...and now the refrigerator broke!

Last night I made steak and chicken fajitas, watched my family eat peacefully at the dining room table. We were all watching the lizards running across the dining room windows eating bugs and I thought, "Yes, things are going to be alright here."

Today? Not so much. The refrigerator has not been acting right since we moved in, I called the repairman and he came out and said, basically, the whole fridge is shot to hell. Go get a new one. Well my landlord lives in another state from me, so coordinating a new fridge has fallen on my shoulders a bit. Then there are the vagaries of delivery when one lives on a small island. Saturday was my earliest delivery date. SATURDAY. Till then I am to what? Cool the milk in a sink filled with ice?

I remember there being a chest freezer in one of the backyard tool sheds. I haul it out, clean it up and plug it in to keep my freezer stuff, uh, frozen. Meanwhile I start a new load of laundry (one of the kids had an accident last night) so I am up to my ears in sheets and blankets. I come back half an hour later ready to put the clothes in the dryer and, lo, the washer is full of hot dirty water. What. the. hell????? I trudge to our outdoor breaker box, now conveniently located in ankle high weeds because the landlord's landscaping company did NOT come out and mow the yard. I saw a snake out there yesterday. A SNAKE. So I go to the breaker box and a fuse has blow. I flip the switch and go over and turn the washer back on.

Meanwhile I am trying to load all of my refrigerator stuff into some coolers with the last of the ice from the freezer. I decide after I get that packed up that I will go out and dry my laundry. HAHAHAHA! The washer has turned off again. Go back to the breaker box, flip the switch, go back and restart the clothes. Make more phone calls related to the refrigerator crisis. Wait for the exterminator to come and bring me a key to the landlord's cottage so I can load my fridge stuff into her tiny fridge. Try and unpack. Debate the wisdom of unpacking into a house already beset by rats, carpenter ants, a lousy fridge and now bad wiring. Cry a little. Hear tremendous thump where Preschool Child has flipped off of my raised bed and landed face first onto the floor. Her sister runs by sobbing, "I didn't push her!" The preschooler has a scrape on her head. Take to my bed with the baby and calm her down. Decide that I am definitely going out to dinner tonight and I may well have a drink or two with it.