Sunday, March 9, 2008

Bubble, bubble, boiler trouble.

The weekend that wasn't:
  • Friday night home alone with a bucket of wine, a straw and a pile of magazines
  • No obligations, laziness and blogging galore
  • Maybe some shopping
  • Enjoying the comforts of a heated home

The weekend that was:
  • Get home Friday night after very tiring day at work to the carbon monoxide detector beeping- husband not home (9:15 p.m.)
  • Call the Mr, leave a message
  • Ignore beeping for a while, have a glass of wine, then finally decide to call Exel Energy to see if this annoying beeping is a "problem"(10:00)
  • Call the Mr, leave another message
  • Exel Energy decides to send a guy out to see what's what (10:30)
  • Exel dude says that not only would we likely have died during the night if we had not owned a detector, but our boiler is so unsafe that he has to "red tag" it and turn it off. It was below freaking zero out, folks. He apologizes, cuts off my comfort, and then leaves. (10:45)
  • Call the Mr. He answers this time. How unfortunate for him. Proceed to be total crazy freaking out bitch.
  • Leave immediately. Go to only store open at the late hour to try and buy electric space heaters. Fucking Wal-Mart. Only this W-M has decided that it is in "spring mode" (their words, not mine), so they have no space heaters, only fans. Woman in electronic department offers to call another 24-hour W-M to see if they have any after I tell her I may start crying (even though I'm kind of already there), such is the shittiness of my day. I consider hugging the woman for finding heaters, but decide against it as I am now completely aware of my "crazy freaking weirdo" status at this particular moment in time. My fur-trimmed parka/sweatpants/crazy hair combo really doesn't help me look any less coo-koo in the head. (11:15)
  • Go to Apple Valley Wal-mart which is a bizallion miles from my house. On the drive there, have 14 different discussions in my head of how mad I am at the Mr. and how this is all his fault because of that one time he touched the boiler. Find space heaters at W-M #2, on clearance. I buy four. (11:35)
  • Haven't eaten at this point, decide to stop at 24-hour grocery store for food. Macaroni and cheese and Lindt truffles are purchased. (11:55)
  • Get home, set up heaters, heat up macaroni & chz. Fill wine glass to the tippy top and proceed to chug. (12:00)
  • Husband gets home. Yell at husband, blame him for boiler dying. Yell that you feel like you may as well live in a tent and shit in the yard, such is the lack of conveniences in our home at the moment. Eat chocolate. Drink more wine. Go to sleep wearing 47 layers with the whir of the space heater in my dreams. (12:45)
  • Wake up feeling like an asshole. Apologize. Put on 4-5 layers of clothing and a hat, proceed to maniacally and obsessively clean the house. Freeze ass off. Husband decides to fix leak in the toilet, so for a while we not only don't have heat, but my predictions of shitting in the yard may actually be coming true. Set up appointment for "consultation" on Monday for new $5000-5500 boiler. Plan where to put 2nd bathroom when we are remodeling & fixing up the abode this summer (losing a closet. Will be smallest bathroom in the history of small bathrooms).
  • Go out to a lovely WARM restaurant, have lovely red wine with the lovely Mr, who is used to the wife's freak outs and has recovered completely (the lithium helps).
  • Go home to relatively warmish house (if you consider 55 degrees "relatively warmish"), put on many layers of jammies and watch the Grindhouse movies (love, love, loved them), eat haagen dazs vanilla swiss almond (I don't get it either. Why we chose ice cream is far, far beyond me) and drink a really nice Italian red.

*Two pairs of socks, flannel jammies, long underwear, a turtleneck sweater and a hat. Sex-ay.

  • Today, freezing ass off typing on blog in unheated room. Cleaned scary basement, may have contracted some sort of asbestos-related lung ailment from sweeping up all the dust in the 100+ year-old dungeon. Found the following items in basement: functional lite brite, ripped olive green Naugahyde ottoman from approximately 1967, a box of wire hangers, a shadow box that still had residue from when we found a dead bird in it, a christmas-themed deviled egg platter, about four year's worth of old Bon Appetit magazines, and a bucket of dirt. Don't ask.
  • Contemplating building a fire in the living room. We don't have a fireplace, if you're wondering.
  • Trying to decide what to make for dinner. Have some lovely sockeye salmon to work with. Should probably bake something so I have a reason to turn the oven on. Fuck it, I'm turning it on anyways.
  • Realizing that we may not have heat for a while, depending on how fast Centerpoint Energy can get the new beast installed. If it gets really cold out again I'll be blogging from a hotel room, preferably one with room service. Too. damn. Cold.

Happy Sunday, my chilly little whiskey sour-flavored Popsicles. I sure hope your weekend was warmer than mine.
XO

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On a side note- I am updating my links, as a number of blogs have either closed up shop or have gone into hibernation. I'll save y'all in my bookmarks, so be sure to e-mail me and let me know if and when you are ever back. If I took anyone off that wants to stay on for whatever reason, just let me know.

36 comments:

kirby said...

I hope you eventually got the heat turned on, but I'll never know. I'm too busy pissing myself over the "may as well live in a tent and shit in the yard" line.

TwistedNoodle said...

I'm so happy you had the carbon monoxide detector and you're still with us. I have one plugged in right near the furnace. It boggles me that there are people I know who don't have a CM detector in their homes. Damn girl, it really saved yours and the Mr.'s life, not to mention your kitty.

And I can relate to how you feel about the whole broken thing and no heat and spending the money. It sucks monkey balls to shell out that kind of cash. However....

When I first bought my place and spent my first winter in it, we came home one February night/early morning to a freaking flood. My furnace exploded and water was spewing everywhere. And we had no clue how long it had been flooding the place since we were gone since early afternoon boozing it up.

There's nothing like a buzz kill from mopping 2 inches of water from 4 of the rooms it flooded (including closets) at 2 a.m.in a freezing cold house. It just happened to be the coldest night that month, by the way.

Thank Baby J for insurance as it covered all the flood damage. After dinking around and fixing it repeatedly the next 2 winters and the constant worry of another flood, we finally bit the bullet and had a new one installed. The best 4K spent to have that worry off our shoulders.

By the way...you look fabulous in layers.

wafelenbak said...

Oh man, I hope this gets fixed soon. I freaking HATE being cold in my own house. My landlord believes in keeping the apartment at absolute minimal legal temperature, but I can't even imagine no heat at all. Poor you. :(
However, I have to say that a friend of mine has those exact same sock monkey pajamas and the photo of you in the pj pants and sweater kinda made my evening. (in an amused way, not a creepy way I mean)

CDP said...

Oh, I hope you have heat soon. When things like that happen at my house, and my husband happens to be home to help me deal with it, I'm very philosophical, and we're in it together. But if something breaks down and he's not around, then it is ALL. HIS. FAULT. Hope you're keeping warm.

H said...

You have a Lite Brite? One that works? I don't care how damn cold it is, I'm coming over.

Here's hoping you get heat soon. At least there is a warming trend on the horizon.

WendyB said...

Cute pix!

nancypearlwannabe said...

Oh, lady. These types of situations make me momentarily glad I do not own a house because I would freak out even worse than you did, I guarantee it.

McGone said...

If you need to find a silver lining, just think that at least you would have gone peacefully. That's not helping is it? All kidding aside, I'm glad you had a detector.

Hopefully the toilet issue is taken care of, because as photo-happy as you are I'm worried about what your posts will look like when you are shitting in the yard.

diatribes and dish said...

my weekend was warmer, for sure, but yours still sounded like it was more fun.

T said...

Brrrrrrr! I really want some of that mac & cheese sometime. I suspect it is good hangover food.

3carnations said...

I love the part about wanting to build a fire with no fireplace. It reminded me how, in the spring, I often want to open the window in my office. The window in my office does not open, so that would most likely involve a large brick and an angry boss and landlord.

MommasWorld said...

Love the Jammie look.

Since Wally World is open 24/7 I am sure you looked better than many others they have seen. Better than some I have seen in the daytime hours! he.he.he.

We have funky electricy happening at our house lately but we do have heat.

Sending warm toasty thoughts your way.

Oh, Oldest Daughter decided her prom dress MUST be red this year so the vintage gown is yours. I hope to get it out in the mail this coming weekend. Not sure if I still have your address from the spiral graph so email me :-)

Dr. Monkey Von Monkerstein said...

I cried about being cold until I met a woman with out a boiler. After I met her I still cried but hearing about her prediciment made me feel better oddly enough. Holy shit I never learn the right lessons do I?

Flenker said...

My brother and I were without heat for about a week, right in the dead of winter. We're talking like highs in the 3's. That was not fun at all. We got a couple of space heaters, and just got drunk most of the time. I feel your pain, Whiskey.

lizgwiz said...

Ooh--a Lite Brite? I always wanted one of those. My cousins had one. I was jealous of them. I'm a little jealous of you. Except for the whole "no heat" thing. ;)

Iheartfashion said...

If you wore that outfit to Walmart you probably still looked better than 90% of the other shoppers!
Glad you're still with us, WM!

Lara said...

Oh man. I swear we have the same coping skills/methods. I also cracked up at "my predictions of shitting in the yard may actually be coming true". I hope you get the new boiler soon!

LaLa said...

I got totally distracted from all the warm sympathy I was going to send your way by the words 'functional lite brite'. AWESOME. That right there redeems a good chunk of the crap, don't you think?

And, btw, playing with a lite brite is relatively toasty for the fingers.

Winter said...

My heart goes out to you.

See this is one of those times it's okay to wear real fur...

Jess Wundrun said...

Is shitting in the yard taboo?

*mental note: stop.

Stacey said...

Thank goodness you had some wine readily available to make this disaster a little more tolerable.

Sidenote...I heard whiskey takes the chill off just a wee bit better.

Shannon Erin said...

I'm very glad that you're not dead. I'm also very jealous because I REALLY want a lite brite now.

gorillabuns said...

We watched Grindhouse too! Though, we weren't close to dying (glad you didn't!). I have to admit I loved them (Grindhouse series) especially the character, Shana Banana. I too go off on people when they mispronounce my name.

Fran said...

My blog is still alive and well - sadly for some, so please keep me somewhere. Now that the basement is clean, maybe there?

Anyway, sorry to hear of your troubles and I am glad you heard the beepety beep of it all.

In the meantime, I have something for you here

Mwah!

Courtney said...

I'm suppose to have a detector??? Really? Crap.

Well, I very very glad that you didn't die. Until the boiler gets fixed, you can come to California and stay in my tiny spare room if you like. It's small, and smells like kitty litter... but it was 75 degrees here this weekend... so there's that.

Lollie said...

please don't nuke me! I promise to be better about blogging. I have had a crazy month of remodeling our site at work, I've been in Cancun at a conference sans connection and my laptop took a giant shit, so I just bought a new one today and am going through the pains of setting up a new machine...there I'm done.

Stacy said...

Oh sweet jeezus! Drinks soon?

Suze said...

Sweet Mother of All Holy - you've had a bitch of a weekend. I'm glad you're still alive and sense of humor still intact!!

Pezda's Ghost said...

I'm a little concerned that you didn't throw out the shadowbox along with the dead bird when you discovered it.

Now, about that dirt...

Nature Girl said...

That sounds like a weekend from H-E-Double-Hockey-Stix! I'm so glad you weren't home when the co detecter went off and even gladder that you had one! I hope you have a much warmer week!
Stacie

Stefanie said...

Yikes. The one time I don't read posts in my feed-reader in chronological order... So sorry about your boiler/furnace. Glad you are not dead.

I could use a space heater or two for my basement, but I don't know that it's worth the trek to Apple Valley to get one. Tell me, did they make you show your passport when you got there?

NotSoccer Mom said...

wow, sorry to hear you had to be so cold! but the sock monkey pj's are TOO cute. oh, and a lite brite??? dude, you could make a mint off ebay with that.

Landis said...

first, glad you're not dead.

second, sad you were cold for so long.

third, come live here. it never gets below sixty five-ish.

Nocturnal said...

You definitely make jammies look comfy WM, Minnesota style which is even better given it's colder than a witches titty over there.

Cheers

Katrin said...

Oh no! How terrible! Although my sympathies come late, but I hope you still accept them. :)

Mommy Lisa said...

OMG! I HAVE THOSE JAMMIES!! Hubby got them for me when I was pregnant with Boo Boo La La...they are a bit "ahem" large now but they still are warm as toast!

We are like seperated at birth on some things.

:)