It's taken me about a week to get over the stress of St. Patrick's week! Two days before I was to play at the Westmark my guitar player called me up and said, "I have bad news." Before he even went any further I knew what it was. He couldn't do the gig. Shit.
So.....there I was, piper out of town, guitar player being sent out of town by his boss, and a hotel gig to do in two days. So I racked my brains (they rattled) and I finally asked Lindy Raines, of the Mighty Untouchables blues band, who just happens to give lessons at the same place I do, if he would sit in with me. And he said YES, thank God.
That night and during every spare minute thereafter we were either rehearsing or I was making charts for him. Charts with BIG letters for us forty-something's eyeballs.
We did fine, there were the usual glitches but they loved us and I hope they'll have us back. Whoever "us" is the next time around! It was the first time Lindy had ever played Celtic music and he left humming "Merrily Kissed the Quaker" and swearing he was going to get me for getting all these tunes stuck in his head. Ah, another addict. The first one's free.....
I would have liked nothing better at the end of that day than to get into a nice, hot shower. But nooOOOOOooo. When I got home my cabin was losing heat. The furnace had gone out. The furnace also heats our hot water. No house heat, no hot water. So I called the landlord and he told me how to push the red button to get the furnace going again.
But that didn't fix my hot water situation.
So far I haven't had a shower yet. It's been a week. Every time I try, either whatever hot water there was has been used by the other tenant, or it does what it did this morning.
I pushed the button before going to sleep last night. As usual, the furnace had quit while I was in town. It's just a good thing it's not forty below right now! Anyway, after a couple of tries the furnace started up and I went upstairs and eventually went to bed, just hoping that it would stay on all night so I could take a shower in the morning. After a week a person feels skanky, you know?
This morning I checked the thermostat. The cabin was still at 70 degrees. So far so good. That meant that there should be hot water!
I turned on the shower and experimentally checked the temperature. Cold. But wait, you usually have to run it a while to get the hot water, so I undressed (being an optimist) and tested it again in a couple of minutes. Success! Really hot water, with pretty good pressure, to boot! I hopped into the shower, got my very long hair all soaked, my body all wet, turned around to stick my face in the stream and that was when the hot water ran out.
Yep. All wet and unwashed in cold water. God fracking fruckle dithering ruthermuckers! Arrrrggghhh!
Yes folks, I pay for a place with water and heat and I get NEITHER right now. What a pisser!
When was the last time you had to dry off and then actually clean the important places with wet wipes? Grrrrrr.
I left the landlord a message. I was even polite. But firm. And wet.
