Last night the hot water heater in our bathroom exploded. It was pouring rain out and so we didn’t hear it, and it was only during a slight lull in the water pounding on our tin roof that Owen heard a drip, drip, drip coming from behind the bathroom door. Needless to say it was flooded, and if there wasn’t an inch and a half step down into the bathroom from our bedroom it would have all leaked under the door and into our room. By some fortuitous chance I’d happened to shove a bucket right underneath the heater earlier in the day, which was now full of yellowy water (ew I shower in that?). 3 more buckets, 4 towels, and some soaked clothes later we managed to turn the water off.

By then it was probably around 1am, and we crawled into bed. A little while later I started coughing—the air conditioner was drying out my already painful sore throat. I turned it off. The room became a sauna. It was still raining and there was a slight drip, drip coming from the bathroom. I’d been forcing fluids all day to try and shake this cold and had to pee every five minutes. Every time I got up to pad across our soaked bathroom floor Jama, exiled and camping out on the other side of the bedroom door, heard me and starting howling. Rowr. ROWR. ROWR! Mournful and terrible, like a 6 inch banshee.

3am rolled around. Owen started laughing and talking in his sleep, saying things like “SUCH failures!” and having a grand old time with his buddy, REM. I broke down and took some tylenol pm. And waited. And waited. And got up to pee, and started Jama yowling. And climbed back into bed ignoring the buzzing of mosquitoes and the trickles of sweat sliding down my forehead.

I must have fallen asleep because I woke up at 6:30am to a cheerful, well-rested Owen chucking a furry kitten onto my chest. “She’s all cuddly right now! It’s cute!” he said and walked out of the room. Cuddly and cute promptly latched her claws around my arm and sunk her teeth into my hand. While purring. And then we went out on set and spent 9 hours shooting in the hot sunshine.

I think I’ll go to bed, and upload photos when I can gather the strength to undo the buckles on the camera case. Until then, I’m wishing you all sweet dreams. And don’t forget to regularly check on your hot water heaters.