SNOWQUESTRATION BUST (and a long seventy-two hours)

At first, I started writing about how things, usually bad, happen in threes.  But then, while trying to nap after this long day of nothing (read below), I realized I didn't want to pull negativity out of this past week.  I wanted to see the good in what had happened and not the bad.  Why jinx myself?  This week we had an odd occurrence happen in the house.  Late Sunday afternoon, it was still chilly in the house.  While I was out dolling myself up with a haircut and color appointment, Ray was staying warm in the house with the heat turned up.  To clarify this, we have propane gas.  We keep the thermostat set to sixty-eight degrees while out of the house.  We turn it up for two or so hours at night when home.  We use the stove very little (there is a point to this part).  We have been heating up soup and eating salads trying to watch our caloric intake for two vacations coming up (one happening tomorrow, I hope). Once home, I turned the heat up and about an hour after all of the adjustments were made, it dawned on Ray that we didn't have any heat. I was oblivious to it all, because I was drowning myself in scanning death and birth certificates along with fifty plus year old pictures I wanted on my flashdrive for when we pack up and move.  We have dual thermostats, and the upstairs unit was running.  We put a call into our HVAC representative.  They would send someone out to service the unit, and since we have a contract with them, it would be to a cost of $170 (it was late Sunday, and they couldn't say if someone would show up at six pm or ten pm).  About an hour later, a super nice serviceman named Tim called to possibly troubleshoot the problem with Ray.  Seemed easy enough.  The unit is seven years old, but they don't make things the way they used to now, do they?  The problem wasn't solved.  Ray couldn't fix it.  Tim knew what it was then, and since he didn't have the part (a brand new gas valve part or something or other could be ours for six to eight hundred dollars), he recommended that we wait until Monday for his visit.  IF he had the part, we would save $170 by not having him look at the unit until then.  If he didn't have the part, it could take up to four days to get it.  We have an upcoming trip to a wedding in Key West that was going to get in the way of that service call if the part wasn't available pronto.

The next hour (now seven pm), I lazily went upstairs to get into my pajamas.  This is late for me.  But with all the phone calls and trying to figure out the heating unit (okay, I can hold a flashlight pretty well), time just flew by.  Ray had said that he cranked the heat up upstairs so we would stay warm overnight.  Funny, the thermostat was still stuck at the original temperature of sixty-eight degrees.  That unit wasn't working either.  What the heck?  Ray then went downstairs to turn on the fireplace (we have propane) and to call Tim back to tell him we had two problems.  The fireplace pilot light was out, there was no pressure for the gas in the stove (really no flame), and we were OUT OF PROPANE.  We had a salad for dinner and skipped the soup and didn't notice anything wrong with the gas stove.  Ray called Tim back, Tim eluded to the fact that we shouldn't really run out of gas but this was the "he should not be named" company, and then Ray called that said company to deliver us some gas.  Not the same service representative though and not the same attitude.  "You want us to send out an emergency truck with gas?"  Uh, duh.  That would help.  They would call us back.  An hour later, no return call.  Ray tried calling for two hours (now past his bedtime of eight pm), and the phone kept disconnecting on him.  I kept telling myself that "when in Panama, I won't be cold, and I will expect these inconveniences, slow service or even lack of service, but I am not in Panama yet!".  We fell asleep.

At the early hour of eleven pm, the phone rang.  There's our call back! Ray slept through the ringing, and I actually heard it!  The service man with the gas company was twenty minutes away.  He told Ray that he just got our service call at that hour.  He explained to Ray that the gas tank is five hundred gallons but it only gets filled to four hundred gallons to allow for expansion (reminds me of the same principles of the nitrogen and oxygen in the tanks that we use for the patients in our laughing gas, or nitrous oxide, at work).  Our propane tank (which has never run out) needed a fill of 399.6 gallons to a cost of $1015.  Ray called the company back to tell them the phones were not working (to see if they answered the phone now and to tell them off).  Someone picked up on the first ring.  She stated that they received our service call at seven pm and they put the call in to get us gas at a prompt time of ten pm!  Unsure why they waited three hours.  They were sleeping like we wanted to be?  The next morning Ray called Tim's supervisor to give him great accolades to be filed in his record and called the gas company to go off on them.  He was told by the supervisor (and extensively apologized to) that when the tank was filled mid-January, it wasn't really filled to the top (he also told Ray that the service man at that time could have just cut it off when he got cold or just filled it to what he thought we would use).  Fortunately, we have such a huge credit being on a budget plan with this company,  so we don't owe them that one thousand dollars.  And they owe us a whopping $50 due to the guarantee of "you'll never run out of gas"!  Oh and after the service man gave us the gas we needed, we then had to relight the pilot light for the hot water heater.  I was exhausted holding that flashlight.  (Ray had been outside in the cold at midnight while I watched from the window).  When all was said and done, we hit the bed at one am toasty and warm.  And the good is that we didn't need the gas valve thingamabob.

But before falling asleep we laughed because we were first told that we had had such a cold spell that we could have very well used up all the gas in the tank.  Really?  Two people?  Working everyday outside the home?  Eating soup?  And also because there was a pending snow storm coming our way.  The day before we were to fly out to that wedding I wrote about way up in the first paragraph!  Bringing me to today.  This morning I woke up at two am to snow!  And a bit of it!  They were calling it SNOWQUESTRATION. The biggest snow since our SNOWMAGGEDON three years ago.  This was it!  Twelve inches in western counties, ten inches for Washington, DC and maybe eight inches at my house!  Ray took a shower and was headed to work.  He leaves the house by 3:30am.  Then, sense was smacked into him.  He decided to do some work on his laptop, email the office manager and if they kept the office open, he would then drive in.  Meanwhile, the Federal Government shut down, Metro and the rail system shut down.  My office, slow to the punch, sent out word that we were closed at six am.  Leading us to the next thing that happened this week.  Our flight.  Should we head out today?  Try and fly out of Richmond instead of DC?  Our original flight for tomorrow wasn't canceled.  Do we sit tight?  We made a few calls, we sat tight, and then the flight was canceled.  We had to wait one hour or so before the representative (two out of three have been nice and helpful this past week) called us back.  She could reissue tickets.  We could still fly out tomorrow.  A different airport.  An hour earlier.  Horrible seats.  But we have a flight.  This is all good, and the bride also managed to get on a different flight today at a different airport so we know she will be showing up to the wedding.  (Groom is to leave tomorrow?)  And by the way, the snow for DC was a HUGE BUST.  Rain!  Snow on the grassy surfaces.  We tallied six inches of snow so far in my area (still snowing at three pm).    There have been more than a thousand accidents up and down the highway in VA today due to the mess.  All the cancellations and shut downs.  Better safe than sorry.

 While trying to nap, I reflected on my work week, too.  My two days of it.  I had a seventy-five year old patient come in that I have been treating for seven years.  She comes in every six months faithfully.  This was the first time ever in thirty years of learning dental hygiene and practicing it that I failed to give someone back her teeth!  They just stayed cleaning in the ultrasonic while I daydreamt of Panama.   The dentist didn't ask to see them either (so it's his fault, not mine).  The patient didn't ask for them back (shows how much she must wear them).  She does have eight teeth on the bottom, so I didn't hold onto all of them.  That same day I had an 83 year old male patient due at one pm.  I asked the other hygienist what she thinks of first when an elderly patient that is always at least twenty minutes early for his appointment pacing and waiting for me to seat him doesn't show up.  And the phone number is no longer in service.  We both said "nursing home or death".  I waited fifteen minutes, and then I googled him.  I was sad.  I didn't lose his teeth.  I lost him as a patient.  He died the day after Christmas.  The bad is that he was very lonely and had one remaining drunk nephew for a relative.  The good is we enjoyed his dental appointments twice a year (I made use of that hour talking more than cleaning his six teeth!).

WHAT A WEEK!  Or seventy-two hours that is.  It can only get better.  I will go to bed super early tonight, and hop on that plane so fast tomorrow!  Sunny skies in Key West is good, and I suppose I can take the upper sixties-very low seventies degree temperatures forecasted.  It's bound to be warm and sunny in Panama in a week?

Seven am in March!

Before the first shoveling (nine am)

We had five inches at noon, and total so far is six or seven inches.