threadwalker

My Christmas holiday adventure.

(no, I'm not thanking for the "hot repair man and the little lumpia"...LOL)

On Wednesday, 12/20, the relay on our fridge blew out. This prevents the fridge from making more cold air and this was not discovered for a few days. Coincidentally, I did all of our grocery shopping on Wednesday and as I was stuffing the fridge w/ food for the huge X-mas eve party we were throwing, I was thinking to myself, 'Boy, am I glad I did my shopping now because the crowds will be insane after tomorrow.'

The plot thickens... the kids and husband got sick and I stayed home from work on Thursday. I was feeling a little under the weather, but probably mostly burned out. Around 5pm my husband discovered that everything in the freezer had thawed. My freezer is fully stocked with meat because that's how my mom raised me. I had a complete freak-out over throwing out all that food. But, on the bright side, the fridge half was still cold and that's where the X-mas eve food was stashed.

So I consoled myself about still being set for Christmas eve dinner, cleaned out the freezer, disinfected and wiped down the interior and closed it up. sigh. At least it's totally clean and bug free. Although.. the trash can is looking awefully full and they won't be collecting that until Friday 12/29... more than a week away.

While I'm doing my impersonation of Lysol Queen and mucking out the freezer, my husband is on the phone and couldn't find a repair man to come out on Friday to fix the fridge. Unfortunately, it was too late in the day and most businesses were closed. Sears said they could be out on the following Tuesday .. Gee, thanks.

But the fridge part still works and we still have milk, right? and X-mas eve food, right? so it's all good. this, too, shall pass. Or so I thought.

12/24, Friday morning we discover that the refrigerator side was also bad. waaaahhhhhhhh! Seriously, my brain stopped working for a full minute while I absorbed the situation. Holy Freaking Cow, Batman!

I stay home from work again. Kids get tossed some pop-tarts and essentially spend the day in jammies watching TV while we cope with the mess. Kids thought this was super-great. sigh. This is going to look bad at work. I blitz through the yellow pages and finally find a repair company who can send someone out that very day. I try to bribe them to come out early and they laugh at me. But then they do come out early! Yayayayayaya! Happy dance.

I put aside my plans to fill all our ice chests with ice for short term food storage (yay), we empty the fridge (sob), I am make a grocery list so that I can face the blood thirsty and ravenous crowds in the stores (sob), and load up Evie who is bored. She and I face Costco together to the tune of her singing the entirety of 'I have a little Turtle, his name is Tiny Tim'(1)(lyrics below), over and over. I actually found it very entertaining and soothing that she could be so chipper. And the deeds are done, the stores are braved and food is aquired.

On Saturday I had the chore of recovering the kitchen. I started my day by hitting the gym for 2 hrs and then going to Safeway for non-bulk items. Then I faced the house and... the kitchen. Everything was all over the place from clearing off the books, overflow cups, etc from on and around the fridge. Plus cleaning all the food bins, and the chores for the rest of the house. Oh - and the sick spouse needed to be tended. I was so tired by 5pm, I just didn't have the umph to cook dinner. Lo and behold, there was a knock at the door. My next door neighbor brought hot lumpia over. For no reason whatsoever! I was stunned. I told her about the fridge while we stood there and couldn't thank her enough.

Look kids, I'm not cooking!!!

I have to say that despite the disaster of the situation, I feel like Santa really came through for me.

(1) We found a repair man at the last minute on Friday, they were sending him out on Friday, and then he came out at noon, which was several hours ahead of schedule and which let me go to the store earlier. How freaking awesome is that?
(2) My neighbor spontaneously came over with lumpia Saturday night, so I didn't need to figure out dinner in the middle of the refrigerator crisis. (do you know what lumpia is? it's like a philipino spring roll, but without meat... yummmm!)

How totally awesome is that? And what a great story I got to share with everyone. And let me tell you about the repairman. He was under 5ft tall, little old Peruvian man. He came in with his tool box, spoke heavily accented English and man-handled my fridge out. He was so cute, I just wanted to pinch his cheeks or bake cookies for him. Evie and I sat on the floor watching him. (She sang the turtle song to him and he was charmed.) He was adamant that the part was bad because it was not made in the US - he pointed out that it was made of parts from Brazil and Mexico and he NEVER buys parts from Mexico. I tried not to laugh. Over and over, US parts are best. LOL

X-mas eve was a blast. It is a potluck and we had 24 guests. It was lots of fun. 6 kids ages of 2-6. My brother in law dressed up like Santa - you should have seen the kids go nuts. I'd swear they were spinning in place.

X-mas day was good. I battle ghosts of x-mas past at this time of year and at this point they only crowd in on X-mas morning. Watching the kids and husband open gifts, watching the kids get excited and experiencing Christmas through them is a salve. I tried to go to the gym, but (gasp) the gym was closed. LOL. Go figure.

I hope everyone's holiday is as blessed as mine.

(1)
I have a Little Turtle,
His name is Tiny Tim
I put him in the bathtub
to see if he could swim

He drank up all the water
(gulp, gulp, gulp)
He at up all the soap,
(chomp, chomp, chomp)
Now he's home sick in bed
with a bubble in his throat

Bubble, bubble, bubble
bubble, bubble, bubble
bubble, bubble,.. POP! (with big hand clap)