Horrid Hot Tubs Spread Their Hatred

Temporary Hermit has now reached three continents! Not only did a second person from Canada visit, but I got somebody from Germany. Fanfuckingtastic. I must admit that I am slavishly addicted to the statistics page of this blog. I can't leave it alone. I feel like Sancho does when he discovers a rabbit paw, and I have to pry it out of his jaws because it is obviously so delicious he can't be expected to put it down himself. Looks succulent, no?


Fran was supposed to arrive last night but my mom called and mumbled something about a bad case of smallpox or something kind of exotic like that. I was sad, but then I heard a faint scratching coming from one of the utility closets upstairs, and a call repeating "gruelies! I wantses my gruelies!". I smacked myself in the forehead as punishment for being so forgetful. I had completely neglected my parents' other pet and Sancho's closest friend, Stump. I got it to crack the door just a little bit so I could pass in some leftovers, but Stump is a very shy creature and unused to my company. It took a while before it would leave its hiding place.

Today turned into another battle in the ongoing war with the hot tub. Now that I have Stump to keep me company, I thought it would be great to have a hot tub tonight. The temperature has fallen to 9 degrees, ideal hot tub weather, and if the wolves came I can definitely outrun Stump. The water in the hot tub was pretty nasty from repeated use, though, so I thought I would empty it out, rinse, and refill it. The emptying part went off without a hitch. The refilling part, on the other hand, proved difficult. The spigot on the house wouldn't work. This was really mysterious, because there was no ice anywhere in there. The spigot was all properly prepared as far as I could tell. But no water. Stump suggested the problem was "spirits always taking the gruelies", but I'm not so sure that was a correct analysis of the situation. So Dad, if you're reading this, any suggestions? The spigot on the far side of the house was working just fine, but the hose already outside wasn't long enough, so I had to go grab another from the storage shed.

Hoses, usually, are made of rubber, a material famous for its bendiness. So imagine my surprise when I dragged the whole hose and roller combination all the way across the fucking field (a journey that has killed lesser men), and when I went to screw it on the spigot, it snapped. It doesn't creak and groan, crackle, waffle, or stutter. It snapped right off. It snapped like Indiana Jones bullwhipping a Nazi.

By this time the tub was completely empty, and I had abandoned the hope of filling it full again, which is not really a problem. The problem is that it must have at least six inches of water in it to freeze, or the wooden slats will shrink, buckle, and begin to leak. No problem, I thought. I'll just fill it with a bucket from the house. Turns out a bucketsworth of water isn't too much in the grand scheme of a hot tub. I had to recruit Stump (it would only help me if I would agree to help it find some "tasty tasty pine cones" later) to carry buckets as well. Several hours later it was done, so we decided to go in search of the "tasty pine cones" on a hike.

The hike itself was fairly uneventful, but we got some sweet views of the valley (if you look at the bottom of the photo you can see the red roof of the "cabin"). The frozen waterfall (seen at top of page) was looking pretty wild as well after all this crazy hot/cold weather. Time to light a fire. Its getting properly chilly.