“We’re not talking just to hear ourselves talk.”

I kid you not, I said that today. I could almost see my dad’s bushy black mustache moving up and down in the reflection of Ouest’s eyes.

Seriously though, how do kids just listen to what you say and then turn their head and do exactly what you just told them not to? It’s no wonder I got the red Betty Crocker spoon across the ass all the time. Lowe does it every morning now. At about 6:45 he’s climbing the stairs and headed outside. Never mind that he can’t be out there alone, there’s dew all over the deck, and we’re still bouncing around in our undies.

“Lowe, we’re not going outside right now. Come back down. Lowe. Stop. Come back down. Lowe. Stop. Lowe. Lowe. Lowe?”

This morning we stopped in at an air-conditioning place and asked about a refrigerator repairman por mi barco. Yep, that’s how we roll. Oh, I see you repair air-conditioners, well then you must repair twenty-year-old boat refrigerators too. Right?

While waiting for the guy to show up I somehow managed to get the engine-driven working myself. I’m not going to get technical because it’s a really long and really boring story that I can hardly explain to myself much less anybody else who might care to listen.

The repairman showed up, fresh off his day in the copper mines cleaning 700 window air-conditioning units (I don’t think he got them all done in one day), flipped on the AC system and watched as the line quickly frosted up. Nice and cold.

A minute later it melted as the high-pressure cut-off valve did it’s job. Which also explained the problem. Too much refrigerant. Which convinced me once and for all that if I’m going to continue using these systems I really need to spend the money to buy a set of pressure gauges.

An hour later the AC system wasn’t working again, but that had less to do with the repairman and more to do with me not letting him finish the job properly because my kids needed to eat dinner and go to bed. I am fairly confident however, that I’ll be able to get it going myself in the morning (since I failed at it tonight).