Last week was strange. Very strange. On a much higher level than the usual strangeness, too. Read on, friends. Read on.

And no, not just because I turned 27.

Wednesday, July 3rd, at some point during the day, our central air unit died. When I got home from work, it was a whopping 82 degrees in our house.

It was too late in the evening to call around for repairfolk to come out and look at our downtrodden unit. Lindsay and I opened the house up and put all the fans in place. It wasn't completely unbearable. In fact, there was a rather nice breeze going through the place.

Thursday, July 4th, One year without a pop for me. Also, the nice-ish breeze kept on keeping on. But humidity started creeping in. Damn you humidity. Luckily, Lins and I found a heating and cooling place to come out and look at our system and see if we could make our house nicely cool once again. Oh how we missed the lack of humidity.

The diagnosis? Broken compressor. The prognosis? Would cost more to fix the broken part than it would to buy a whole new unit. AirMan quotes us $2000+ for a new compressor and around $1900 for unit. Ouch.

However, if there ever was a time where we could absorb that kind of hit, it would be this month. We just refinanced our house, so no house payment this month, and we had a home equity loan, too. We wouldn't have had a problem covering the cost.

I called Reliant to check on their prices and availability. Nothing open until July 17th. Yes, friends, that would be almost 2 weeks without air. Nuh uh. No thanks.

Friday, July 5, 2002, 2 years of mostly vegetarian diet for Lins and I. The only meat that we have eaten is fish. Anyway, Lins brought the mail in -- Birthday cards galore! All for me! On the top of the stack? A manilla envelope from the gov'ment. I could see my name and "Pay to the order of". Hmmm. The gov'ment wants to send me some birthday money? Fine with me!

When Lins and I refinanced our home loan, we were able to take it off FHA, which means we were due a rebate for our Mortgage Insurance -- which we had forgotten about. Hee. So now we had a big fat gov'ment check with which to pay for the new air unit. With enough left over that I can get a brand new digital camera for me. Hee. Thank you gov'ment! And now we can try to save some of the no-house-payment money, too.

Then Lins hopped on the phone while I attempted not to melt. Friday was hot. And humid. The humidity was getting more and more and more dense. Ick. I played FIFA 2002 on the pc while she diligently called about 20 different places and tried to find someone to come out the next day -- not 2 weeks from then -- and install a new central air unit without gouging our eyes out in the process.

She finally found one company that could do it -- and they would do it for hundreds of dollars less than what everyone else had quoted. One company.

They came out on Saturday and -- yay! -- now we have a brand spanking new central air unit pumping cool air all through our house. Whew. Thank you gov'ment!

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Greene Apple Martini

1 shot Tanqueray
1 shot Green Apple Pucker
A splash of club soda
A splash of sweet and sour

Mix all of the above in a shaker half full of ice. Strain into a chilled martini glass and garnish with a green apple slice.

Should make for a fun 4th of July. I speak from experience here. Trust me. All around fun times.

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What did I do on my birthday? Aside from sweltering in the, ah, sweltering heat of the house, I laid around, played video games, watched tv, then went to a very nice and very romantic and, well, really, all around perfect dinner with Lindsay at the Loring Pasta Bar. Hit. The. Spot.

Plus Lindsay wore a sexy black dress for me. Yay!

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Oh, I have tendinitis in my left shoulder, too. Hee. Good times there. I went to the doctor for it last Tuesday and they diagnosed it. At least I can still play basketball with it...

Well, that's all I've got for now. Remember, digital camera = lots of photos. Coming soon.

Thanks for stopping by!
Eric