Sounds like real life to me, Ken. Sending you this terrific California sun
for what sounds like family need for a real basking after so much rain.
Washing the soul versus drenching it - too much of a good thing!
Be well,
Stephen V
Blog: http://stephenvincent.net/blog/
> Maybe I should keep a diary. Disconnected.
>
> Across the street from the Atlantic Ocean, we finally have hot water
> restored. The house is odd-looking at the moment, rather like a Western
> settler's cabin. Gallons of water poured through the kitchen ceiling in
> two days, the ceiling finally collapsed, and the insurance company sent
> out a rep. My S.O. figured she was going to get screwed but when the
> assessor looked around, she (yes) said "Sure, we'll pay for this." And
> went to call some house tear-down service they work with to come in here
> yesterday and pull down the entire ceiling, insulation and all.
>
> Someone will need to work fast because it gets cold here early, but the
> restoration is part of the service too. No, this is not an ad for
> Lloyd's of London, but they are the only company that would insure this
> place because we are so close to the Ocean.
>
> We never lost our lights. But we lost our furnace and hot water twice.
> The second time water flooded the basement and knocked out the regulator
> device on the hot water heater. We were taking showers at my SO's
> mother's house.
>
> The animals were terrified. When the rain kept raining every day and
> pieces of the ceiling began dropping, the dog drooped his tail and he
> spent a lot of the next two days flopped out on the bed looking very
> unhappy. Animals do not happily tolerate changes to their environment,
> especially when they see their humans freaking out, albeit somewhat
> quietly. The cats, rather than drooping around, went into Krazy Kat
> mode. Sleep in daylight, yes; but at night have three-way brawls,
> door-scratching contests, and concertos of screeches. No one hit anyone
> with a brick.
>
> We have varying opinions of what started this. One suggestion: global
> warming. Who knows? Shit happens. I can't blame Bush for this one,
> though Karl Rove sounds like an increasingly good candidate (Jersey went
> for Kerry). My SO's is the most picturesque and mystical theory: that
> she held the door at the post office for Russian Orthodox priest who is
> Abbot of a nearby monastery. "Everything went into the shitter after
> that priest blessed me for holding a *&R# door!" I suggested calling
> one of the Roman Catholic seminaries in Rome itself where they are
> training exorcists (no kidding) so he could exorcise the Orthodox
> monastery and we could start some battle-for-Hell update to the Polish
> scene in Boris Godunov, i.e., Jesuits vs. Orthodox.
>
> Thursday I'd scheduled as a vacation day for medical reasons. Wednesday
> night I found out a friend of mine here had lost his 43-year-old
> daughter to breast cancer after a 3-year struggle. In the last five
> years this man has lost his older daughter and his wife to brain
> tumors. Now it was breast cancer and yet another child. She left
> behind three young children and a husband holding himself together with
> spit and baling wire. So I went on Thursday morning to the funeral
> Mass. Her father, my friend, walked past me during the recessional
> behind the casket and nodded. I have never seen such sadness in a man's
> face. Not "tight-lipped anger" at the God in whom he still deeply
> believes, just profound sadness. Every parent in the room I am sure was
> asking the same question: "What if that were me?"
>
> And of course it was pouring when they left for the cemetery. A funeral
> out of The Barefoot Contessa.
>
> We were not pounded as badly as towns a few miles south. Lakes flowed
> into basements, basements turned into lakes, power went out, cars were
> swamped to the roofs. My supervisor at the animal shelter was baling
> her basement with a wet-dry vacuum, turned it off, accidentally touched
> the still-spinning blades, and had her hand slashed up and endured nerve
> damage.
>
> In 61 years I've seen intense storms on Long Island, in New York, even
> upstate. But this really does seem like an extended, slow-motion
> version of Katrina. It extended over a week, surging, backing off, then
> coming back at us with increased force. Now the sun is out, the storm
> seems to be gone, all that is left is a brutal wind which is actually a
> gift because it's drying out the worse flood areas. For parts of The
> Shore are still underwater and basements, even the de-watered ones, are
> stinking ruins. People who make a living cleaning houses will make out
> like thieves on this one. We in this house truly were lucky--some of
> our neighbors had unprintable materials from the sewers backed into the
> basements combined with salt water from the Ocean and the estuary 300
> feet away.
>
> Everyone is just tired.
>
> Ken
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