random afternoon thoughts

* Well, I'm "on the schedule" for tomorrow for the plumber. The good news is a Saturday service call costs the same as a weekday call (the plumber I use is an enormous outfit, with at least a dozen guys). I'm HOPING I either totally derped the reset and he'll be able to reset it, or that it's something simple like a thermocouple.

I have enough savings that a new water heater wouldn't *hurt* me too much but with the pay cuts and the big ER bill I just paid I'd rather not shell out $750 or whatever a new water heater is these days.

* I have my big crockpot full of water heating on the kitchen counter, and when I get home this evening I'm going to heat more water on the stove and wash my hair, and then if I feel really enthusiastic about it, heat more and try to take a shallow bath with a mix of boiling water and water cold from the tap.

I did this before, in 2007, but I wish I didn't have to do it again. A fellow of my acquaintance was talking about how when HIS water heater went out recently, he went and stayed overnight in a hotel (!) The good news for him was he happened to have a credit there he could use (He is in the Theater department and often involved with bringing in and lodging people from far away. I don't know that I'd forget I had a hotel credit....or maybe it was one of those "points" things, I don't know).

I can't quite justify paying for an entire hotel room JUST for a hot shower, though. (No, there are no facilities on campus that would be open to me; the pool closed because it needs repairs we can't afford to make and that was the one "public" locker-rooms with showers). If I had no heat in my house as well, maybe.....Or if this is for an extended time, I might look into getting a "shampoo and blow-out" at one of the local salons.

Also this week I guess I wash the sheets on cold. I prefer to do them on hot because dust mites, but then again, I keep using the same old pillows and I have stuffies on my bed so I probably just HAVE mites.

* So I'm coping. I'm not happy but I'm better than I was at 6:30 this morning when I discovered there was no hot water.

* My stomach is a little better. Am wondering if maybe peanut butter was bothering me? Or maybe I'm not totally over the gastritis of almost 2 months ago? Or, I don't know what. But I am going to avoid peanut butter for a while to see what happens there. Maybe it's peanut fat? Soy oil bothers me, I know that. And the only real symptom I had was abdominal pain, and even it came and went.

Or maybe my stomach is just more irritable now, and I will have to deal? I don't know. 

* I ate pasta with "meat sauce" (tomato and meat) at lunch - our "free lunch," the one perk we still get - and it doesn't seem to be bothering me so HOPEFULLY it was just a bad reaction to peanut butter - or a bad batch of peanut butter.

* I need to do something relaxing this evening. I'm gonna take work home with me for tomorrow, I guess, while I wait on the plumber (that's easier than what I originally did, left my office number and home number with them - guess I should call or e-mail them and tell them to JUST call my house) but I also need some time off.