broken! fixed! broken! fixed!

It’s been quite the up and down day today, and I was in the midst of writing a big entry about how everything’s broken and how nothing works and how when I arrived at the office this morning – late, thanks to a furnace breakdown (kind of) – my computer gave me a bunch of weird messages and then it locked up and then when I did get it back on it was all weird and my email was screwed up and saying strange things to me (“Current settings prohibit running Active X Controls! You don’t even know what that IS, do you??? Looooooser!!!”) … worst of all! … my audio was missing. I couldn’t listen to NPR! I couldn’t play music!!! I couldn’t believe how much that bothered me all day, either. I’ve felt off-kilter and like something’s really wrong all day long because I’m sitting here in silence. I keep it turned down very low, too, since I share an office- but it’s my little security wall, apparently. I felt very exposed and uneasy without it.

But ANYHOW, as I writing about my tribulations, the computer guy showed up (I’d emailed him first thing but he’s been out and just got it) and he fixed it in about ten seconds. Several people had this problem after some update they just did. It wasn’t just me. Given the car.. and the furnace.. I had just assumed I’m cursed.

When I got up this morning the furnace wouldn’t come on. So Baker B and I spend an hour messing with the furnace, and then cleaning up the house enough that having furnace repair people visit wouldn’t be completely mortifying. That included, ummmm, packing up the Christmas decorations. YES, we’re pathetic. It’s really embarrassing. Every weekend I say I’m cleaning up the house and putting away the Christmas stuff (that I didn’t put out till something like Christmas eve to begin with) and every weekend I find something better to do. But whatever!

We bought this furnace several years ago. Of course we can’t remember exactly when we bought it or who we bought it from or find the furnace book, because being able to do any of that would mean we aren’t disorganized and chaotic. And that we actually have sense enough to put important papers someplace where we can find them later on. I found the refrigerator book in a pile of assorted recipes, and the washing machine book on top of the hot water heater, and a whole slew of various appliance booklets in the writing desk. But of course no furnace book. Baker B keeps saying it’s only been 3 or 4 years since we bought it, but I think it’s longer. We’ve lived there a shocking almost-nine years now, and we had to buy a furnace a couple of years after we moved in. I think. Who knows! I even looked through a bunch of old checkbook registers to see if I could spot the three $700 payments we made. That was lots of fun. A trip back in time to the days when I actually attempted to balance the checkbook.

But I never found it so Baker B just called the people who sounded right. Thinking they’d be right over. They can’t get here till tomorrow. Which didn’t surprise me – we’ve had five weeks – five weeks!!! – of abnormally cold temperatures, when it barely got out of the teens. Of course everyone else’s furnace is broken too. I work with two people who had furnace problems last week. At least ours waited until it was above 20 degrees outside, which I think is very considerate.

The filter is FILTHY and we’ve never had it serviced – yeah, yeah, yeah, once again and as usual, we’re idiots – so we figure it’s just clogged up. We think maybe we can just go buy a filter tonight and try the reset button, and maybe it will come back on. If not, at least we’re in line.

We are still doing the ride-share thing since naturally the Colt is still in the shop with no word on when we’ll ever get it back, so Baker B takes me to work. Then for some reason he goes back home. I don’t even remember now why he did that, but he messed around with the furnace some and then went outside and checked the oil.

We’re out of oil.

This is one time that it’s not us being idiots, though. We ordered oil last week. They always leave a hangtag on the door, and usually deliver the same day, so when we still didn’t have a hangtag on our door a couple of days after we ordered it, Baker B called them and they said, “Oh, yes, we delivered it! We don’t leave hang tags anymore. We’ll mail your bill.” And then we got the bill and of course never thought of it again. Till Baker B goes out and discovers our tank is dry.

Well, he calls the oil people and they do some digging and find….. they delivered our oil to another guy with the same last name. Who apparently ordered oil the same day. So somehow he got oil and we didn’t, and we got the bill and I really don’t know how that could happen… but whatever! They’re bringing us more today. I guess the lesson is that you need to measure your oil after they “deliver” it.

Oh, a really odd thing – this guy with our last name also works on campus. As does his wife. Yesterday, for the first time ever, I got mail intended for his wife. Who is in a totally different part of campus. Must be some kind time/space rift thingy.

So, the good news is that our furnace is not broken! Yay!!! We certainly need a new filter and we need to get it serviced (and I think since we have them coming tomorrow anyhow, we’ll just have them service it). But it’s not broken! And my computer is fixed! Now if only we’ll have really good news about the car.