The Friday where everything went wrong.

Friday morning started out with me deciding NOT to go to the gym because I was too wiped from my speed workout the night before. I really wish I had gone... but I was also really tired. I'm still working on this whole "listen to your body" thing that I am so bad at (I'm convinced that if I had been better at this, I might have avoided back surgery).

F told me that we didn't have any hot water. This set off some alarms... mainly, did the pilot light go out on the water heater? I went and checked, and it was indeed off. So I tried to re-light it (and totally had to call my dad and have him basically talk me through it, to his delight, at 6 am on his day off!), and that didn't work. Which set off MORE alarms: why did it go out? why can't I re-light it? Is there a gas leak (leave it to the science teacher to worry about this).

So, I called the gas company and told them I couldn't light it... and the woman told me that she would send someone out right away. I said I was about to go to work, and she said that I needed to stay home, because it was an emergency. She also said I needed to get a "safe distance" from the house, and avoid anything that could cause a spark (garage door opener, etc). So I "unhooked" the garage door opener like we do when it's not closing, and tried to open it... and couldn't. So I just got dressed real quick and put Sunshine on a leash and waited across the street.

The gas guys came and took everything apart- the gas line into our house, the gas meter, etc. They also looked at our furnace in the attic and the water heater, since they were both gas too. They said our furnace wasn't up to code anymore, and turned it off, and said that we needed someone to come out and bring it up to code (apparently this is really common- it was up to code when the house was built, and the code has changed). And they said we needed to call a plumber. Until a plumber AND an HVAC person came out, we wouldn't have heat or hot water.

Oh- also- I was supposed to leave directly from school on Friday to visit Mannikov in New Orleans (was going to stop in Tomball on the way and stay with my folks). I was going to miss work on Monday. Since this was all happening, and I was the one staying home, since someone else thought I was overreacting (which we have discussed), and since I didn't feel comfortable taking two days off in a row, I thought my trip was blown. I was FURIOUS about this. Crying, yelling, cursing- really, irrationally, inconsolably angry about all this.

So... called F and told him all of this, then called HVAC and a plumber... blah blah blah. F was coming home so that I could still go to New Orleans- I figured if I left by 1 I could just drive all teh way there and then come home on Sunday night. So he gets home, we chat, I fill him in on everything that is going on, and then I mention that I couldn't open the garage door. F goes out to fix it (he is tall enough to reach the lever- he always does this and it's never a big deal) and then I heard a really loud crash.

I went out to see what happened, and F is standing in the middle of the garage, looking a little dazed. He said that he lifted the door about halfway, and then he heard a snap, and the whole door fell down on him! It knocked off his glasses, and he was rubbing his hand when I found him. It had knocked him down! Poor guy!! That's scary stuff!

About half an hour passed, and we were just chatting- I was making a sandwich and loading up my car. Then F got a little... loopy? I kept asking him if he had hit his head- you know when kind of scary stuff happens really fast and you aren't really sure what happened? I think that was what happened with the garage door- it didn't hit him in the head, but it had knocked off his glasses and thrown him to the ground, and he was just realizing that he was sore and hurt from it. AND, I wasn't completely convinced that he hadn't hit his head. And it was 1:00. I wasn't going to leave him like that- I wanted to make sure he was ok, and I wanted to be around in case he needed to go to the doctor or something. And I didn't want him to have to deal with all these service people (which now included a garage door person) by himself when he was feeling really bad. So I called Mannikov and told her I wasn't going to make it. :(

Part of me feels that for some reason, I really wasn't supposed to go to New Orleans this weekend. SO. MANY. THINGS. prevented this trip. And then when I worked all those things out, I thought F might be hurt, and I HAD to stay and make sure he was ok.

In the end, F WAS ok, after a good night's sleep. And, we spent 800 dollars on home repairs. Oh- AND, Sunshine was the worst watch dog ever- she was all over the service men who came over. Nice job, girlie.