One of Those Days

Ever had one of those days when everything seems to go wrong, break down, melt, whatever? Of course you have. Sometimes, those days are just worse than usual. Today is shaping up to be one. It actually started yesterday...

I had finished cooking a pot of chicken and had it cooling on the stove. When I grabbed the pot to move it, I noticed that the stove still felt very hot, despite having been turned off for at least 30 mins., maybe more. I checked the oven...nope, not on...checked the other burners...none on...wait, what's wrong with that knob? Why is it hanging down below all the other knobs? And why is it kind of black around the knob and even along the edges of the stove. Whoa! Why is that burner hot? It hasn't been on, in fact, that's the burner that Don sealed because it had the leaking valve. And it was definitely hot. It had also melted a plastic end cap along the back of the stove. I could see a little glow coming from inside behind where the knob had once been. I called Don to come check it out, and he determined that the horno had just committed suicide. He said that explained why that tank of gas ran out so quickly. Apparently, there is an external gas leak in there somewhere. I had failed to shut off the gas tank (which is still sitting beside the stove) which allowed gas to continue to leak. He said that was the end of the line for this stove...next stop, the dump. Way too volatile to even consider using again. We're lucky that the whole thing didn't just blow up. So, we'll be shopping for a new stove...today.

But first we must wait for the exterminator to arrive and cleanse our house of termites and ants! Last night, we noticed a huge invasion of light-reddish winged ants all around the sliding glass door to our quarters. Huge. Don blasted them with the can of Raid after I squirted the Combat for ants all around. This morning we found the floor littered with ant bodies, but plenty more were still moving and were now in the bathroom, closet, and Don's little office. The laundry is also overrun with them. I kept imagining that I had things crawling on me last night. Ugh!
Now, we have a contract with the exterminator, signed last Sept. where he's supposed to come monthly to inspect and treat for termites. We don't think he's been here since then. I called yesterday and was told that Oscar no longer worked for the company, not an unusual thing down here, but I wondered where that left us with our contract. They are sending out a different guy today.

The third bad thing that has occured: Don's new computer is dead. Yes. Apparently another suicide. He's got it all apart in there, trying to determine the cause. It seems that the CPU is no longer communicating with the monitor. Thankfully, it was not full of ants, although ants were crawling all around his desk.

It's mid-afternoon and there's good news and bad news. First the good: no termites! Yea! And Jose sprayed all around the deck, windows and doors and inside the laundry for those big winged ants. He also found a couple of large ant nests under the house and sprayed those as well. He said this is the time of the year when that type of ant starts coming inside. Maybe this will deter them.

Second good news: we found a new gas stove today in Coxen Hole. Bad news: no American brands and only 3 Central American brands to choose from...well, probably only two as we suspect that brand one and brand two are actually the same stove with different names, and that's the stove we just had melt down, so that's out. That left brand three, Mabe. Now, I don't know about you, but a stove named Mabe leaves me feeling a little, well, unsettled. The stove came in two styles and colors and was priced accordingly. We chose the white one with 5 burners, the center burner is a long oval one designed for griddles....now if I can just find a griddle.... The young salesman said it is actually a good stove. And, here's the part I love, it came with an instruction booklet, albeit in Spanish, but it had a chart explaining the 1 through 5 number system on the oven control...it's Celcius! but 1 does not equal 100C. I'll have to read the chart and convert to Fahrenheit. And the stove was just 6088 Lempira, or $322. If it works well and doesn't melt, it might be a good deal. It also has a one-year warranty.

And the bad news: the motherboard is no good, so Don's computer is useless. He said to replace the motherboard would cost almost as much as a new computer. He just bought this computer in May. Yes, it's under warranty, but we'd have to ship it back to the states, blah, blah, blah. He's using my old laptop which only works when plugged in and likes to overheat. Thankfully, he had all the financial and tax information on a flash drive, otherwise, he'd be in deep doodoo.

I ducked into the grocery store; they had green chilis at Warren's, and Plaza Mar had finally gotten canned tuna! Yippee!

And the sun has finally come out, so things are looking up.