winter

winter
Originally uploaded by mygothlaundry

I have no heat. That is, I sort of have heat as long as it's sunny and/or I cook something in the oven for an hour or more, as I have been boasting ad nauseam for a while right here but, alas, as it has actually gotten cold outside, the sun and the oven are doing less and less and it would be nice to have some kind of baseline heat. Like, you know, a boiler, possibly the boiler that I contracted to pay MULTIPLE THOUSANDS OF DOLLARS FOR last summer. I do have my old boiler, but it's broken again, or I used up the remaining 20% of the propane tank in three days in October when I absentmindedly turned it on. I think it's broken: last fall when it broke the first time the Russian repairman who came to fix it got all nostalgic and dreamy eyed when he saw it. "Reminds me of home!" he said Russianly. "Many boilers like this one!" I thought perhaps he would break out the vodka and smoked fish right there but instead he just sort of fixed the boiler (something else broke on it ten days later) and charged me $165. Still, having a boiler that reminds a former denizen of the Soviet Union of his childhood is not really a good sign.

Therefore I am supposedly getting a new boiler. To this end I hired Crazy Furnace Guy - and, because I am so deeply damaged, I hired him not despite his insanity but because of it! Yes! I thought he was charmingly wacky and I like to hire the charmingly wacky because they're just more entertaining than the efficient corporate types. Besides, the only other people who do boilers in Asheville are a chain and I have this thing about chains and, well, stupid endless summer me, I went with Crazy Furnace Guy. Big surprise: crazy furnace guy is crazy and it's way less entertaining in December than it was in August.

Today when I called his cell to inquire politely as to the status of my boiler, I got to hear a five minute monologue on the complete incompetence of every other driver on the road, which was actually quite enjoyable, since I was expecting the brake squeals and impact and screaming at any minute. This would not have upset me as much as it should have, because interspersed with the traffic commentary was the admission that my boiler will not even arrive in Asheville for another two weeks. And I know that by two weeks, he means four. Possibly six.

In other news, we're at that post Thanksgiving point where we ask the eternal question: how old do turkey leftovers have to be before they kill you? Wheeee!