This pictue of my beautiful boys popped up on my computer today.
Jacob with Scooby, the dog that taught him to love dogs.
Scooby was a sweetheart but wild at the core.
He has a huge place in my heart still.
Today was one of those days.
It began early, though I was blissfully unaware of the confusion in front of
the house. A couple of days ago I emailed Jordan and Christian, reminding them
the tree trimming guys would be here between eight and nine this morning and
please have all cars out of the driveway—except my VW which has been dead for
weeks and sits in the drive like a permanent piece of sculpture, albeit bad
sculpture. Moving the cars was complicated because we live across from an
elementary school that starts classes at eight—so the car moving, school dropoff,
and arrival of the really big tree company equipment all collided. Sophie and I
slept on.
I had fed Soph about seven and
let her out, but I knew she would want to go again after her second breakfast.
By then, however, the gates were all open—I learned my lesson about that
yesterday. She was really good, and when Jordan came to give her a shot, she
walked her on the leash. The rest of the day Sophie was good as gold, and the
tree crew closed the gate for me when they went to lunch.
Meanwhile, the temperature was
slowly rising. I checked throughout the morning, hoping it would get enough
about freezing to defrost my tankless hot water heater. That may have thawed
slowly, but the faucet on the deck of the main house thawed rapidly. I’m still
not sure I got it right, but Jordan rushed out here about one o’clock and demanded
I get on our neighborhood email and ask for someone to come turn off the water
at the curb—it was, she said, gushing. I suggested she ask the tree guys who
were eating lunch in their trucks. That didn’t please her, but she did—invading
their lunch hour, she said—and they got it turned off. She was not exactly calm
about the whole thing. Turned out there was something broken—never did find out
for sure what—so she called the plumber, who said it would be Friday before
they got here. I have to admit I paled at the thought of two days without
water, because disregarding all advice, we hadn’t prepared for it. I had a bit
of extra water in the teakettle, and I think there’s a gallon jug in my closet.
And that’s it.
Action shifted to the spigot
on the deck, where we’d had trouble before. A pipe below the deck burst. It
dawned on me, not a happy thought, that if they turned water off at the curb, I
wouldn’t have it either—somehow I had thought, “Well, that’s their problem. At
least I have cold water, and the can use my water.” Fooling myself.
Next I knew neighbor Jay was
on the deck with Jordan. They looked and fiddled and talked for a long time—and
then went away, leaving me in suspense. Just before I napped, Jordan texted
that all was okay for the time being. I tried the hot water faucet, and it had
a trickle. I went to sleep,
When I woke, I had hot water!
First thing I did was wash my hair. Next thing was to ask about the pipe, and
it seems Jay is going to Home Depot tomorrow and will get the needed part. Good
neighbors are priceless, and I wish the story ended there, but about six, Jay’s
wife texted that she thought we should know that their yard was littered with
dead branches and they were throwing them all into our yard. Jay had talked to
the crew, and they assured him they would clean it up.
Finally, about 7:30 Jordan and
I had a calm supper of crab cakes, salad with my favorite buttermilk dressing,
and marinated cucumbers that I made today because I had cukes that needed to be
used. A good end to a fretful day.
Tomorrow peace and calm.
Fingers crossed. But another cold spell is due in a couple of days. It’s a
thing called climate change.
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