Winter has arrived ...

... and it's definitely time to light the pilot on the heater. It's a mystery to me that furnace control elements that were working perfectly back when I turned the pilot off in the spring have somehow spontaneously failed during the idle summer. Based on on-line trouble-shooting guides, my problem is a thermocouple failure. (Pilot won't stay lit when you let off on the "light pilot" button.) This would be unsurprising: I think it's original equipment (i.e., 25 years old) and I already had to replace the thermostat a few years ago. But evidently fashions have changed in furnace lighting technique and I will need to hunt further than OSH and Home Depot to find the antique variety of thermocouple I need. *sigh* This is what I'll be doing instead of eating lunch tomorrow (along with mailing back my Dad's GPS, which I failed to return to the car when he was picking it up).

The cat is being patient with regard to the furnace only because I've pulled out her heating pad and set it up.

Today was supposed to be productive, but instead was spent mostly running around shopping for various obscure things. I skipped the post-event party last night intending to get in some extra sleep, but ended up racing my brain on a couple things I was handed to think about yesterday, which interfered with that idea. Well, I still have several hours in which to get the laundry done, create and post the measurements I used for vittoriosa's outfit to the court list for others to use, and get my financial database up to date and bills paid.