ENVELOPED IN A HEAT WAVE IN SACRAMENTO, CA

At 3:45 pm on Sunday afternoon, it is 98 degrees on the cement slab at Cal Expo RV Park (read our review here) that is our home for the next month. Overhead, our air conditioners are laboring to keep the inside temperature comfortable. The curtains are closed behind the solar screens on the big front windows, facing west into the hot glare of the sun.

Luna is lethargicly snoozing on her tower. I, on the other hand, took advantage of Odel’s absence to dismantle the innards of Scoopy and make some changes. Frightening, isn't it? Looks like the place has been tossed by burglars.

Several hours spent with this mess resulted in 3 BIG bags of trash taken to the dumpster: old magazines, faded clothing, obsolete computer software, beat-up hangers, jars holding a dab or two or three of oddball condiments, baggies with a couple crackers, or rock-hard raisins.

Another bag of useable, but no longer wanted, items have been loaded into the back of the Jeep for charitible donation, along with our heavy, clunky, old laptop computer that I had been holding onto past all logic. It's going to the e-waste dump.

Odel’s departure on Thursday for a five day visit with his daughter, SIL, and grandson on the east coast coincided with the beginning of an “unseasonable” heat wave here in Sacramento. Five days of potentially record breaking highs near or at 100 degrees were in the forecast.

On Friday, in the middle of a string of errands, the blower on our Jeep’s air conditioner gave out. No cooling, no spouse to take the responsibility on his shoulders, and no mechanics open over the weekend. Oh, bitter luck!

The status of the A/C necessitated an early start to my plans on Saturday. At 7:30 am, filling the tank of the Jeep with fuel and already too hot, I was feeling sorry for myself. Then my phone rang.

It was Odel, asking if he woke me up. Ha, ha. He was shocked to hear I was at a service station 30 miles from home at that early hour, and unhappily surprised to hear the reason why. He then told me HIS sad story, which made me laugh so hard that I cheered right up.

Odel’s daughter and SIL, Kim and Peter, have been remodeling their house for several months. When Odel arrived, 2 of the 3 bathrooms were out of commission for the remodel. Instead of the 2 (intimate) people/1 bathroom ratio Odel is used to, they were operating on a 3/1 ratio… a 4/1 ratio after Odel arrived. And, on Friday night at 11 pm, the toilet in bathroom 3 plugged up and started to overflow!

Now, that is a REAL problem, a “this needs IMMEDIATE attention“ kind of a problem. The plumber, probably happy to be summoned at that late, expensive hour, pinpointed the problem. In the sewage line between the house and the main line in the street: a knotted clog made mostly of dental floss, deposited one strand per day by Kim into the toilet, a habit her husband had commented on negatively in the past.

Poor Kim - bad enough to have to have 4 people using one bathroom, worse to have it overflow, even worse to have to pay the “dead of night” premium fee… but absolutely the WORST when your spouse was right after all!