Cube Nayber stumbled into Cubeland a few minutes after me this morning kvetching about her morning. (We were both “late” but “late” is relative in Cubeland so I doubt anybody noticed or cared.) I said, “Okay, you tell me about your morning and then I’ll tell you about mine.” Her morning sounded only marginally better than mine, an overflowing terlet and subsequent floor mop-up being about the worst of it. I used to be terrified about terlet overflows but I am a damn AMAZON about them these days.

Me? Hang on to your shorts because can I just say something like first-world problems?

Okay. Got up. Took a shower. Not a very hot shower but it was a perfect temperature for this morning’s heat and humidity and I just figured I had a little more cold water in the mix than usual.

Took a walk.

When I got home, the GG aka Mr. Fixit was on his way out the door on a Twinz of Terror type boondoggle involving hiking and camping in the Lyme Lounge in the Tahquamenon Falls area. (Do I wish I could go too? Yes I do.) Anyway. I like peace and quiet in the morning so I can kinda zen my way through breakfast, morning chores and getting ready for work, so I was glad when he went out the door. Get out! Have fun! Seeya in a few days. Bring me back some more crap from the moomincabin garage.

Then… Dun dun dun… I realized we didn’t have the blasted internet [again]. I can FIX this intermittent situation but plugging and unplugging waaaaaars ad infinitum is NOT one of my fav-o-rite activities. I just do not have the right kind of karma to deal with waaaars. My aura is rainbow colored, not a nice serene blue (although I like blue a lot!).

Oh bother. I don’t like him texting in his vee-hickle (plus it’s illegal) so I called him (the Frog Hopper is bluetooth enabled). KW: Did you have internet service this morning? GG: Yes. KW: I don’t have it now! Nothing was to be done but unplug everything, wait a while, plug it back in again and w-a-i-t until the dern switch or whatever it is decided to reset itself. That took something like 20 minutes.

While I was waiting I did some things, including wash a few dishes. Hmmm… This water is not getting very HOT! Hmmm… Could the water heater be going south? Not likely since we just installed a brand spanking new one a few months ago. I trucked on down to the Dungeon. There was no water on the floor or anything so that was a good sign. Then I stooped down and looked at the little controller thingy. Pilot light? Pilot light? The pilot light was out.

Light the pilot light? I am TERRIFIED of pilot lights! I don’t even like to light the pilot light on the little gas stove that kinda heats the moomincabin when it’s cold. And this water heater had (as you might be able to see in the photooooo) all manner of warnings of explosions and faaaars and what not. Not a KW-able type thing to do.

I went in to full-tilt boogie meltdown panic mode! I called the GG and ripped him a new one. “I can’t go without hot water all weekend! Come home and fix it! Wah wah waaaaaaaah!”. Poor guy. He was almost at Flint by then and that’s almost an hour north and southbound US23 was one big parking lot. I knew it would be stupid for him to come home but I got out onto a damn ledge and couldn’t pull myself back in. He suggested maybe Mouse could fix it. Yikes! I certainly didn’t want my “baby” daughter Mouse to get blown up!

I finally let the poor GG go, met MMCB for coffee (and kvetched to her of course) and headed to work. Oh yeah, I also googled REI’s hours so I could go over there and procure a camping shower. I do know how to use those from back in the days when we had to pump water and throw it into buckets at the moldy old Cfam cabin at Houghton Lake. I resigned myself to using old technology until the GG aka Mr. Fixit got back to town.

Then. Mid-morning, a text message proclaimed, “Mouse lit the pilot light.” I was flabbergasted! How did a ninny like me raise such brave children. The answer came a few minutes later: “Mama, I light pilot lights at work all the time!” Oh, duh.

They say that trouble comes in threes and I hope that’s true because a third thing happened today. The GG (who will drive on taaaarrs absolutely forever, just ask The Engineer (if you can contact him on the other side)) detected a leak in one of the Frog Hopper’s taaaars. It was time. We bought that thing only a couple years ago but it has a lot of miles on it from schlepping back and forth to the yooperland to deal with The Commander and her affairs. A trip to see the guys at UP Tire in Sault Ste. Siberia was in order. Those guys are good so I like to give them some Troll-land business once in a while, particularly since some of them are relatives, albeit the shirt-tail sort. Shirt-tail or not, they are good, honest, hard-working folks who deserve every last little bit of respect any member of the Finlayson family deserves (and any human being, for that matter). Fortunately, the GG got there without a flat or something.

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