No hot water, but plenty of garlic.

Can I say I HATE scrambling around on my knees in the basement peering into the base of the hot water heater to try to light the pilot? For most of my childhood I argued with my mother's mantra: this is a job for a man. But today, I couldn't agree more. Sexist? Certainly.  But whatever. Get me a man to fix my hot water heater and I'll whip up a chocolate cake with raspberry filling and ganache icing, toute de suite.

Grumbling.

Tomorrow morning I'll take a bath with water heated in kettles on the stove. And then go to war with the (apparently, according to my plumber-nephew) thermo-coupler. How I'm going to get my hands and a screwdriver into the tiny floor-level space where all the business is situated is beyond me at the moment, but in the absence of cash, I'll make it work.

No blowing up the house, though.

(Okay, truth: I have a call in to my son N., who tends to handiness. )

But to get to the garlic: I was at the produce stand today, and had left my basket unattended for a moment, safely wedged against a wooden crate (there are precarious slopes at the produce stand) and went to check out some  deals on salad greens. When I turned back, a woman was making a quick exit with my fairly-filled shopping cart. I ran after her, claimed my cart (she was surprised that it wasn't hers!) and finished my shopping.

At the checkout, as I unpacked my items onto the counter, I realized I'd forgotten to get garlic. I debated whether or not to run and grab some, but there was a line behind me, and things move pretty fast there, so I decided I'd make do with my few remaining cloves at home. And then — voilà! — there was a small bag of garlic in my cart, compliments of the earlier cart-thief! I decided to keep it, such lovely serendipity it was. The thief, incidentally, ended up right behind me in line, so I told her the story, and she said, "that means I don't have any garlic in my basket?"

"Ha ha, yes!"
She burst out laughing

So: plenty of garlic, which has absolutely no impact on my lack of hot water. (I'm really trying to tie these two themes together, and failing, utterly.)