Circumstances do not determine a woman they reveal her. -James Allen

I was mad at myself yesterday morning.  It showed, too.  Bags under the eyes.  Sheepish shuffle.  Uh.  I had one of those evenings that I regret 15 minutes after they conclude.  If the above sentiment is even half true, then I'm just a garden variety b***h.

We had company. Dear, beloved and wonderful company. Three extra kids in the house situated on various air mattresses and bedrolls.  Beautiful sights to behold. They were running, playing and jumping on those very bed rolls and air mattresses with our kids in the basement until about 11:20pm Sunday night.

We returned home after dinner at Zingerman's Roadhouse to find that the A/C compressor motor was not operating.  It was 86* in the guest room.  I called and called Hutzel.  I even reached my old buddy Walt who was on the other side of a few beers, I'm sure.   We waited and waited.  Then at about 10:40pm a technician called and said he was on the other side of Jackson (probably also on the other side of a couple beers) and had forgotten he was on call.  He said that he'd be here in an hour.  It was 10:45pm.

Our guest quarters are barely tolerable on a good A/C day.  The house was an oven that night.  I was so mortified that my guests would be horribly uncomfortable that I lashed out at my husband.  You get the connection, right?  Yeah,  there is none.

I said something to the effect with outstretched finger and arm flailing, "dude, this is mechanical. I'm sick of having to design a new front porch, do laundry, sharpen the chain saw, fry it up in a pan and never let you forget you're a man!" For the uninitiated, that's taken from a commercial for perfume from 1980.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jA4DR4vEgrs

Jeff's school schedule has meant that I'm doing a lot of mechanical-ish household stuff that makes me nervous.  Mostly just because I'm afraid I'm going to screw something up.  Like the A/C unit.  I bought that A/C unit on a recommendation from Steele Heating and Cooling from Chelsea.  He told me the one that was here before was twice the size that we needed and half as efficient.  It was 19 years old so I believed him.  But this one is 1/3 too small. So it just runs and runs and never gets a break.  The math fractions are moving in the wrong direction on this whole equation.  So, personally, I think we should take that little thing out and buy something that looks like this:

Plan B - Right?! Now that's what I'm sayin'!

Back in 2009, I got on a huge enviro kick. I stopped using A/C altogether, installed a whole-house fan and stopped using the clothes dryers and started using clotheslines.  I was composting and recycling so much we never even used our garbage can.  I was going to install solar panels, a geothermal system and start driving a Prius but then it got really hot outside.  So on to plan B.

Anyway, all that aside. The point is I don't operate in stressful situations well at all.  My maiden name "Feeney" comes from the old Norse word for "Warrior" and its also synonymous with "champion." I'll go with the former more than the latter.  Anyway, when stuff goes south, my warrior brain kicks in.  That's the part that I've referred to in the past as the Irish part.  Hey, anything to deflect responsibility and blame for just being a plain old b***h.

Perhaps Mr. Allen's little pithy quote is not a complete assessment.   Could there be more to us than what we are under pressure? 

I hope so. If not, I'll at least be cooler.

Who are you under pressure?