But the best thing about the rain is that it has been so blessedly cool. The house was 70 degrees when I woke up today, 70 degrees all afternoon, and it is 70 degrees now. I'm hoping that leaving the windows open all night will get it down to 68 or so tonight, because tomorrow it's supposed to get warm again, and by Thursday the heat will be back. It's been nice while it lasted, though, and I don't even care if the rain causes another crop of dandelions to sprout from the brown lawns. It was worth it.
I was having trouble with my water heater all winter. The pilot light kept going out and was very resistant to relighting. Now it has gone out again. I got it going again, but need a solution to the problem before the cold weather returns. I don't mind taking cold showers on hot days, but I certainly don't want to freeze my arse off on a chilly October night. I'm hoping that cleaning the little tube from which the pilot light flares will do the trick.
If it doesn't, then because of the way the thing is made I can't just replace the one cheap part that's probably causing the problem but will have to replace a whole cluster of parts, and the cluster costs about $140 (exclusive of sales tax.) That's really less a cluster and more a clusterf*ck. If the cleaning fails I'll have to trim my budget by about thirty bucks a month for the rest of the year to make up the shortfall. That would not be easy. It would have been, except that my reserve fund was depleted by an even larger increase in the cost of fire insurance this year. If it's one thing, it's also another.
Tonight I'm going to take advantage of the unexpected coolness and eat something baked. It's been weeks since I've dared have the oven on for even half an hour. It's going to be a nice change from the usual microwaved, fried, or pan-heated crap. Tomorrow it will be back to the same old summer diet, alas. I wish this storm signaled the onset of fall instead of being just a fluke.
Oh, no lightning so far. Fingers are crossed.
