July 10, 2004
Joined Kathy and spent the night at Grandma Betty’s last night. Brought a baked chicken from Bashas’ and a salad, had a couple Soporos ( also bought some staples, $49 house account). Watched bad tv (Dean debates Nader) and went to bed early. Made Betty fresh squeezed orange juice this morning and cooked eggs, drank coffee and solved life. My kind of Saturday morning.

The well guy came out Thursday and told us an ant had gotten in the electrical system. They are evidently attracted to the hum of the pump. Poor little sucker crawled up between the connections, closed the circuit and got himself fried (keep in mind you are getting electrical information from a cartoonist). We came home today and the water was off again. Went out with a finger nail file and cleaned off the heads, after turning off the breaker switch of course, and it started right up, only this time we saved the $60 house call fee.

As for the fridge, it has a broken compressor (passed on the repair estimate—$450— paid $39 for the house call). Thanks to a tip from Mike, who reads this blog, Kathy went down to Sears at Paradise Valley Mall and scouted out the deals (0% financing for a year and a $40 haul away rebate), and this morning I went with her and helped her pick out a new unit. She was fretting on price and I asked her if she would consider a top of the line fridge a good enough 25th wedding anniversary present from me and she said it definitely would, so I signed up for a Sears card and bit the bullet for $2,400. Nice unit. Not the sexiest anniversary gift, but Kathy seems to be faking happiness good enough to fool me.

The heat is still stifling and I’ve been swimming twice today to cool off. Here’s what another reader of this blog has to say about that:

“Every one of the 20 summers I spent in Phoenix I believed it was definitely the Apocalypse. All I can say is that Ed Abbey would be good reading material for you about this time. And once the lights come back on and the popsicles refreeze, check out Soylent Green on DVD.”
—Sunny Hemphill, Wenatchee, WA (currently 72 degrees and pleasantly breezy)

“The ant is the hardest-working creature in the world—when someone is looking.”
—Mark Twain