Cliffhanger

Is that what you want? A cliffhanger? All right.

On Tuesday, Steve informed me that he wanted to invite people over for comida on Friday. I panicked, due to social anxiety issues. Having always had party trouble in the United States, I surely didn't want to attempt anything here, at least not until I had the guise of Max's birthday party to hide behind. So Steve went on to invite upwards of 40 people and started making enchiladas in various mole sauces like mad.

As our freezer filled, Genevieve starting acting up. She screamed from 2 to 4am a couple nights in a row, all while our "bomba", water pump, commenced grinding and hissing in the backyard.

Genevieve was sick, so we dashed her off to the homeopath yesterday. And now I'm sick, though I suspect it's hay fever. And Steve's sick.

In the mean time, I was desperately calling our landlord to get someone to shut off the water pump. The horrible grinding was bothering the neighbors, too. And then, last night, it burned its fuse, taking the electricity with it.

Our electricity is back, but the bomba is broken, meaning we have no water. No showers, and, more critically, no flushing toilets, and our 40 guests arrive in 2 hours. We are now hauling buckets from Miscelanea Evis, the store next to us (gracias to the kind, ever resourceful Julita) to fill our toilets. We will spend our afternoon dinner party filling toilet tanks.

Will the guests consider us "crazy gringos" and never speak with us again? Will the bomba repair guy show up mid-party like he promised and add to the fun? Will I be able to feign the energy to get through a party I didn't want in the first place, now that I'm down a couple nights of sleep? Will Genevieve decide the party is the perfect setting to do her new Display My Big Tummy show? Or her oldie-but-a-goodie Dig For BoogerNuggets show?

If you never hear the answers to these questions, you will know that this party destroyed me.