo. Unless you have a spell of vertigo when you’re at the top of a tall ladder.Now, not being overly fond of heights, I have a tendency to procrastinate when it comes to replacing burned out lightbulbs. So I was really pleased to replace the incandescent bulbs in all the ceiling fixtures in all the rooms with the new energy-efficient curly, whirly bulbs … also known as CFLs.

  I didn’t care about the energy efficiency of the bulbs; it was the fact that they had a useable life span that ran into the years instead of the months of an incandescent bulb. But alas, even the curly bulbs eventually twirl to an end. So I conveniently overlooked the fact that a bulb in the kitchen and then my bedroom fixture went dark. This happened sometime last spring. Two working bulbs in each fixture provided more than enough light for my simple needs.

Then a second light in my bedroom blinked out. No problem since I still had the reading lamp by my bed to supply more than enough light.That was some time around the Fourth Of July.

But last night the second bulb in the kitchen blinked into darkness. Since I have a fluorescent fixture over the sink, I was able to finish the dinner dishes, but the possibility of complicated cooking was a no-no. So realizing I couldn’t live on PB and J sandwiches for an extended period, I carried the tall ladder up from the basement and into the kitchen. I’ll be honest, even the vocalization of the words TALL LADDER gives me the SHIVERS!

Well, I managed to replace the three bulbs in the kitchen fixture in spite of fact I had trouble with the righty/tighty — lefty/loosen thing standing at the top of the ladder with no free hands available for a secure ladder grip.

Then I moved on to my bedroom and replaced the three bulbs in the ceiling fixture. Only dropped one bulb and thanks to falling on my bed I didn’t have to clean up any curly glass shards. I also washed the ceiling fixtures to remove all the dead bugs that always seem to gather in light fixtures.

I don’t know how old the fixture in my bedroom is. It was here when we moved into the house. But it does reflect the designs and styles of the thirties. Also, it’s made of real glass and not synthetic materials. And yes, the corners are chipped.

One drawback with bringing the light level up to full potential … the dust is quite noticeable  on the lintels and shelves. Time to bring out the vacuum and dust clothes.