Unstuck from the mouth of my roof

So we had a windstorm the other night and it whipped a piece of siding nearly off the house. Right now it's hanging by a single nail right over the back door. To be fair I knew it was going to happen sooner or later, it had been kinda loose since the last windstorm we had. I was just hoping there would never be another windstorm. Ever.

It seems that my hopes sown in stupidity have now borne the fruit of forgone conclusion. So I can't really complain too much.

Anyways, I went down to the Home Depot today and got all the tools I needed to fix the thing, except for some kind of hover device which would offset the somewhat steep pitch of my roof. From the outside it doesn't look so bad I guess, but I think it's actually around 60° or something.

I don't have a ladder but I do have roof access through my upstairs window, so I gave it the ol' college try and nearly slipped to my death on the first attempt. Then I changed from my loafers into my tennis shoes and gave it another go. Fared slightly better, I got halfway out the window, but there was no getting past the fact that my shoes and high center of gravity just were not going to cut it.

So Rowan suggested I ask her brother, who's a handy dude, if he'd be able to help. I felt kind of weird though being like, "Oh hey I almost died trying this, but you wanna give it a shot?" But I imagine he has more experience than me, or at least better shoes.

Luckily there's not any rain in the forecast for a while, so I can be content with the further trashiness happening at the back of my house. Ahhh, feels good.

Tragedies come in threes, yes?

So yesterday I lost my job, which sucks a little but isn't the end of the world. Then last night, around 7:30, the power goes out. Poof, just like that. And just our block. Not across the street, not the next block over, just our single block.

It wouldn't have been so bad except it was around 12° outside and by the time the power came back the thermostat was down to around 55°. Not cool when you have parrots in the house. But, power came back, everything's cool right?

WRONG! Wake up this morning around 7am and it's cold yet again. And our bedroom is the warmest room in the house, but it's chilly even in there. Power's on, though, so what could be the problem? Oh that's right the furnace.

So I go down there, restart the furnace twice causing it to then lock itself out to keep from flooding. I call the oil company, they say they'll have someone out by noon. Noon! And it's 7:30am, around 60° inside, 16° outside.

Long story short (too late!) the guy arrives around 10, which is awesome, and he's this older, kinda crazy dude who, by his own words, "went to bed at 4 and woke up at 4:30." So he's ready for action.

He's so old-school he talks to the furnace like it's a woman and refers to it in feminine terms. "Come on baby, what's wrong with you?" "That's it baby, do it!" "You treat her right, she'll treat you right." "That ain't my child! Who you screwin'? Who you screwin'?!" That kinda thing.

It turns out the line into the house is frozen solid, and not even his Tim Burton designed double-action brass hand-pump can budge it. He then decides to dump into the tank, and force up the line, some de-icing chemical they use in Mack trucks. We wait a few minutes for it to work its magic. Nothing.

It's at this point I show my own mad chemistry skills. "How about if I use a hair dryer on it?"

"That might work, man. Some people try using a butane torch on frozen lines, you know."

"Yeah I wouldn't do that."

"Good thing, it'll ignite the whole tank."

"Oh I just meant I'm afraid to use butane torches. But that other part too."

The tech heads back to the car to make a call, so there I am out by the tank with a tiny little off-brand hair dryer, my hands turning red from the cold (and the periodic hair dryer treatments to keep them from freezing), and I realize after about thirty minutes of this that the guy hasn't come back yet.

Luckily his truck's still there with him it, with his shirt off, drinking some iced tea.

"Oh hey," I say like nothing's wrong, "you think this'll be done in the next hour or so? If not my birds are gonna, like, die."

"Hey man, sure thing, I'll be right out. I gotta go anyways, it's like a sauna in here."

So back he comes, bouncing through the gate, steam rising off him, and he's carrying what appears to be a giant bamboo pole, like he's got an audition with Cirque du Soleil right after this. He jabs it down into the tank a couple of times, exclaims, "We're free!" and rushes back down into the basement.

I can't even make it down before he yells it again and starts putting everything back together. "Knocked loose some ice up there that was in the tank. She's all ready to go now, man!" And sure enough, in about five seconds the whole thing is up and running, no clogs, no muss, no fuss.

"Okay, just one second and I'm going to come back with a bill so large that even employed people would be shocked." And he did. And I was. But boy, it sure is nice to be warm again.

Compromised credit is awesome!

So today I get a letter from Countrywide saying that my mortgage account was one of the many that was apparently sold to "third parties" by a former employee.

They're lucky I was in a letter-opening mood because I nearly chucked the thing without even opening it. I mean, at least once a week they send out junk "Protect your credit" mail or crap about debt consolidation, so I nearly figured it was another one of those.

But I gave them the benefit of the doubt and peered into this VERY IMPORTANT envelope. The first thing I see are the words "deeply regret this incident" which, if you don't know, are not words you want coming from your mortgage company. That's up there with "and you must vacate by the 30th" for bad home-ownership news.

Anyways, yeah it totally sucks, but on the plus side I get two free years of credit report monitoring. That's kinda cool, actually. I can see all the companies I've ever owed money to, along with my total debt in this world.

I can't even be depressed or worried about that part, it's just a laughably huge amount of money. Between the house, car, student loans, various credit cards and whatnot, it just doesn't even register with me. I keep paying, I keep owing, the cycle of life continues.

Maybe one day when I'm in my late 60s I'll finally see a clean credit sheet with the coveted $0 balance, but I'm not holding my breath. Especially if there's a team of Russian mobsters out there playing fast and loose with my mother's maiden name.