the perfect storm

I just want to preface this with an apology for the length of this non-romantic telenovela and to assure you that no one dies no matter how bleak the painted scenes might seem. There's a not terrible ending, I semi-promise. 

I really should title this, "the perfect shit storm" but lets be literal tonight and mercifully ... there was no literal shit involved in the odyssey that keeps on chugging that all started with ....

Night Float. 

Yes, it's that time of year already. Again. My least favorite two months of every year of residency. Simon's gone from 5pm - 8am every day and sleep with a newborn is downright decadent compared to the paranoid "a predator IS going to break in tonight" snatches of sleep I get during these months. Totally my issue. Totally not fixable.  It's beyond miserable but we make it through and on Simon's last morning of night float in the spring of 2015 we will be serving multiple kegs and multiple eggs to anyone that would like to join us. Mark it down. Okay so first night of the hell float. Checkity Check.

What else?

Drowned Phone.

thanks to ...

Teething Baby.

Theo is cutting his canines and teething babies ain't no thang until you've got one on your hands. And I've got one. He was throwing one of his more flaily tantrums last night when he kicked my phone directly into a soaking pot of water in the sink. I don't think he killed it completely but it still needs about 30 more hours in the rice bath so .... my only line to the outside world was emailing on the laptop. What else? Ah, yes.

A Dusting of Snow.

We went to Mass yesterday morning and that was thee only other car in the lot. We made up half the congregation and between being five minutes tardy and Julia's (predictable/reliable) trip to the bathroom I pretty much missed all but communion. Fastest Mass ever. Everyone was smart and stayed home because the roads were admittedly terrible. We dumb. What else? Whaaat else? Oh ...

The Tepid Temperatures.

Which made this minor little deet super duper convenient ...

The Furnace Died. 

Dead. So Dead. I noticed less than an hour after Simon left for work. I remained sort of calm. Right. No I didn't. I think I've mentioned that our house was built about 80 years ago and retaining heat isn't exactly her forté and well ... I freaked and frantically emailed Simon. Anyway, you can imagine the string of emails that went down as he was on the phone with the heating company trying to diagnose the problem via phone and then email to me and to be 100% honest with you yesterday morning I could not have told you ...

"sooo ... like ... where is the furnace?!"

Oh, to be a fly on the wall of Simon's call room intercepting that little gem of an e-question. But I went from thinking the furnace was the air conditioner (WRONG - that is located outside, apparently ... something new every single day) to dismantling the thermostat from the wall (after a loooong series of convoluted questions and semi-confident answers ... this was determined to hold the key to the problem) and using a pair of Cutco scissors to cut wires and eventually twist them together (after switching the furnace to the off position - Simon CAPS LOCKED THOSE DIRECTIONS) ... I believe it's called "hot wiring" and I did it. Wait, or maybe it's called hard wiring. I'm not sure I could be any stoopider hear. But it doesn't matter because the hot/hard wiring ....

DIDN'T WORK. 

And the house was getting colder ... 15 degrees colder over the course of two little hours to be precise. And ...

We Have One Space Heater.

And

There Was a Foot of Snow/Ice on the Ground. 

And

The Van Was Buried in Drifts from the Plows.

And

Simon Had Taken the Shovel to Work. 

(still confused as to why but ... you don't question a man digging out his car for an hour before baaaaaaaarely making out of the driveway to go to work)

So. I threw Sebastian's crib in Julia's room. Threatened lives, turned on two sound machines, cranked the space heater, closed the door, said 99 prayers and ..... silencio. Miraculously. Had I known it would be that easy I would've had them bunking up two years ago. Theo can roll out his sleeping bag on the floor tomorrow night and Simon and I can stop tip-toe running past his crib anytime we need to get to corner of the attic where we sleep. Anyway ....

Then God Smiled.

Simon's chief (thanks Gavin!!) told us that you can FaceTime from the computer so we did AND God smiled even wider when St. Danny from Anton's Air Conditioning and Heating (bless them) had a change of heart and decided to come in his Monster Truck and help an igloo out. He determined that some wire under the furnace had shorted (impeccable timing, good wire) and it was totally their fault during installation for tucking it under another wire (?? not a language I frequent) this summer so it was free and he had a little chuckle at my thermostat hot/hard wire job, "welll I would put the thermostat back together but look how short you cut those wires!!"

Blink, blink, blink. Oh, yes. Lots of forethought went into my expert hot wiring. Trust a mother cutter.

But No One Died. 

Bash: "no-man!!!!"
Julia: "no, Bash."
Theo: "ho! ho! ho!"

So we all lived warmly ever after.

And if you happen to need me I'll be very, very busy hating on winter harder than ever before.

Some minor details ...
+ at one point during the tropical vacation our internet went out for about ten minutes. Imagine tangible hysteria. Then imagine tangible hysteria on steroids. Multiple that by 100. And again. Oh, yes! There I was.
+ I do think it would've been a possibility for Simon to come get us to sleep at the hospital so really it's not like we were in any crazy grave danger, I don't think.
+ Technically we were only without heat for a little over five hours. But still. 
+ because of the weather Simon had his slowest night at work of all time which enabled him to e-coach me through my plight. So ... polite nod in the weather's direction but my hateful sentiment remains the same. Forever.
+ A very kind reader from BERMUDA happened to randomly email me last night as I was eyeball deep in "hmmmm, is this electrical tape or painter's tape or washi tape?" and don't think I didn't take that as some sort of beautiful foreshadowing for the future. Or just a sick twist of cruel irony for the present. I'll going with the former but know deep in my stone cold heart that it was totally the latter. 


Stay warm.
And now go rest your eyes.
They're fatigued after being raked over such a light-hearted little read.