personal news

It’s been two weeks since I wrote to gripe about the weather—and darn it, Jim, I’m going to do it again.  We recovered from the flooded basement, then spent over a week cleaning and drying and throwing things away and putting up new shelves and bleaching the whole basement to kill opportunistic mold.  And how did that end?  More rain!  We just barely got everything we were keeping back under cover before it started in again.  And once more, our basement floor is a not-so-dry river bed.  I spent some hours yesterday digging out the sand hole we laughingly call our sump, so that we could get the portable pump sufficiently immersed.  And good that I did, even though I had to go back and dredge it today, because that made the difference between a lot of water all over the floor and the four inches I was walking in two weeks ago. 

We are now officially a disaster area.  I am aware that it’s much, much worse for a lot of other people, so I’ll stop complaining now.  (Hm, I wonder how our neighbor is doing who had three feet in his basement last time.)

The first flood interrupted my efforts to get taxes and college financial aid applications finished, so I did manage to get back to that annual love-fest.  Almost done! 

“And rain fell on the earth forty days and forty nights.” Genesis 7:12

“Lord?  What’s an ark?”  Noah, as reported by Bill Cosby

In the eighteen years we’ve owned our house, the basement has only flooded once.  (I mean really flooded, not just partially wet from a hot water heater going.)  That statement was true last week.  No longer.  We now have about four inches of water in the lower end of the basement, and an inch in the higher end. 

We’ve had days of nonstop rain here in the Northeast, and flooding is rampant.  Everywhere you walk, you see hoses pumping water out of basements.  I checked last night and found water here and there, but not enough to pump.  So I didn’t set up the sump pump, but instead scurried around outside at midnight jury-rigging an extension to the downspout at the worst corner, trying to redirect the water out into the yard.  Today I ventured down to see how effective I’d been—and found a swimming pool. 

Our little pump is now cranking its heart out, trying to lower the water level.  I went to the hardware store for some downspout extensions, and while I was there they sold the last of the 75 sump pumps they had just gotten in this morning. 

Unfortunately, I had to unplug the forced air intake that’s hooked to our first-floor rental apartment’s boiler.  The wiring for it was under water.  That left our tenant Jill without heat, because of the interlock system between it and the boiler.  (A pretty unnecessary interlock, because there’s plenty of drafty air in the basement.)  So I just finished playing bomb squad, figuring out how to bypass the interlock.  Is it the red wire and the white wire?  The green and the white?  The red and the green?  I connected the red and the green, and the boiler kicked on.  Success!  (These were low-voltage wires, not house current, I should add.  I wasn’t about to fry myself just to make the boiler come on.) 

I feel a bit like Dr. McCoy.  “By golly, Jim.  I’m beginning to think I can cure a rainy day!”  And so, after a fashion, I did.  🙂

Last week, Julia and I joined Allysen for a few days at her parents’ house in Puerto Rico (their residence, not a vacation home).  The time went fast.  There was a lot to do.  Her folks are at the age where they need a lot of help.  Internet problems, computer problems, plumbing problems, the run of homeowner problems, and a serious veterinary crisis.  (I even got it at both ends.  The morning after I arrived down there, my cell phone rang and it was Jill, who rents our first floor apartment up here.  The hot water heater just let go!  The basement is flooding!  Can you call the plumber?  What fun!)  Some days, it pays better to stay in bed.  Still, it was great to escape winter for even a little while. 

I needed to come back a day early for the memorial service for my friend Victoria (see earlier post).  It was a beautiful service, filled mostly with singing, with many members of her Sacred Harp singing community present.  I’m sure she enjoyed it, from her new vantage point.  Those of us in the writing group tried gamely to keep up with the shaped note singing.  Fortunately, we were assured that wrong notes add to the character of the music.  That’s my kind of singing. 

My participation at Boskone this weekend was cut short by the flu.  I was there Friday evening and gradually realized I wasn’t feeling well, so headed home.  By the time I got home on the subway, I knew I’d caught something.  So I canceled my Saturday things, and stayed in, eating soup and toast and drinking green tea.  Doing a little better now.  Apologies to anyone who’d hoped to catch up with me or attend my reading, etc. 

I’m going to be away for the coming week, and may not have reliable internet access.  So if I seem unusually silent, that’ll be why.