I was awakened in the middle of the night not by the dogs, but by the buzzing of my phone. It was an alert from my Ozarkansas bank that a transaction had been attempted on the joint checking account, the one that was overdrawn late last week and resolved a couple of days ago.
Another alert came in. Then a third. By the time my phone quieted down, there were nine attempts to withdraw funds from the account.
All were denied, of course. There’s nothing there.
It’s been an interesting few days of not having Internet (other than my phone). The cause doesn’t appear to be an outage. I suspect the service was summarily canceled.
Naturally, I received neither word nor warning.
I can live without watching YouTube in the evenings. It’s not like I’m up here surfing porn. I’m not a gamer or some Monster-chugging keyboard kommando living in his parents’ basement. You won’t find me casting my net on the waters of online dating.
For what I need to accomplish, I look for workarounds. I managed to pay a couple of bills last night.
I’ll figure it out.
For the fourth day in a row, a silver Dodge pickup rolled up my driveway around 8am. My neighbor was back to contribute his plumbing skills, and today’s objective was to run PVC drains under the cabin and connect to the septic system.
He set the toilet and the shower pan. I busied myself preparing the washer-dryer to be hooked up, including wiring the 240VAC cord and running the vent.
Another neighbor arrived later — skinnier and younger, and plumbing-savvy as well — accompanied by his young daughter. The two of them were better suited to working in the impossibly tight confines beneath the cabin.
It was fun to watch.
I made one more trip to Miller Hardware for the last missing bits. Once everything was glued-up, we checked for leaks and, like yesterday, we had one to correct.
By 3pm, it was done. I bid my neighbors farewell, with thanks and due admiration.
And whether you really want to know this or not, at exactly 3:19pm today, I used my toilet for the first time.
I returned to the camper for a while and hung out with Scout and Smudge, who’ve been neglected (left alone) this week out of necessity. After feeding them, I grabbed a quick shower, put on clean clothes and tossed my grimy duds into a laundry basket.
I took that basket out to the cabin, loaded the contents into the washer, and pressed a few buttons.
I did laundry on The Mountain.
I’ll admit that this combo unit is way fancier than anything I’ve ever had before. For now, until I get the LP hooked up to the water heater, I’m limited to cold (which is almost all I ever use anyway).
The best part? No more trips to the laundromat. Ha!
Okay, maybe once or twice more to wash the dogs’ blankets or something. There’s still $24 loaded onto my Speed Queen app, and the only way to get any value out of that would be to go to the laundromat and use it.
Both the washer and the dryer did the job, by the way, flawlessly. No complaints.
I folded my clothes and brought them back across the driveway to my temporary quarters — which, in a good way, is a lot more temporary now. The cabin feels like home this evening.
Patience pays off. This was a great, great day.
Take care of yourselves, Patriots. Stay calm. Stay sharp. Stay free.
#WiseUp #LibertyOrDeath #Ungovernable