Good Things, Bad Things

Good things: Yesterday, I arrived home from Auria to a surprise birthday dessert party. Now, it's a particularly eccentrically organized surprise party which has me there reading comics with people while we wait for other people to arrive, and then all yell "Surprise!" at the latecomers, but the eccentricity was somehow more charming than actually being jumped out at myself would have been. And there were all sorts of yummy things from Finale. Woo!

Dave's Fresh Pasta is probably my favorite nearby store, and it's not their fault that it takes longer to boil water than I think it does.

And the bathroom is done again (picture). The bricks in the basement still aren't patched (I think maybe the cement isn't sticking), but I'm sure the house is in no danger of falling down.

On the "bad things" side, I can't figure out how to get the heat on. I feel strangely inept, though I think I've checked all the obvious things (my vague suspicion is that the tank float is lying and there is not actually any oil; thumping the tank made more of a "bonk bonk bonk" noise than I would expect something full of oil to do, and definitely didn't have an obvious boundary between "bonk" and "thud" that I would expect for a tank allegedly half full of oil.)

But now it's only one bad thing, because power cycling the wireless hub has convinced it that it exists again.