Refrigeration woes

My husband and I seem to be having a problem lately with Things That Have Air Compressors. Two years ago (when I was nearly 9 months pregnant with our youngest) our home's air conditioner quit. Got that fixed. Last Thanksgiving my car's air conditioner quit. Since we could limp along without it over the winter, it got fixed in June of this year. (It is quite unbearable to go through July and August in Virginia, with children, without one.) Last week, my husband's car air conditioner quit. He's determined to manage without it for a while (for how long depends mostly on whether anything else breaks in the meantime.)

And on Friday night, our refrigerator quit. Oh, joy.

It's enough to make a person wonder if someone is trying to tell us something. If this is a message, it got lost in translation. It's enough to make a person think there is some sort of Refrigeration Conspiracy. Did we somehow offend the Air Compressor's Union and they're all going on strike? I have no idea. But it's been a frustrating week living with food in coolers, eating weird combinations of leftovers for dinner, and having the kids ask why we can't go grocery shopping. (As to that, I suppose we could - but since we'd originally planned a restock grocery run for Saturday morning, and we need to buy our camping food supplies anyway -it just seemed silly to make 2 or 3 trips.)

So tonight we had the fun of Moving The Furniture. Because for some reason, when builders build houses, they seem to forget that at some point people will need to replace a large piece of furniture or an appliance. So they build 36 inch wide doors, that really only allow 34 inches to pass, and skinny little entryways that turn a 90 degree angle to enter a living room. Luckily it's a straight shot once you get through there, but we still had to move one overstuffed chair and one (very heavy, even half empty) hutch. And all the detritus that had accumulated on and around them. Because it is usually quite impossible to handle something as large as a refrigerator with any sort of delicacy or precision. It makes much more sense to simply remove the possible obstacles.

All of this becomes even more interesting when you figure in one autistic son, one energetic daughter, and one might-as-well-be-Curious-George baby son into the picture. Poor Chris has been at his wits end this week, asking why all this upheaval is happening (why? I wish *I* knew why?) Charlotte (who ought to be named Tigger, for she bounces everywhere) simply talks a mile a minute about everything. And Connor has taken the opportunity while Mommy and Daddy are distracted to Wreak Havoc. Trying to flush things down the toilet, playing with the trash can, opening the coolers keeping our food cold and picking out the ice, going into the bathrooms and running away with everybody's toothbrushes, emptying out the kitchen cabinets...the list goes on and on and on.

Sigh - I will be so grateful to get this all taken care of tomorrow. And then all I need to do is buy more food, find the camping gear, wash the camp bedding, pack the clothes, pack the food.....I think I will need a vacation from this vacation....