Lights in New Hampshire and, oh yes, that other thing that happened.

Well, here are our Christmas Lights. This will be the last year for the big colored lights from days of yore. They are very nostalgic and I love them for they remind me of my childhood, but they use up a lot of electricity. I took this picture tonight as I took the dogs out to pee. It was a might nippy out there, 14 degrees at 5:30 PM. Oh well, that's what Parkas are for. I was warm and toasty. We have a dusting of snow as you can see, so things are starting to look somewhat picturesque. A warming trend starts tomorrow and we should reach the low 40's this weekend.

The big lights were never on our house as a child, that I can remember. But when I was a small child, before we had the fake white tree with the rotating colored light wheel, the big colored bulbs (not exactly the same size as the outdoor lights, but the same color and same shape) were on the tree. And of course there were the wonderful bubble lights, - talk about using electricity. Those beautiful dream makers with bubbles circulating to the top were hot and dangerous. But no one cared, because they looked so magical. But progress can not be stopped and next year we will get LED lights and help reduce our footprint on the planet.

Now, on to that other thing. Let see, today is Friday, Thursday was the parents out of the hospital call, Wednesday was the 2nd part of the disaster and yes, it was Tuesday when all the fun began. Tuesday night we went to bed about 9:00 PM, we get up awfully early. I fell asleep fairly quickly, of course not in the 20 seconds it takes Tom to crash and snore. Nonetheless, I was asleep shortly and it felt good. At 11:00 I was awake. Have no idea, but there I was awake. Finally, I turned on the TV to occupy my brain and eventually I fell asleep again. This time, soundly. The next thing I know, I'm awake and Tom is wandering around the bedroom. It's 2:00 AM. Tom, Mr.-a-bomb-could-go-off-under-the-bed-and-he-would-not-even-stir was looking for a sound source.
"What are you doing?" I asked.
"Trying to find out where that noise is coming from." Now normally I'm the one who has to investigate any noise of which I do not know the origin. Unknown sounds drive me to distraction. However, on this night, I was still coming out of some cozy rem sleep and I just said, "O.K." I hear him go down stairs and then down into the basement. The next thing I think I hear is him racing (that was my first clue, because Tom doesn't race anywhere) up the stairs and then silence. He has just pressed the Emergency Shut down switch to our Boiler. Now he has my attention.
"What in the world is going on?" I yell down as I am climbing over our bed and racing down the stairs.
"One of the pipes into our boiler has broken, or melted, (they're plastic) water is all over the basement floor, steam has filled the basement and the boiler is starting to over heat!
O.K. The situation is not good, but under control. The emergency switch worked, the boiler is off and all is safe. We will go back to bed and call the contractor (the boiler is still under warranty) first thing in the morning. However, there is one small problem, more like two small problems. First our hearts are still racing and we are not falling back to sleep and second the shut down means no heat, hot water or flusing toilets. We manage nonetheless and go to work that morning after our somewhat less than cordial call to the contractor at 6:00 AM. They were there at 7:00 fixing it while we were at work.

I got home around 5:00 PM. The mud room was at the set temperature , but the house felt cold, the up stairs bathroom was warm, but the rest of the upstairs was cold. The house was 58 degrees. Now we keep the house cool, so as not to use a lot of fuel. However this was ridiculus. I called the contractor again. " Please calll me and let me know why my house is so cold!"

Tom comes home, hears and feels the bad news, and waits to hear from the contractor. We start dinner. Suddenly, the smoke detectors go off throughout the house. Tom thinks they've come on erroneously, maybe the batteries are dead. He tries frantically to unhook them with no success. The pearcing, pearcing sound is driving me crazy, when it occurs to me that there might be a real problem. I open the door to the basement and I can't see the basement floor for the steam. The boiler is gone berswerk again!. Turn off the emergency switch again, Call the contractor again after we assured ourselves that everything was safe.

This time, the call was not even close to cordial. The last thing I remember is yelling "I AM UPSET!!!" Within 15 minutes the contractor and the plumber were here, worked for about two hours and solved all the problems. All is well now. We had a perfectly quiet night Wednesday and there have been no more problems. The good news was that the boiler did not actually overheat, all the safety system had kicked in, hence the release of steam and water into the basement. We were never in any real danger but we didn't know it at the time. Our cardboard boxes on the basement floor, however, were very nervous.

The last thing on Thursday was a call from Dayle (tom's sister) telling us that Roy (Tom's father) had been in the hospital and that Pat ("Tom's mother) is not able to remember and cope with the situation. After a long conversation it was decided that we need to be researching assisted living for them. It was a sad night for Dayle and Tom to know that their parents are now their dependent adults.

To say the least, We're hoping we can get through tonight without any unusual occurances. We're exhausted.