It’s been 5 days without hot water at home and I’m barely holding on.  My woes started late Friday evening when I heard a loud hissing coming from the garage.  I went outside to check was was going on and the garage was filled with steam and water was streaming from the bottom of the water heat through my garage, down the driveway and into the street.  It’s my general policy to not touch potentially hot things, so I left this to my husband to deal with.  The poor man was still out saving some busted server in LA when this happened.  When he did come home he turned off the gas and the water, gave me a sorrowful look followed by a hug, and then went to bed.  He knew this would be especially hard on me.

We bought a new water heater at our local Sears on Saturday.  The plumber finally called yesterday to tell me that the install would take place sometime on Friday.  

I take a hot shower in the morning to wake-up and gather my thoughts for the day and I a take a long hot bath after work to relax, catch up on some reading, and gather my thoughts after a long day.  My husband is the same.  I have not be able to wake up for 5-days, I have not been able to gather my thoughts for 5-days, and I have not been able to relax for 5-days.  My brain is totally fractured and my head hurts.  My husband and I are exhibiting signs of depression — excessive sleep, can’t get out of bed in the morning, feelings of hopelessness, … etc.  I hate cold sink baths.  The whole situation has caused me to become very irritable.  Anyhow, with my last remaining shred of sanity I face dinner with my best friend and her two children — girls, 4 and 18-months old … both of whom last week had diarrhea and vomiting.  These two kids, bless their hearts, are ACTIVE.  After that I have 3-hours of Japanese class.  Somebody please scrape my crumpled body off the floor and put me out of my misery … I will be working from home tomorrow so as not to expose anyone to the growing dark cloud circling over my head.  I never thought losing hot water at home would disrupt my world so greatly.

My weekend started early Saturday morning with a wake-up call from my parents at ~8:45AM.  They invited me and my husband to our favorite pancake house for breakfast.  They told us to meet them at 9:30AM.  Knowing full well it takes my husband ~1hr to get ready in the morning, I told them 10AM, but my Mom insisted on 9:30AM — okay, whatever, we’ll see you at 10.  My poor husband was undisturbed by the phone ringing and when I finally shook him awake, he kinda looked at me, face scrambled and mumbled about having an error while booting his brain and then fell asleep and then tried again to reawaken.  Sigh … while waiting for him to get the lead out, I learned of the tornado in downtown Atlanta.  I looked at some of the pictures of the damage and became quite worried because my little brother lives quite close to the area where this all happened.  Since my parents were calm, I became doubly worried.  Did they invite us to breakfast so early and urgently for bad news?

We made it to the pancake restaurant at 10AM as predicted.  My parents were jolly as usual and enjoying their coffee.  I asked them about the tornado and my brother and they said, “Oh yeah, we heard from him.  Apparently he was playing video games when it blew by.  He said it sounded like a freight train.  He says the streets around him are torn up so he can’t go any where.  By the way, your aunt Fannie called.  She said the folks in her condo went down to the basement to wait the storm out.  People brought wine and glasses with them, so it turned into an all night wine party.  It was the most excitement they had in years.”  Steve and I, being the cynical people that we are, turned to one another and said, “Figures.”  Sigh … one pecan waffle and strip of bacon later, we were heading back home — to laundry — when my husband reminded me of a St. Patrick’s Day party invite he had accepted.  NOOOOOO!!!

The party of course was in Temecula, a fun 50-min drive from home and it was threatening to rain.  My husband had designated my teetotaling-self the driver.  This party was a perfect storm for me:  lots of people I don’t know, alcohol, and dogs.  As you can tell, I’m absolutely no fun.  Dinner was supposed to be served at 6PM, but wasn’t ready until 9:30PM.  Fortunately, the dogs were the mellowest creatures on Earth.  Unfortunately, the drunk people felt the need to touch my afro-furry head.  It was a long night for me, but the corned beef and cabbage were a real treat.

Onto Sunday … my husband declared that we needed new pillows, as his head had consumed the last pillow.  So off to the E-bar first for a lunch pitstop and then to Target for pillows.  My husband decided to buy many types of pillows with gimmicky odor, sweat, cooling, and allergen promises.  I didn’t even attempt to resist him.  Sigh … and off to the post office to fullfill an order from my Amazon store front (somebody bought an awful manga from me called “My Dearest Devil Princess” (As “Devil Princess” was already taken).  I hope it was nobody from work.  If so, I’m sorry, or, enjoy it, depending upon your persuasion.)  And then back home, where I spent the rest of the afternoon doing home server maintenance and fighting Blurb as I made my Mom’s birthday present.  Night fell and “Gundam Seed” called.  This is a 50-episode anime series that is basically an animated soap opera (don’t tell my husband).  We watched 13-episodes.  Yep, it’s that addictive.  We are now on episode 36.  (If you like space operas, giant robots, and tormented young heros, then this is the anime for you.  Actually, it is a really good series and if you’ve never watched anime before then this would be a good introduction.  The show is not under 13 friendly, though, but if you have older children, then you will all enjoy it as a family.  Steve and I angrily shake our fists at  the female character “Filay.”  Oh, yeah and there’s the occasional singing, but nothing like Macross’s (“Robotech” in the US) Min-May.)

As for the pillows, while my husband was off in pillow land, I picked up a vinyl pillow cover.  I put it on his pillow in it last night.  My husband slept well.