I almost want to go back to work just so things will be less crazed, I tell you.

So Friday, I came home to shower & change before heading off to the Low Men show. I got showered and I was starting to look for my cache of earplugs when it sounded like an earthquake is happening in the kitchen — either that, or Agnes had knocked my big stainless steel bowls off the top cabinets. Except … the crashing keept on happening. I trotted downstairs to find …

So we built this box to put the cats’ food and water in, to stop Fenris eating their food and slobbering in their water, and also to give them a safe place to eat, where he couldn’t bug them. We used nice, heavy birch plywood, supported by 2x2s and capped with quarter-round moulding to soften the top edges, with mesh for the sides so they could keep an eye on things while they eat, and cut out a nice archway for an entrance. (Our jigsaw skillz were not equal to a spiffy gothic arch or that box’d look a lot cooler.) (Eventually it’ll be painted or stained and it’ll look even better. Also, I need to sweep the floor.)

Anyway, I came downstairs to find … Fenris’ head stuck in the cats’ food box … bucking like a horse … stainless-steel bowls banging against the mesh … and he’d dragged the whole lot into the living room. There was cat food and water everywhere but I couldn’t stop laughing, poor dog.

I got him untangled, wet-vac’d the water, scooped up the food, righted the box and finished getting ready for the show.

And the show was pretty awesome. The space was better for sound than you’d expect for a room with that much brick, and despite the strange decorations, was a fairly cool place to see a show. I did my usual band-girlfriend/photographer thing, although looking at the results, I again find myself wanting a better camera, something of the nice & chunky DSLR variety. (Although I’m addicted to my S5 IS‘s flip-out LCD and I’m boycotting DSLRs until someone realizes what a kickass thing that is and adds it to a camera with interchangeable lenses. Ahem.)

After many drinks and a band I didn’t especially want to hear, Loki & I bolted for the Waffle House, where he tried to soak up all the alcohol with an omelette and a waffle (naturally) and I filled in the cracks left by a too-long-ago lunch with a cheese and egg biscuit (a little falling-apart-ish but tasty nonetheless. A++, would nom again).

When we got home, though, it was muggy and warm in the house, and a check of the thermostat told the sorry tale: it was 86 degrees upstairs, and only a couple degrees cooler downstairs. Loki and I both got only a few hours’ sweaty sleep, and I called our home-warranty place at 9:30 Saturday morning, begging them to send someone to sort out our air conditioning.

An hour later, the a/c company called & said they’d have someone out between noon and two. I thanked them and went back to sitting on the library couch, reading and drinking diet Dr Pepper and trying not to move too much. Around one, I took Fenris to the vet to get a bordatella vaccine blown up his nose (which he promptly sneezed back all over the vet tech, heh), and came home to find … that there was still no a/c guy there fixing our shit.

So let me condense the next 7 hours of hell for you: every couple of hours, someone would call saying the guy had been held up, and would be there in the next couple of hours. What this really means is we were tethered to the fucking house — the roasting, muggy, awful house — watching the thermostat climb to 96° with 55% humidity (downstairs. upstairs it was closer to 100) and not being able to leave because of the expected imminent arrival of Mr A/C Guy.

Around 8:00 we sent Fenris for a sleepover at his daycamp place, just in case the a/c wasn’t actually going to get fixed that night, because the only hotel I could find that allowed dogs had a 25lb. weight limit, and as we discovered earlier at the vet, Fenris is now weighing in at a svelte 67.8 pounds.

Finally, at 9, the A/C guy called to say he was on his way. Rejoice! There was also a monsoon blowing in, and I was just praying he’d get there before the skies opened up. (He did.) Anyway, about fifteen minutes later, he’d swapped out the broken thingamajig (what? I was delirious at that point) and there was cold air pouring out the vents, ohmahgaaaah.

So we thanked A/C Guy (with a check) and decided to order a pizza, so as not to fill the house with heat from cooking while it was still over 90. An hour later, I got a call from the pizza place — one of our drivers has broken down, your pizza will be late, and here’s some free future pizza and some soda please don’t kill me. (I didn’t have the energy to kill anyone, lucky him.)

Anyway. Once it dropped below 90 upstairs I went to bed. I even got a few hours’ sleep, yay!

And today is Fenris’ graduation from Beginner Dog Training (they take their final exam, walk around the store to great acclaim, then get ice cream), preceded by his first day of Intermediate Dog Training (because that was the only time available), and then Shadowrun. And my friends will just have to deal with our messy house, because I will only have the energy to clear off the gaming table, and to hell with everything else.

Right. Can I go back to work now?