This is Getting Ridiculous

I closed my eyes and rubbed at the headache blooming between my eyes last night as I climbed into bed.

After keeping a confident smile on my face all day and reassuring Jerry that everything was under control … it was a relief to say goodnight and head upstairs, leaving him snoozing peacefully in his recliner.

Upstairs, where I took one look at my bed and wanted to knock my head against the wall.

Seriously?

You know Jer fell on the ice at curling practice on February 4th and fractured his right leg. Three non-displaced fractures, leaving him totally non-weight bearing on that leg.

It has been challenging to cope with a mostly chair-bound husband. It seems 71-year-old men don’t hop around well on just one foot, and he remains wobbly on crutches, but we were doing OK. Nothing lasts forever, right? I’ve even tried out a few new recipes on my captive audience.

Then, three weeks after his accident, we realized one evening that the room was chillier than usual. I flicked the thermostat up. Nothing happened. I trotted down the stairs to the basement, where I was met by ominous silence. At that point, I wasn’t surprised to feel the stone cold metal of the boiler.

The boiler-repair tech actually showed up within an hour of my [only slightly] frantic phone call, but after all was said and done, he lacked the part needed to fix it and assured us he would return with it first thing in the morning.

In the meantime, with overnight temps around 10F expected, I’d already started a fire in the wood stove and knew I was facing a long night of interrupted sleep as I’d have to keep the stove fed.

The only bright side that day was the boiler repair man who, before he left at 10:30 pm, pulled our big (empty) sled out to the wood shed and filled it. He pulled the sled right up onto the front porch, saving me a huge amount of work.

The boiler was indeed back to rolling out warm air and hot water before noon the next day. Yay, life could resume as normal.

But wait … not so fast.

Four days later, after starting yet another load of wash, I had finally managed to sit down at my spinning wheel for a much needed break.

I’ve been a bit appalled by how much laundry is generated by someone who is mostly chair-bound and unable to shower. My husband has sensitive skin. Keeping him clean, comfortable, and clear of rashes or bed sores, has meant not only daily “hot, wet washcloth baths” and soothing balms, but daily sheet changes (covering his lift-chair) and morning and evening fresh boxers and t-shirts. It adds up fast.

As I spun, a beeping interrupted my relaxation. It was coming from the laundry room. Rolling my eyes at needing to get up again so soon after sitting down, I set my beautiful fiber aside and headed for the laundry room, expecting a quick reset.

Nope. Not this winter. This winter, everything seems to be a catastrophic failure of some sort. The washing machine was flashing error codes, beeping loudly, running but not spinning – and worse, would not drain. Because it would not drain, the door remained locked closed, holding my laundry hostage!

The only way to stop the running but non-functioning washing machine and stop the eternally be-danged beeping, was to unplug it. This stopped the noise, but I still couldn’t get to my clothes.

So … broken leg, broken boiler, broken washing machine. All repairable or, in the case of the washing machine, replaceable, given time and money, but the stress of one thing building on top of another – I was hard put to keep calm and confident so that Jer would not feel anxiety over his inability to help.

When I finally headed to bed last night, I was in need of nothing more than a good night’s sleep.

What I found instead was a bed covered in cat vomit. Oh joy. Not only on the electric blanket, either. It seems, in trying to cover his “accident”, Qiviut had pulled the blanket back – and then threw up again, this time on the bed sheets. Yes, it soaked all the way through to the mattress pad.

And, as of earlier that day, no functional washing machine. Thus the desire to bang my head against the wall.