Gak!

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Oh creepy crawlies, creepy crawlies - ICK!! Almost home from the nursing home tonight, no dinner yet, contemplating my blog failure of yesterday when I went to get my hair cut and failed to get a picture of the young kid getting a classic Justin Bieber haircut, when my phone rang. "Mom, how do you check the fuses?"

Sigh-h-h. Have been very careful to not blow any fuses in quite a while. Now my son was calling me at the end of a long and stressful day to tell me "the whole back of the house is out." GAH.

After asking questions and determining that the garage door was not working, I cringed. I'm not in any shape to heave my girth up and over a windowsill and into a dark and creepy crawly barely used (by humans) garage. But when I got there, I did just that. Got into the garage, found the blown fuse, replaced it and re-engaged the garage door opener. All before walking in the door to pee.

I rushed to the bathroom after hurriedly feeding the crabby old man cat, after washing my hands about 17 times to get the smelly I have no idea what it was from the tree I was hanging onto - off my hands. Got the door closed, started the water in the sink for the cat who drinks there, pulled down my pants and as I was bending at the knees to sit - a spider - on the tile directly in front of me - his legs spanning the whole 10" x 10" tile. Okay maybe he was smaller than that. The tile, I mean.

Regardless.

I had my pants down and was horrified to see that right in front of me, mid sit. Must kill creepy crawly things. When and wherever I see them in my house. The thought that it had probably dropped off of ME, had been transported from the garage by ME did not occur to me until after I stumbled around with dropped trou as it ran onto the rug and tried to escape.

*Shudder*

Did not need that at the end of a long day - hell - a long week. Spider killed, flushed, and pee accomplished I changed into lay-about clothes but not before taking off my creepy crawly clothes, bending over and shaking out my hair.

I still feel crawly things. And smelly things. Have I mentioned how much I hate this house?

And THEN ... and THEN ... Andy comes running out of the back of the house "sh*t sh*t sh*t!!!!"
Oh geez. I went back there and ... the fuse had blown again. The window unit air conditioner was hissing and spitting and dying and freaking Andy out before it blew the fuse. So now we know the culprit!

And you can bet your sweet bippy it wasn't me who climbed in the garage window a second time - ICK!!! But I was the one to change the fuse again. Sounds like a trip to the local hardware store is in order soon.

So how was your week?
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Good news!

My electricity is fixed, more about that later. :)

Right now I just wanted to say - I've got a themed post in TopBlogMag - so please click on over and take a look! It's my first time so please be gentle.

And ... I'm not sure why that guy is wearing a bra!

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Okay. I have a picture of the culprit here. The round fuses were the ones I was aware of. The long ones that look a bit like a shotgun shell - I didn't know existed at all, much less in my fuse box!

Apparently the bigger fuses are some kind of main fuses - there are only 2 of them and 1 controls the front of the house and one controls the back. So why all the other individual fuses then? Seems redundant to me! Regardless of my opinion though, the big 60 amp fuses DO exist and now I have backups and know how to check and load them.

Wish I had known that last night, I wouldn't have spent the night tossing and turning and gasping like a guppy - thinking I couldn't breathe! I sleep with a ceiling fan above me every night, winter, summer, doesn't matter. I like the air moving and I like the noise, it's soothing. Not having air conditioning is something I could have dealt with if I just could have had my ceiling fan!

Not having the TV to keep my mind off not having the ceiling fan which would have kept my mind off not having AC was the last straw. I admit it, I am pathetically, totally spoiled and dependant on all the conveniences of American life. I am the poor woman's Paris Hilton. Now that's sad.

To give credit where credit is due - it was the best boyfriend ever who came and showed me the hidden fuses and saved my pampered butt! What a guy!!!

Not a happy camper

I was vacuuming. Okay, I know it was around midnight but I am not a day person. The chairs in the living room are pulled away from the windows so I could vacuum behind them - a small side table is sitting by the front door - there is a pile of laundry on my bed to fold. Then the power went out. Okay, the power went out in the front of the house, not the back. The front is where I live, it's where the bedrooms are, the only bathroom and the living room. The kitchen counts too because basically the front of the house constitutes the original layout of the house. Starting at the laundry room back - is the addition to the house. That's where my son has nested. It is basically a big family room and he has made it his own while I have made his original bedroom my bead room. But I digress.

So there is no power in the front of the house which means no air conditioning. We only have window units to begin with and they aren't so great but they are better than the outside air right now. It's not incredibly hot if you look at the numbers but it is crazy humid out there. So, there is power in the back of the house, ah ha! It means a fuse has blown.

I got a flashlight and went out to the garage because that is where the fuse box is. The garage is on the same circuit as the back of the house so I was able to get the door open. But - that is where my luck ran out. We have those old screw in kind of fuses, not those nice switches that are so easy to reset. This is an older house that was never updated, I don't own it I rent it, so those kinds of upgrades are definitely not something I am going to do. I took the flashlight and checked all the fuses but they all looked fine to me. To be sure, I unscrewed each one and removed it, replaced it with a new one, when there was no change I unscrewed each one and put the original back in. The only one I didn't do that with was the one that controls the back of the house because obviously that one is just fine.

Standing in the garage, in the dark and humidity, trying to change outdated hot to the touch fuses in the early morning hours when I know I have to get up in the morning is not my idea of a good time. The sweat was literally running down into my eyes. Still - I could not find anything wrong with any of the fuses.

So now what? I really hate to act like a girl about this, but you don't call the electric company if it's obviously something within your own house do you? Do you call your landlord and wake her up in the middle of the night? Not that I could find her phone number right now anyway. I am literally at a loss. So what do I do? Go to the one thing that is working for the moment, my laptop. It's on battery power so I will be turning it off soon, but I needed to rant!!!

This is the one type of situation where I wish I had a male partner of some sort, here full time. When something breaks or needs lifting or something like that, I wouldn't mind a bit of testosterone around the house. And I might add that this is also the time when I am cursing out the former boyfriend who talked me into this house when I was looking for a place - with promises of - we'll do this to it - we'll do that - uh - yeah. I do not like this house and I have not liked it from the beginning. But right now I don't have a whole lot of options.

So - I will have to figure this out in the morning when I can at least see where I left my GOOD glasses, not this pair I managed to grab by the lenses from an end table. Silly though, I don't want to turn off my computer. I go to bed with the TV on every night, with a sleep timer. Turning off my computer really makes it dark and well - boring! I guess I like to be entertained to sleep. But I have to turn it off for now.


Good night all - hope your night is better than mine!