Whoever coined the phrase TGIF wasn’t thinking of a Friday like yesterday. Today should be the end of the cold snap, but it was a solid -20 yesterday and has been cold since Monday.
The plan was:
- The energy assessor was coming back to reassess our home after we installed the solar panels
- Tammy and I were going to have a relaxing massage and possibly dinner out
- The kids were going to have sushi and watch a movie.
Disruption started right away at noon. I came up for lunch and found that some of the pop that was in the garage had exploded from the cold. Literally exploded. There was frozen diet grapefruit pop on the ceiling, walls, workbench and car.
I was salvaging the pop and cleaning up when Tammy came down and instead of coming between 2 and 4, the assessor was showing up at 12:30. That went okay, but when he started to do the pressurization test with the fan in the front door, the bonus room window was open a crack until I remembered it.
There were a couple hours of peace, but then Tammy was going to go to Sobeys to get a couple things and stuff for the kids’ dinner. She came downstairs to tell me the car wouldn’t start just as Stephanie was texting us that Dad was on his way to the hospital after falling and cutting his head. 🤦♂️
On our end, Tammy was calling to reschedule the massage for another time while I was trying to warm up the car (we don’t have a block heater) and finding out that one of our cube heaters stopped working after blowing cold air on the engine for about 15 minutes before I noticed. Warming the garage to only single digits on the freezing side didn’t help. Then I remembered that I actually have a battery charger that I bought back in P.G. to trickle-charge the motorcycle batteries over the winter.
Tammy was figuring out that emergency battery service is about $500 and so we finally signed up for Alberta Motor Association membership. Aaaand… their website was having major issues. Tammy spent more than an hour on the phone trying to figure out if we were in the system or not and if someone was coming to help. It was going to be a 24 hour wait.
In the meantime, the charger had done enough that I could get the car started. So while still on hold with AMA, I drove Tammy to Sobeys and then drove around. It didn’t really help much, but it did prove that I could use the charger to get the car started to get Miranda to work today.
The kids made supper (quesadillas and rice) for everyone and watched their movie. We were almost ready for bed and Tammy’s phone was already on Do Not Disturb when the AMA Roadside Assistance fellow called. Tammy managed to call back and he was at our house by 10:30. He was a nice guy, from eastern Europe from his accent. The AMA app said his name was Patar, but his jacket said “Derek”. I have a feeling the jacket was a loaner. In 45 minutes he tested the old battery (it was at 30% health – not good), removed it and installed a new one.
Meanwhile, Stephanie had been giving me text updates on Dad’s condition and by the time the battery was done, Dad was home from the hospital with stitches and a tetanus shot. I spoke to Dad over FaceTime. He seemed okay, if wearing a shirt that was soaked with his own blood. Apparently his apartment is a bit of a mess where he knocked things over and bled everywhere.
Thus ends a chaotic Friday. Let’s hope Saturday is better and we finally get our Christmas tree up.
