It looked like last night was the night my Knitting Olympics glory would begin.

The dish guy was supposed to arrive between 1 and 5 pm yesterday to end our Olympic woes with the installation of a second auxiliary dish that would provide us with local NBC coverage. Soon I would be knitting while other more qualified folks were bobsledding.

Several prerecorded telephone messages told me to expect the dish guy momentarily. The dish guy would be a new acquaintance. I know all the Sears technicians. We greet each other as old friends. Our stove has cost Sears a small fortune in repair costs because Jim had the foresight to buy the repair plan before we broke the unbreakable glass top three times and melted the innards another six times. The stove has had a more exciting life than many humans and really deserves a name. Maybe “The Inferno”?

But the dish guy was someone new. I could only hope he would like climbing up the greenhouse windows to get to the dish zone on the roof, especially after his journey up our dramatically rutted dirt road.

As darkness fell on Green Hope Farm, the dish guy still had not surfaced. I was off the hook in my full blown supervisory role as Jim was home from work. I was pleased yet a bit worried that we would soon get a prerecorded message that the technician would be coming tomorrow not today. After all it WAS pitch dark outside!

A live person from dish headquarters called to see if the technician had arrived yet. Was a live human going to break the rescheduling news to us? The moon had now risen as a bright orb, but it seemed unlikely that it would provide enough light for the dish installation. The lady at HQ said not to worry. The technician would proceed in the dark.

There is nothing like a dish installation in the dark!

6:11 pm Jim joins the technician in the free climb to the rooftop location of our dish jungle. Jim is in charge of illuminating the work site with a large flashlight.

7:47 pm Progress! The technician comes inside while Jim pushes some wire through the wall into the house. For many long minutes the technician yells “A little bit further. A little bit further. A little bit further.” I won’t tell you what movie it all reminded me of.

8:38 pm Jim comes in to run hot water over his frozen hands. He and the technician have bonded. Jim knows all about the dish industry and has discovered he once worked with the technician’s girlfriend’s mother.

9:05 pm Test run of new dish and old dish combo fails. Old dish must go. Back on the roof, the men are ripping off shingles, drilling more holes, tossing the old dish into the gardens below.

9:43 pm repeat of 7:47pm

9:52 pm I have abandoned my supervisory role reading a book by the fire. I am asleep.

10:15 pm The dish is cranking. Just in time for some prime-time Olympic coverage. Jim settles in to watch. Now if only I could get him to knit.