Think it's because we're so awesome?

Of all the things I don't recommend, I can now say that I'd add "Wake up to find the furnace isn't working" to the list.

OY! Luckily, it was only about 64 degrees in the house; I don't think the overnight temperatures were hideously low, THANK GOD. A cranky furnace coupled with burst pipes would have lead to a complete meltdown. As it is, the hubs and I wrung our collective hands and then called the Sears furnace guys. And then...wait for it...hilarity ensued!

I called Sears. They have an emergency line, but you leave a message then they call you back. Again, it was cold but not bone-chilling in the house, so I was content to wait. Hubs isn't feeling well, so he needed IMMEDIATE ACTION, LIKE NOW and OH MY GOD WHY HAVEN'T THEY CALLED BACK!? He turned the oven on and opened the door to heat the house while we waited. At 400 degrees, no kidding. And it worked.

Women are the weaker sex? [insert MASSIVE eyeroll here]

It had been about an hour with no callback, so I called Atlas Butler. They advertise on TV a lot and have an A+ Better Business rating, so I felt safe calling them. Same situation: leave a message, we'll call you back. After I made the calls I gave The Man the phone, figuring he could take over from there. Yeahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

To make a long and completely unbelievably tangled story short, the spousely wires got crossed. Sears called to give us a quote for coming out. Hubs said, "Cool!" A few minutes later we got another call. Hubs said no, don't come out, we have another guy coming. My ears did that swiveling satellite dish thing, sensing a disturbance in the force, and I asked who had called. Aiiiiii! He thought he was canceling Atlas Butler, but he'd just called to cancel Sears, who had previously called to say they were on the way.

Anyone who's read my previous husbandly entries is probably wondering why I'm still married to this man.

It seemed to take me forever to find the links I'd followed online to get the emergency numbers for both places, but I ended up calling Atlas Butler and saying something completely goofy like, uh, I think your guy might be coming out but we don't want him to because we have another guy coming and my husband may have cancelled the wrong service call, could you check to see if your guy is on the way?

Then I had to do the same thing with Sears, except in reverse. Yes, my husband cancelled the service call that he'd just accepted, because he's a man and is therefore a DOOFUS. PLEASE COME FIX MY FURNACE.

But all ended well, and the right guy came out, the other guy didn't, and we were told that while the furnace is pretty much on a walker (it was old when we bought the house), he'd see if he could get it up and running. And he did! Hooray! We're hoping that it will keep on keeping on until the warmer months, when we can get a new one hopefully on sale, and it won't cost half the price of a new car. I now have the luxury of feeling a little warmish, so I just closed the register in the bedroom.

Ahhhhhhhhh. It's the little things.

Also! The neighbor's garage roof collapsed this morning. Given the two above-mentioned not-fun things to choose from, gimme an old, slightly broken but fixable furnace any day.

Due to a husband-related incident last week, I've been carless. This was the second car of ours that he'd managed to kill, and I was none too happy about it. Luckily, hub's brain is the size of a raisin and his skull is at least five inches thick (with pudding and cookies cushioning everything in between), so he was fine. The hospital kept him for a few days for observation ('cause this was his eleventy millionth brush with head trauma), but he's (mostly) fine. Aiiiiiii! That's the second time I've gotten a call at work to tell me that...wait, the third. Jeebus. The third time I've gotten one of those, "Hello, Mrs. Hubs!monkey? This is AdmittingLady at YourFriendlyHospital..."

Aiii! Too much drama in between. Like, when I called to inform my insurance company about the accident, there was "some concern" with my last payment because it had been made by e-check, and I'm thinking...uh, so? It's not like a paper check where you have to wait a few weeks for everything to go where it needs to go, blahblahblah, am I right? Isn't an e-check immediate, in theory? Also, the fact that I'd paid the premium THREE WEEKS AGO should have made any e-check questions null and void, yes? Yes. BASTAGES. I actually had to fax a copy of my statement showing that the funds had been withdrawn from my account before we could go forward, and I'm getting all het up again just thinking about it. I mean seriously. Three weeks and they still needed proof from me that THEY had withdrawn the funds from my account? OH MY GOD, I NEED TO STOP THINKING ABOUT THIS BEFORE I STAB SOMEONE. Anyway.

So! Our policy provides for a vehicle for up to thirty days while the car is fixed. Went to the impound to retrieve the cell phone and the registration and sign the paperwork to release the vehicle so the insurance guys could tow it to the auto body shop. Little did I know that the impound lot covers about THREE friggin' zip codes, and you have to walk back to your vehicle, and they don't have a courtesy car to take you to the back 40 to get there. HOLY LAWD, the drama. Saw the car and knew pretty much immediately that it was a lost cause. Even if they'd fixed the thing (HAHAHAHAHAHA!!!) there's no way I'd have trusted it more than possibly pulling it out of the garage for a quick spin down to the corner store.

When they called to tell me that it had been totaled I wasn't the least bit surprised. They redeemed themselves for the MASSIVE PAYMENT FAIL by giving me a surprising bit more for the car than I'd expected, and giving me a check that day. Woohoo! I'm suddenly in love with my insurance company, even if they are all bastages!

I figured that two cars killed is more than enough, and there's no way that I'll ever buy a new car again, not as long as I'm married to hubs!monkey. There's a car lot nearby that's been in operation for about 25 years, and they're BBB accredited, or whatever you call it. Went online and checked out their inventory. I saw this little thing and fell immediately in love. :-)

.........

The one in the little pics is mine, the wikimedia folks very kindly provide a bigger picture.

2004 Honda CR-V, satin silver metallic finish. Squee! Went to see it in the rain Thursday, but didn't test drive. Drove up to the lot this afternoon and someone was looking at it! Aiiiiii! By this time I'd pretty much been thinking of it as mine, so I was just a little distressed to say the least. Hung about trying not to look too interested while the couple checked it out and examined it inside and out and sat in it and stuff. When they finally walked off to another part of the lot I wandered over very casually and staked my claim. :-) Took it for a test drive and fell even further in love. Whipped out my checkbook, and now it's mine! It's in my garage!!!

It's a bit bigger than my old car, which was a regular 4 door, and of course it has a higher profile, being an SUV and all. It's going to take a little getting used to I think, but I so love it. :-D

So, Hubs!monkey went to the grocery store a while ago and came home with something new and different. A camouflage melon, so named because of the mottled green skin. It's also known as a frog skin melon so yeah, I don't think you'd be encouraged to pick one up on the strength of the moniker alone. Obviously aware of this, the Giant Eagle bigwigs saw fit to post food ladies in the produce section with freebies of this melon. Hubs tasted it, liked it, brought one home.

OH MY GOD, with the deliciousness. It's hard to explain the flavor, which was very elusive. Kind of like honeydew, but not, kind of a hint of a whisper of a nuance of cantaloupe, but way not. *Very* juicy, like, juice-in-the-bottom-of-the-bowl juicy, and crazy sweet with the texture and firm softness of a ripe honeydew. Seriously, this stuff is sell-your-kid good.

We slurped this melon down like starved monkeys on crack. I proclaimed it my new favorite melon, and we agreed that a new foodstuff had been added to our regular rotation. He went off to putter a bit, and I returned to the Project Runway marathon. About a half hour after the feast, hubs walked in, mildly indignant, waving the checkout tape in one hand. "They charged me 14.95 for that melon! I'm going back!" He'd mentioned how relatively inexpensive it was, so he was a bit irritated that he now had to go back to the store to correct their mistake.

About a half hour later, hubs walked in and said, "That price was right! I can't believe it!" Turns out that unlike most melons, it's not priced per piece, but by the pound. The woman at the service desk very kindly offered to let him return the melon, but hubs admitted that it was a little too late for that. ;-)

Anyone want a husband? You can have mine. He ordered digital cable, had it hooked up yesterday, and idiot that I am, didn't insist that he check the VCR connections until...oh, 6:15pm this evening. He screwed around with our FIVE - yes, FRIGGIN' FIVE - remotes, thought he had it, no! He didn't! Yes, it's taping! No...wait!

After about a half hour of this (and I'm watching the pre-show getting angrier and angrier), he concludes that he has it all figured out. Taping commences. I'm happy (don't quite believe it, but I'm hoping), so I come in to hop online til the main event.

Hubs just came in to tell me that, oops, it hasn't been taping after all. I'm so pissed right now I can't even see straight. I'm not even going to go into our long, brain-twisting history with friggin' VCRs in this household. I'm tired of this stupid shit, and SWEAR TO GOD, about ** <--- this close to divorcing his stupid ass.

Am I upset? If looks could kill he'd be a smoldering pile of ash right now. And yeah, it comes on this weekend, but that's not the point. I'm tired of every single taping opportunity becoming some kind of "is it hooked up properly?" event. AAARRRGGGHH!!!!!!!

Edit: Lest anyone misunderstand, I'm not calling him stupid because of the bizarre hookup - I certainly couldn't do it at all, much less fumble through it and eventually get it right - no, I'm just tired of the drama that *always* surrounds taping.

I love him, I'm just VERY, VERY, VERY unhappy with him right now.

VERY unhappy.