A Timeline...

7:30 p.m. (last night) Johnny comes back with the pizzas. They’re not take-out really. The bar up the street serves them and for three dollars they’ll sell you one frozen to take home and cook yourself. Except last night they upped the price to $3.25. Johnny decides it’s a sign that the universe hates us.

7:40 They’re individual-size pizzas. We slice up some onions to throw on there and some, well, what we thought was pepperoni in the freezer turned out to be turkey kielbasa – further proof the universe despises Johnny. I decline but Irish Johnny stubbornly insists on meat, any meat, even if it is Polish and actually made from a bird. The pizzas don’t come with instructions, so we guess at 425 and set the timer to check on them in 15 minutes…

7:52 The smoke alarm goes off. Guess we guessed wrong.

7:55 Only Johnny’s pizza burned. They are side-by-side on the same rack in the oven, mine is perfectly done and his is burnt black and solid and smoking up the house. He laughs so hard at how much the universe hates him that he bumps into me and almost makes me drop mine on the floor, but I catch it in time. I offer him half but he declines. He’s going to eat his burned kielbasa pizza dammit, and for dessert – worms!

8:20 I finally convince him to eat what’s left of mine because I’m tired of the grunting noises he keeps making as he chews.

8:55 We both fall asleep on the couch waiting for Men to start.

7:30 a.m (this morning) Andy shows up – yay Andy! – to install the water heater. No. To make a list of stuff he needs to buy before he can install the water heater. I thought he did that yesterday? No matter. At least he’s here. Not that I was worried. Well, okay, maybe a little bit. Sometimes Andy does flake out, but he knows we need hot water so he’s here. Good man.

9:00 Andy’s not back from the store. Do I need to worry? Should I call him? No, I don’t want to bug him, he’s doing us a favor. Sit tight.

9:15 Jack calls to say that if Andy doesn’t feel like it, he’ll do the plumbing. He’ll be here at 11:30. Um. I don’t think that’s the plan but nobody’s here but me and I don’t know what everyone agreed on…

9:16 I call Andy. He was taking a nap. Doh! I thought he was just going to the store and back. I tell him about Jack and he says tell Jack not to come, he’ll do the plumbing.

(There are things people don’t say out loud but you hear them anyway. What I hear is that Jack thinks Andy’s incapable of doing the plumbing, and Andy thinks Jack’s going to rip us off. Neither will say either thing about the other, though, so now I’m afraid of both.)

9:17 I call Jack back to tell him not to come. He says he has to anyway to make a stock list and talk to the guy from Keyspan. Okay. Wait, stock list?

9:18 I call Johnny at work to ask him why Jack is making a stock list when he hasn’t even given us a price yet and we’re not having the new furnace installed right now. Johnny says Jack needs to make the stock list before he can give us a price, but I’m to make sure he knows we’re only looking for an estimate and not to buy anything yet.

I’m glad I’m fluent in English, at least, otherwise I wouldn’t know what the hell was going on.

10:00 Andy’s back! With a guy named Sparky. Which makes me feel a little better about the impending electrical work they’re gonna do…

10:23 I finally finish the chapter I’ve been trying to get done since Thursday. At least I think it’s finished. I’ll read it one more time and hand it over, then we’ll see what Sucka M-C has to say.

10:30 Since I need to let that chapter sit a while before I read it over, I decide to whip up a couple of banana breads to give to the boys to thank them.

11:00 The bananas are frozen so I put them on the porch in the sun to thaw and go back to the kitchen to mix up shortening and sugar in one bowl, flour and baking powder and salt in another, everything ready to slam together when the bananas are mashable. But the bananas won’t get mashable and I’m starting to worry about the cats. So I peel them (bananas, not cats) and stick them on a plate in the microwave. Bananas, turns out, exude all these banana juices as they thaw. A sticky, sticky, sticky mess ensues inside my microwave, which I can’t clean up because I have no water – and no matter how many times I absent-mindedly head for the bathroom, the water isn’t on in there any more than it is in the kitchen. Every time I get my fingers sticky I have to go rinse them in the bucket of water that Johnny ran last night while I made fun of him, but now I see he really is a genius. By the time I get the five bananas thawed and mashed I see I needed six, but I’ve had just about enough of this.

11:30 The banana breads go in. No sign of Jack.

11:45 Andy says he needs to cut the electricity. Including, you know, the stove.

12:00 p.m. It’s okay. He only had to cut it for like five minutes and the oven held the heat enough to cook them.

12:45 Banana breads are out.

12:50 Hot water heater is installed.

12:55 The boys don’t want banana bread

1:00 Who cares? Fuck ‘em. I’m off to run an errand and when I come back there will be hot water and I will wash.

1:00-2:00 In the car while running my errand I hear Led Zeppelin bookended by the Who – “Behind Blue Eyes,” “All Of My Love” and “I’m Free” – and topped off by “Sweet Child O’ Mine” by Guns ‘n’ Roses. I listen to them all at maximum volume with the windows down and my hair blowing in my ears and eyes. Awww, it really is spring!

2:28 I’m home. I’m getting in the shower.

3:13 I’m clean. I washed everywhere and shaved everything and I am clean. I even re-discovered the joys of listening to music really loudly and singing in the shower, which I haven’t done I don’t think since we moved into this house. What did I listen to? Like A Prayer. It was in the player in the bathroom that I haven't used in years. I think it's some kind of sign…

3:16 Just took a first glance at that chapter. Afraid it isn’t finished after all. Sorry, Sucka.