so, the lady sparkler went away on tuesday … and all of a sudden, i start having problem sleeping.

is it because i miss her loving presence? because i can’t sleep without someone kicking me the bejeesus out of me throughout the night? or maybe because the moment she left the furnace started knocking like a nuclear powered jiffy pop machine?

we had been getting some light pinging from the new family furnace ever since it was installed last month, but nothing particularly noticable. being a slacker, i was giving it a couple of weeks to see if it fixed itself … because inanimate objects often do that sort of thing.

then, all of a sudden, yesterday the noise became loud enough to wake the dead — seriously, if sparkler would have been here, even *she* would have woken up.

the very nice people from the local furnace conglomerate came by this morning, tweaked a few screws, and — poof! — didn’t make another sound. until five minutes after he left when it started shaking it’s milkshake again.

turns out it was something in the exhaust pipe. the very nice people came back again, replaced the whoe thing, and now it is as silent as the lambs … and not just the ones with the fava beans. now, sparkler can come home and continue to sleep through absolutely any noise — hurricanes, tornadoes, motley crue concerts — uninterupted.

all is well with the world.