Close Encounters of the Disastrous Kinds

Sunset over Cinci.

If you live on the edge, you dangle from it sometimes. The important thing to know is what you're hanging over before you're hanging there. The last few weeks have made me question my calculated risks — just a little. First there was the locked out gas meter and melted air conditioner pan. Last week, it was a broken water main in my back yard. I told an old college friend about these close encounters with disaster and he laughed. "You're making this up!" he said. When I argued adamantly that I was being truthful, he roared, "This is the stuff I miss."

Photo 1: Close encounters of the first kind: furnace malfunction.

Photo 2: Close encounters of the second kind: the clueless furnace technician.

I enjoy being entertaining, but not when it's so expensive. Being older and less afraid of everything, I took on the home warranty folks when they started threatening to welch on the furnace/ air conditioner fix. They eventually agreed to pay. I wasn't as lucky with the water main. Evidentally, it broke while I was missing the sniper in Orlando. I shudder to think what the Waterworks bill will be (the inspector made me sign a paper saying my bill could be big due to the break). My backyard fountain of Lourdes ran between 3-5 days before I realized what happened. No, home warranty didn't fix it — only things IN the house. No, State Farm did not pay for it. According to them NO insurance company covers that kind of thing. So, I have a $1200 pile of dirt in the middle of my backyard and hopes that it holds.

In my life, bad things in particular come in threes. My new kitchen sink backed up while preparing for my first dinner party on Saturday night. The nice new neighbors came over bringing gifts: flowers, wine, and a plunger. Nothing says "Welcome to the neighborhood like a new plunger."

In better news, I got the new couch I promised myself all through grad school. I loved the leather couch I had in McFarland but lived with it's evidence that I lived with boys for a very long time. Though the new couch really is my first choice for my single house, I can't help but wonder if I am complying with a bizarre subconscious instinct to be practical — it's grey and has a slip cover. Yes, I have looked at fabrics with thoughts of making a replacement cover. What am I thinking?!

Pre-couch.

Couch in transition.

Couch in residence.

Saturday I also cooked for my first genuine new Cincinnati friends. Jarrod, Isabelle, and Chloe Thomas feasted on the boys' favorite family recipe, Alice Van Bogaert's pot roast. We blew through five hours of great conversation — politics, movies, books, and life. My movie galpals from Madison will be delighted to hear that I have in five short weeks started the Cincinnati chapter of Reel Friends. Isabelle is destined to be our foreign film guide—especially French films. We've already swapped books and dvds. Wonderful!

The Thomases.