International Small Emergency Week

[kate_schaefer]

We're observing International Small Emergency Week at my house. The washing machine won't drain voluntarily, although it will drain if one turns the knob to just the right spot. The downstairs toilet won't flush unless one dumps a bucket of water into it. Part of the oven door fell off earlier today. Something came loose in the lint screen slot of the dryer, and now the lint screen won't go back in and the dyer is whistling ominously. The car doesn't want to shift out of park without a great deal of persuasion.

Only a week ago, all of these things worked just fine.

Glenn fixed the oven door. I've scheduled a plumber. I'll schedule the car repair and the washer and dryer repairs. We'll observe International Small Repair Week, and Domestic Let's Move On, Shall We? Week.

I am going to be very, very careful operating machinery of any size for the next few days.

Comments

[fastfwd.livejournal.com]

I hate when that happens.

::lights candles and does the dance of resumption of smooth functioning for you::

[kate-schaefer.livejournal.com]

Thanks. Can you teach us all how to do that dance? Seems to me it would come in handy, frequently.

[selkie-b.livejournal.com]

Sounds like here! Deep freeze is on the fritz - looks like the thermostat not the compressor *fingers crossed $200 diff to fix*, got the note from school about the trip for band and orchestra to go to Chicago $550 in two payments over the holidays, teen-aged son in general (with a girlfriend), did I mention the holidays coming up?... veins are looking a little dry and shriveled here.... *laugh*

Must say not so bad as your week - hope those all work out!

[kate-schaefer.livejournal.com]

I had to remind myself sternly that if Sam and Ruth can have a teen-aged daughter each, you can have a teen-aged son, and I don't get to believe that you're too young to have said son. If I'm old enough to be the grandmother of teenagers, your parents are old enough to be the grandparents of teenagers.

No doubt when I'm a great-grandmother, I will still be surprised at the aging of all these whippersnappers around me.

[selkie-b.livejournal.com]

*LAUGH* He's 14 :) from my first husband (whom I actually get along with really well now...makes life so much nicer for everyone!)

*ahem* I'll be 40 in February. I'm not trying to make you feel old, I just remember when Mary and I would kind of laugh because you really were young enough to be our SISTER not "Mom"!

[kate-schaefer.livejournal.com]

Well, big sister anyway. I'll be 53 in March. Mary will be 39 next week.

It was challenging to maintain enough gravitas to be convincing as a stepmother back in those days. It helped a lot that the daughters liked me, and that you all didn't give me a lot of shit about being too young to be a stepmother.

At this point, Glenn and I have been married for 20 years, so I have all the gravitas I need. My sisters are both grandmothers through the normal channels now, so I'm no longer alone in my grandparenthood in my family of origin generation.

[selkie-b.livejournal.com]

Isn't love such a funny thing :)

Thank you for reminding me about Mary's birthday - I knew it was coming up, just not *when*! I'll drop her an email. We do email or call about once a year - still really close!

[slave-driver.livejournal.com]

It's always the little things that get me. I can handle big emergencies well, but it's the little things that add up, one after another after another, that eventually causes me to go crazy.

[kate-schaefer.livejournal.com]

I have reached the point of laughing as each new thing goes wrong. More precisely, I have reached the point of reminding myself to keep laughing as each new thing goes wrong.

[jess-ka.livejournal.com]

Yipes. A herd of daemons ran wild all over your house...

[kate-schaefer.livejournal.com]

So if we combine the dance of resumption of smooth functioning with an exorcism, we should be all set?

Exorcism could be a problem, since I'm almost certainly allergic to the incense. I bet atheist daemons are even more irritating than religious daemons. They sit there, conceding that they don't exist as a preliminary stage of the conversation, and then argue for hours and hours and hours about the implications of the initial conditions.

[jess-ka.livejournal.com]

Exactly.