A toast to tilting at windmills

I'm kind of divided over what to write here.

I don't want to write, "Nevermind, I'm back," because I'm not.  I don't magically have heat.  Things will not suddenly go back to normal.

But at the same time, the secular (done by people, not gods or angels) miracles in my life continue.  Twenty four hours ago, give or take depending on how long it took me to write that post, I was tearfully composing a goodbye while trying to communicate how much you, the readers, have meant to me.  I didn't think it was inconceivable that I might get donations that would mean I could afford to replace the boiler, for I know what that word means and can conceive quite a bit, but I did think that it was a completely unreasonable hope.

I mean, I remember a time when it seemed like I wouldn't be able to stay in my house because I couldn't afford heating oil.  It seemed like an impossible insurmountable problem.  Not even to fill the tank, just to afford the minimum the local companies would deliver.  The tank recently went empty (the accompanying cold is probably what broke the boiler though it took almost a month for the break to become apparent) and when I got oil I had the tank filled completely.

It cost $520.26.  Meaning you could fill the tank more than 11 and a half times (with oil to spare) for the $6,000, estimated, needed to replace the boiler.

My point is that this was and is on an entirely different scale than the problems I've faced before.  It didn't seem reasonable to expect that there was a solution.  Especially since every time that people have helped me before meant that those people, obviously, were out whatever money they used to help me.

So twenty four hours ago, again: give or take, it seemed like being forced from my home by being unable to replace the boiler was a foregone conclusion.

Now I have the money.  (Donated via Paypal.)  You're still my miracles, it would seem.

Of course the money is a first step.  Like I said, I don't magically have heat.  I'm probably going to have to spend several days shoveling some kind of path around the house.  Actually figuring out what model boiler will be installed by whom and when needs to happen.  Lots of stuff needs to happen.

As much as I'd like to, I can't say that I'm going to go right back to posting like I was before because that's not true.  Until this is sorted out I'm going to have less blogging related and more survival oriented thinking on my mind.

I don't know if that means intermittent posts or hiatus until normal posting can resume.

What I do know is that it means I was wrong.  It's not goodbye.

Myself, my cat, and my lizard will be able to stay in our home.  The fact that the boiler will be replaced makes stopgap measures feasible in the interim.

I'll be sleeping over an electrically heated ... thingy, for example.  My lizard's heat lamp will not be going off.  (It has a can it can go into to provide darkness.)  My cat has already decided that things have gotten cold enough that she wants to spend time in my vicinity a hell of a lot more than she would if temperatures were normal (my cat's affection is inversely proportional to the ambient temperature.)

Exactly what will happen when is uncertain, but that I won't have to leave has gone from an impossible dream to the default assumption.

So I'll be trying to keep on dreaming impossible dreams.  This blog has survived on unreason and a refusal to acknowledge when things were hopeless this long, and it looks like it'll keep on going.

I had to look up the plot of Man of La Mancha to understand the cuts in that video.

Less dropping dead and Spanish Inquisition, more reaching of the unreachable star.

Windmills are ravaging the country side, someone has to take a stand.