Just Another Day in Paradise

I had actually planned to use today's blog to write about something else, but plan's changed shortly after I poured my second cup of coffee.


I started out my morning as usual, Rocky "the chihuahua" alarm at 6am (much better than last weeks 4am for four straight mornings), downed 4 ounces of orange juice while listening to the news and weather report that is thankfully better for our area than the blustery winds we dealt with yesterday, and with the first cup of coffee in hand, I kiss my Big Guy who hurries out the door.


Then I begin to check my emails.


Luckily there are only a few messages, the first one from Groupon, offering me $5 off if I buy a self teeth whitening kit or a giant floor pillow that is supposed to relax you, (over 640 bought and limited quantity available). I consider the teeth whitening kit for just a second but definitely pass on the relaxing floor pillow since I know three furry reasons why that would not relax me.


Another email was an E-Bay survey tempting me to take just a few minutes and fill it out for a chance to win $500 in online merchandise or an iPad3. Call me a sucker but I did it. It only took about 5 minutes and I'm sure they will give me the $500 for the online merchandise when they have pity on me and see that I answered question #5 that read: "In the past year, how many of these retail stores have you bought clothing, shoes, handbags, scarves, hats, wigs and other personal items from?" and I checked Other and wrote in Salvation Army.


The last email was a rejection from the third children's book illustrator I had written to last night and I wrote him back thanking him for being so prompt with his rejection, then I begin reading my Facebook wall noting my second oldest daughter was recovering nicely from yesterday's Lasik Eye surgery. I'm hopeful there won't be anymore posts about the possibility of having her eyeballs blasted from her head, discussions about being "pro-flap", having eyelids flipped inside out or anymore arguments with her older brother about who made the best choice of corrective eye surgery and who is the biggest sissy while comparing painful eye drop usage.


After saying a morning prayer for a friend who is struggling with her weight loss, for the safety of my older daughter and her hubby so that they won't get stuck in bad weather at the Chicago airport while on their trip to Las Vegas, (of which right now I am extremely envious) and for another friend who is also traveling today, I finally poured that second cup of morning magic and was collecting my thoughts when I looked over just in time to see Rocky squat on the living room carpet. Knowing that you don't pick him up while he is in full stream, (I learned that a few weeks ago, read my blogs), I exhaled and when he finished, I marked the spot with one of Chrissy's doggie toys. For those of you who haven't read my other blogs, Chrissy is my Big Guy's spoiled rotten Maltese.


Chrissy's toys are usually scattered across the living room floor and she carefully walks around checking them throughout the day, trying to decide which one needs to be chewed on next and after making her selection, she runs off with it to her hideout behind my big overstuffed chair in the corner. I'm normally not happy with that fact but today having a small stuffed butterfly within arms length, that is missing both eyeballs and part of an antenna, came in handy.

With Lil' Green Machine in hand, I begin the process of cleaning the pee spot which by now had sunk deep into my carpet's fibers. A little pre-spot is somewhat helpful since the smell of sucking up pure doggie urine doesn't bode well with my early morning sinus. Now that I'm down on my hands and knees and close enough to see, (I'm really blind even with my glasses on), I notice there is another suspicious spot that will need cleaning. After scrubbing carpet until my carpel tunel wrists are screaming at me for relief, I go to pour out the stinky, filthy solution that I have collected in the Lil' Green Machine tank and rinse it down the drain with steaming hot water, only to discover that there is no hot water.

As I said, yesterday we had a very blustery day and I'm certain that the high winds had blown out the pilot light on our hot water tank.


I opened up the door to the hot water tank and sitting on the floor close to the tank I looked in through the tiny window to see that there was no flame, so I turned the knob from on to off. Then I decided maybe I should  look for directions on how to relight the pilot. I started to notice that there were plenty of "Warning" and "Danger" messages which did not make me feel at all comfortable with the situation. 

The tank was called a SmartWater Tank and I was praying it was a lot smarter than me as I tried to decipher the directions. 

The first thing I read of course is to turn down the heat adjustment before turning the tank off. Any second now I knew I would be would be blown to smithereens along with my three poor little furry comrades. Yep, my Big Guy would come home and find a big burnt out crater in the ground where our home used to stand, and the firemen would be handing him a small vile of soot labeled, female human remains.


I held my breath and prayed as I turned the adjuster all the way down and to my relief I was still alive. As I read further, there were more warning messages, they really weren't taking any chances with the dummy reading this. 

I'm not sure where that "Inner Door" was, but I didn't remove anything!

I finally figured out the sequence of turning knobs and pushing down buttons until the pilot was successfully lit once more.


But something was missing. When I left the hot water tank and returned to the kitchen to retrieve my cup of coffee that was now ice cold, I couldn't find my glasses. I remembered I had taken them off so I could read the hot water tank. My glasses are for nearsightedness only and I'm too cheap to get bifocals but see pretty well to read without them. I kept looking in all the normal places where I would lay them, but they weren't there. I scoured every room and was careful that I didn't step on them in case they were dropped. Then I noticed that Rocky was asleep on his pillow, my wonder dog Cookie had been following me around as if expecting me to give her something, but Chrissy was no where in sight. 


When Chrissy doesn't come when called, which is what happened next, that means she is doing something she shouldn't be doing and usually knows she shouldn't be doing it!


Sure enough, I peek behind my big overstuffed chair in the corner of the living room only to find that giant termite, cleverly disguised as a mop, happily gnawing away on an ear piece of my glasses. 

Thankfully it wasn't too bad. What few teeth-marks that she managed to inflict would be hidden behind my ear and besides, after all of the Facebook postings I have read these past few weeks between my children discussing their Lasik, PRK and other corrective eye surgery lingo, this might be something I should consider myself. And who knows, after my surgery, I may even plan a trip to Las Vegas!