Life has been a little too exciting chez Green Leanings. First of all, we both have contracted the plague, aka a really nasty upper respiratory bug. I am pretty much coughing non-stop, and my partner is just getting sick. Yesterday evening a guy from the gas company came out to investigate "a non-flammable intensity gas smell" near the meter (that was mentioned 4 months ago by a meter reader.) No detectable gas with his equipment, but we could both smell it. Then he dug into the ground, and bingo. Gas at 10 times the flammable level near the foundation of the house. He turns off the gas. I have a panic attack.
Repairmen come out today. The area with the leak is covered by a deck, and they won't touch it. So my partner manages to rip out the decking single-handedly while the repairmen attend to another house on our street. Did I mention the blizzard? Yes, we are in the midst of what some people are calling "the blizzard of '08." The repairmen return and manage to fix the leak, despite the worsening of the weather. The gas company tells us they can turn the gas back on... on Monday. At this point it is about 55 degrees F in the house. We mention that we are at home and freezing, and they tell us maybe tonight... maybe tomorrow. Maybe. Miracle of miracles, the same guy who turned off the gas is on duty, and recognizes our address. He tests the line (took about an hour in the heavy snow), turns the gas on, and makes sure the furnace and hot water heater are working properly. And he's a cat person, so a few of our curious furkids get a scritching in the process.
I had been planning to go to a nice, nearby Embassy Suites hotel for the night (and enjoying their manager's reception, hot tub, and cooked-to-order breakfast) but the roads were getting worse and worse, and suddenly we had hot water again. So I pulled out the (local) bread I was defrosting, cut a few slices for toast (with local butter), and cooked up some (local) peppered bacon and eggs. Since it was a celebratory dinner we had a little more bacon than usual. This batch is really fatty, and the joys of lightly crisped fatty bacon cannot be underestimated. For dessert I enjoyed some lapsang souchong with armangac prune ice cream from Jeni's (as a lover of things smoky I find it quite fabulous.)
It was rather nice to have a totally local meal in the face of adversity. And having hot water to clean up the bacon grease? Priceless.
Plus there's enough bacon left for breakfast. Life is good (except for the coughing, and the gaping hole where the deck used to be, and the foot of snow. But since I have heat, I'm not complaining.)
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