Pro-pain-in-the-Butt

I felt so old-fashioned yesterday washing dishes over the stove with a pot of boiling water - dirty bean water from the previous night's dinner. It worked, though. The difference between me and Laura Ingalls Wilder (who, by the way, I share a birthday with) is that I have Palmolive. Fortunately, we got a delivery of gas yesterday afternoon - it turned out that Craig had actually prepaid and the company was just being a little slow.

He tried to give me instructions over the phone on how to turn on the hot water heater. I figured it couldn't be difficult, since I had to light the water heater with a match whenever I wanted to take a shower in Ecuador. It was, in fact, just turn a valve and flip a switch, no lighter necessary, but the burner was in a bad mood, having run itself completely dry. After fiddling with the water heater, then going outside and getting snow in my slippers and cold water down the back of my neck to fiddle with the tank, then more unsuccessful attempts at coaxing the heater to do its thing, I finally gave up. Craig somehow convinced it to work while I was at a meeting at school later, so we are back to having warm showers and clean dishes the easy way.