Water tank, heal thyself!

What a bizarre week for inanimate objects in our house. Things are repairing themselves in strange ways and in totally unknown ways. The former is downright lucky and the latter is downright creepy.

First, my pedometer. I've taken to walking to school this quarter. A number of factors have led to this choice of locomotion. First and foremost is the fact that the 15 pounds I lost when I started this job 2+ years ago have slowly returned. I rather liked being 15 pounds lighter than I am right now. I don't think I look bad. I don't think I'm unhealthy. I would just like to continue wearing the same size jeans I've been able to wear for as long as I can remember. And those jeans were so baggy 15 pounds ago. I miss that.

The second factor is that my first class is not until 10 a.m. I have the luxury of walking and spending time with my iPod in my ears and being read to by some pseudo-anonymous voice. I say pseudo-anonymous because while I may not know the name of the reader, I never forget a voice. The poor woman who read a novel I absolutely hated yet was forced to listen to because The T was enjoying it (and as we know, The T gets what The T wants) just happens to also read some of the words at Merriam-Webster dot com. Check out the pronunciation of the word "noir" at the site. I have no idea who the woman is but I know she was forced to read complete drivel and I'm glad she can make a living doing something that requires a modicum of intelligence.

But wait. We were talking about things healing themselves. I have taken to wearing my pedometer again because I am a total geek and I love knowing how many steps I've taken in a day. Now that I walk a mile to and from school every day, that is lots of data I can play with (that sound you hear is me drooling over the data). Alas, I dropped the pedometer and lost a couple of days and valuable data because whatever makes this thing work wasn't operating correctly. When I dropped it again two days alter, it reverted back to normal operations. How lucky! The collection of steps-per-day data has commenced once again.

The other item that has healed itself through absolutely zero intervention on the part of humans is our hot water heater. After the familial invasion during the holidays, apparently the tank just got tired and, while it tried to make the water hot, was failing miserably. While my showers weren't lukewarm, there was also no threat of them being too hot, which had been the case previously. So for two weeks, The T and I collected more data regarding the temperature of the water. This consisted of me complaining that the water wasn't as hot as it had been in the past and The T saying she thought I was a nut job. Then one day she agreed with me. So then we had two weeks of us living with things as they were, apparently waiting to get so fed up with it that one of us called a plumber.

But then—lo! and behold!—I took a shower and almost scalded myself. I told The T the water was hot like before. I forget her exact phrasing but her comment implied that I was again displaying the characteristics of a nut job. ... until she took a shower. So now either we are both nut jobs or she was wrong. I am still waiting for clarification on which is the case.

What happened to the hot water heater to revert it back to its previous behavior? We have no idea. A quick crawl-about in the crawlspace revealed nothing that could clear up the mystery. I think it is best to not question it and just enjoy it.