No Rain, But a Stove

We thought we might get some rain at the house yesterday, but no dice, even though we drove through a pretty good shower in Northwest Austin at the end of our long but relaxing day. Charley and I spent the day with Becky and Rachel. We had an impromptu pot luck lunch with them, and Rachel's friend Gail.
One of the assignments from our midwife, to accomplish before the birth, included wrapping some items up in brown paper bags (sheets, blankies to dry the baby with, towels and washcloths etc) and cooking them in the oven with steam on low heat to sterilize them. One of the reasons we purchased our oven a few months back was in anticipation of this proceedure. However, our oven, while it does technically *work* by always heating up to a cozy 600 degrees when turned onto any temp from 300 - 450, is still sooting up our pans on the stove top and continues to be a general nuisance. In this case, we decided, going vintage was against us. So we headed into town with Becky's gracious offer to use her very reliable stove to cook our 6 bags for one hour each in her oven in her house in the middle of our hot summer - a generous offer.
While the bags cooked, Charley grilled up some steak and the girls made all kinds of cheesy delish items like Potatos Au Gratin and Queso while I taste tested and put my feet up. At one point, another friend of Rachel's showed up to deliver the uneaten Penis cake from their friend's Bachelorette party the night before to our inpromptu party. It was quite yummy and didn't go uneaten in our company. Since we have found a reputable vasectomy doctor in Austin who will simplify our life once the baby is born, we have recently made an appointment with him for Charley. Get this - the doc's name is Richard Chopp, no lie. He has a very good reputation (how could you not with a name like that?) So we considered it our "V is for victory" cake, and even Charley had a piece.
While we cooked and ate and watched movies, Charley and I began discussing the stove situation, and came to the conclusion that we ought to just get another one, and ditch the old one, since it is such a nuisance. He suggested I check Craigslist one more time for an already converted LP stove, a newer model. I did, and low and behold, we found one! All the way up in Lago Vista, newer LP stove, CHEAP. We called them up and found out that it works great, they had just recently decided to switch to electric. At the end of the day, we headed up to Lago Vista, a small town like ours, but located 30 miles Northwest of Austin in the rolling green Hill Country. It was a lucky collision of events, because any other day that stove would have required us to drive 85 miles from home to fetch it, but as it was, it was a short 30 mile drive from where we already were at Rachel & Becky's house in north Austin.
We returned home with the stove, via the speedy and empty new toll roads, and it is waiting for us in the middle of the porch/kitchen to make the switch. I have posted the old stove with honest caveats about its working condition on Craigslist and have even received a bite back! So we are well on our way to having a properly working stove in place, and the old one done away with. Hooray! We absolutely love Craigslist.
On the way back, Charley mentioned that John, our favorite weather and disaster reporter, had called from his afternoon break to tell Charley there was a 50% chance of rain Sunday and Monday. That's pretty exciting news to us drought stricken Texans. On our way home at the very end of a long day we did drive through your typical Hill Country rain storm, northwest of Austin. We cheered, but as we drove further east it all dried up. Our prairie remains dusty and parched as ever, darnit.