Wednesday, February 14, 2007

Great. Just awesome. Here I am, trying to keep this post to a low cynicism value, and what happens? The furnace goes kaput. Oh, did I mention that it's -25 outside? Yeah, thanks a bunch.

Here's the issue--the fargin' pilot light won't stay fargin' lit. Oh, it teases me so. It lights, the heat comes on, and yet, by the time the heat has finished its heating cycle, the light is off again. Argh!

Update: It's now two hours after I first wrote that, and Things have happened. I was just going to let it go and deal with it in the morning, but then I realized that was impractical because (a) it's -25 tonight--no wait, it's dropped to -30, and (b) we don't have enough space heaters to heat both our bedroom and Theo's. So a call was placed to our caretaker, who brought up another good reason to not let it go: the pipes might freeze. So he called the local appliance repair guy who just happened to be awake (it was 9:30 by the time this all happened); he's an older gentleman, and he and his wife usually retire at about 9:00, but tonight they had guests over and were still awake. Here's another thing: this guy drives a propane-fueled van, with emphasis on the pain (his line, not mine), and it usually doesn't start in weather like this. But, of course, tonight it started.

Out he came, our knight in shining armour, and disassembled the main unit, replaced the thermocouple (which has to be the coolest-sounding appliance piece in history), and put it back together again, all without waking Theo, whose bedroom lies on the other side of the wall from the furnace. Not bad. Now it's 10:15, and we're again enjoying the comfort of a nicely-heated home. Ahh.

What have we learned from all this. First, living in a climate like this sucks, but I think I've mentioned that before. Second, as much as life throws situations at you, you're never powerless to solve them, even if you're living in a rented home in a town where you know nobody. There's always someone around to help--in fact, there's usually more than one person.

Anyway. All that to say the night's been quite eventful, which also sums up the day quite well. The nightmare of teething continues around here; terrible day today, even worse than yesterday, which we thought was pretty bad. I feel bad for the poor guy. I can't imagine being in pain all day long and not being able to understand what the heck was going on. Oh sure, we have him on medication, but it's still bad. In fact, I was considering shaving off the smallest amount of Tylenol 3 into his regular Tylenol, but thought better of it (I'm a pretty smart guy, after all).

But even though Theo's day kind of sucked, he's still our little guy, and when he's not in pain, he's the cutest thing going. Today he was watching me shovel the snow out front (got another foot yesterday), and laughing at me through the window. Not sure if he was laughing because I was out there shovelling and he wasn't, but it was funny anyway. He even came toddling around the corner when I got home from school this afternoon, which gave me a flashback to the days when my sister and I used to greet my dad at the door when he came home from work, usually by trying to take him down while he was vulnerable--usually with his back turned. I also got a glimpse of the day when Theo might do that with me. Makes my heart melt, it does.

As alluded to in the above paragraph, I spent some time at school today, working on various homeworkish items. After that, I actually hit the gym for the first time this semester. Although my fitness level isn't what it was at the end of last semester, it doesn't feel like I'm starting over, which is good. Did 20 minutes on the elipticals, along with a weight-training cycle, so I'm sure I'm going to feel that in the morning.

This evening, while Theo and I did the evening bath routine, Steph went off to visit Prairie's art club. A mixed experience, I hear--Steph's a very talented painter, but for some reason, the art club meets in a room where painting is verboten. Not sure what the story is there. Anyway, she had to work in a medium unfamiliar to her, and was unequipped to work to her full liking in the pencil sketch medium, so it was a little disappointing, methinks. Of course, her worst work in an unfamiliar medium is better than my best in my most familiar medium--which is probably hamburger condiments--so there's that. The problem with saying stuff like that, though, is that is doesn't really make anyone feel better. I once had this conversation with the drummer in a band I played in (I told him that his worst day drumming was probably better than my best), and he replied, "Well, it should be. I am the drummer, after all." Good answer.

When artistically-talented people have a bad day, it's just not enough to say, "Sounded/Looked good to me." I know that when I have an off day worship leading, or when something just doesn't quite go the way I like it, I notice, even if nobody else does. And the fact that nobody else noticed doesn't make me feel better about the fact that I noticed. You know? I'm sure it's the same way with visual artists.

There's my epiphany for the evening. You're welcome. And with that stunning piece of writing, I think it's time to hit the sack. I had grand plans to catch up on some 24 tonight (which is why I haven't been writing witty recaps), but alas, the furnace broke. Stupid furnace. Stupid climate. I initially misspelled "stupid," which would have made for a funny unintentional, well, something, had I not corrected it. Guess you had to be there. Anyway, the alarm goes off too early tomorrow morning as well, so it's time to go. Thanks for coming by, and I'll see you tomorrow.