Burst Pipe II

The Adventure Continues...

While Blair was outside with the wrench, I was dialing plumbers in the phone book like a woman possessed.  It's 7 o'clock on a Saturday night and NO ONE is answering. I leave messages on "Emergency 24-hour plumbing hot lines" and keep dialing.

I actually get one plumber on the phone, but he doesn't "do" emergency calls. "Good luck, " he says. "Thank you, you rat-bastard," I reply. (Okay, I didn't really say that. But I wanted to).  Finally, the emergency people call us back.

"We can send someone out, but he's on overtime so it will cost you a jillion dollars an hour," they say.  Oh...they're good. They know when they've got you by the balls.

"Send him," I say.

"And you are accepting of the jillion dollars an hour rate, ma'am?"

"Yes, fine. Just send him."

"He'll be there in 20 minutes. And by the way, that charge will be a jillion dollars an hour."

He was there in 40 minutes and, for someone who makes a jillion dollars an hour on overtime, was a very nice man. But he couldn't find the source of the break. We think the pipe burst near the underpart of our house where only anorexic chipmunks can slide on their belly into the area.  So jillion-dollar plumber man left us on Saturday night with the words, "I'll be back on Monday."

No water until Monday. Not a happy thought. No water means no toilet, no shower, no tooth-brushing water, no hand-washing water, no face-washing water, no coffee-making water (that's where the panic set in).

So we did what we had to do.  Lake in the front yard be damned. We turned the water back on and filled up buckets and pitchers and glasses of water. No running water? Bring it on, baby. We were ready.

Stay tuned for Part III -- "Why Eating Out at Taco Bell When You Have

No Running Water Is Not the Brightest of Ideas."

Burst Pipe - Part I

Thank God for Doritos.

Friday night, 3 AM.  For some reason we are both awake. It's too early to get up, so we lay in bed and talk. I'd had some really weird dreams earlier in the night. Blair actually does get up around 3:30 (probably in an effort to escape my dream talk) but I tough it out and force myself to go back to sleep.

After I'm up, we head into GSO for some shopping. We return home around 3 and, exhausted, we both fall into bed for a two-hour nap.

We eventually find our way into the family room to watch TV. We ate a huge lunch in town and neither of us feel like making a big production for dinner, so I decide to eat cereal and Blair decides he wants Doritos. Only we don't keep Doritos in the house. We have to walk to the Dollar General up the street to buy them.

I offer to go as Blair is still rubbing sleep from his eyes. I make it down the driveway and step over the trickle of water running into the street when a thought occurs to me. "It hasn't rained. Why is there a trickle of water running down our driveway into the street?"

This is big for me. BIG. I never pay attention to stuff like this. And truth be told, I was way off base. Our Ford Explorer is parked in the drive and my thought was, "Uh-oh. I wonder if it's leaking something."

So I followed the trickle up the drive where it became more of a small stream and then into the front yard which, when I viewed it, could most accurately be described as having lake-like properties. I'm pretty sure I saw a duck go floating by.

I run into the house and announce, "The yard's flooded." Blair races outside. And here I must make an aside to say how happy I am to not be the man in this relationship. My part was done. I had found the water, I had announced the water...that's pretty much all I had to offer.  No clue what might come next.

I am so proud of my husband. Being kind, let's say fixing things is not his speciality. (We were in Home Depot on Saturday and he was ooing and ahhing over power tools, sending me pleading glances. "I'll let you buy this one right here if you can tell me what it's used for," I said. He stood still for a moment before he stalked off into the paint aisle, mumbling that I was a cheater.) But he ripped a concrete lid up from our driveway, plunged his hands and a wrench into some muddy water with no visibility and got the water to our house turned off from the street. I didn't even known we had a concrete lid in our driveway and I certainly had no clue that had any relation to turning water off.  I was most impressed.

"Well, that explains that noise," I said, once the water was off.

"What noise?" asked Blair.

"That noise I've been hearing all afternoon. I thought the AC was running and I kept checking to make sure it was off. Then I thought the upstairs toilet was running but that wasn't it either. I couldn't figure out where the running sound was coming from." Blair's eyes are huge. I give a weak smile. "So. Um. Now I know."

BE SURE TO READ PART II OF OUR EXCITING UNDERWATER YARD ADVENTURE!

Book Signing A Success

Yesterday I was blessed. The weather was a beautiful and perfect 72 degrees. The book signing at Guilford Medical Supply went off without a hitch. I was the first to arrive and set up.  Then Vonna Condax arrived with her two dogs - a Border Collie and a Deerhound. I had never seen a Scottish Deerhound before and it is a beautiful dog. And big. Very, very big. Vonna's weighed 84 lbs but looked bigger because it's such a rangy dog. It unfolded itself from his crate in the back of Vonna's car and it seemed to just keep growing and growing as it stood up.  But oh-so-gentle.  It's a very sweet tempered breed.

So Vonna got her books set up, then Happy Hills Animal Foundation arrived.  They arrived with four volunteers, 2 dogs and 2 cats. The volunteers were wonderful. Very devoted animal lovers working to make life better for abandoned pets. They obviously had great love and affection for all the animals in the shelter and they sat at my book signing for 5 hours without being paid, simply on the hopes that someone would see one of their animals and want to adopt.

We think we may have found a home for Maggie, a  Chihuahua mix. A man showed great interest in her and said he would bring his wife to Happy Hills tomorrow to look at her. Everyone cross their fingers and say their prayers that Maggie finds a home.

Two cat brothers were there, Chad and Tiaro. Believe it or not, they're actually cuter than their kitten pictures on the Happy Hills site. They've grown a bit and are beautiful all black cats. Tiaro especially is full of mischief and has a full, bushy tail I spent the afternoon playing with.

Several people dropped by from my Triad Networking group just to say hello and buy a book, which I found very thoughtful and touching. And my good friends Pam & Michael Cable stopped by. Pam's new book, Southern Fried Women is out and I'll be blogging more about that soon. It's exceptional.

All in all, I got to spend a day with animals, making new friends, and enjoying beautiful weather. Life is very, very good.

Book Signing Today at Guilford Medical Suppy

Looking for something to do today? Come by Guilford Medial Supply at 404 E. Cornwallis Drive in Greensboro between 11 am - 3PM and check out the fun. I'll be there signing cat books plus I've invited a dog author to join me. Vanna Condax will be autographing copies of her book, Through Deerhound Eyes, a humorous compilation of emails written from one Deerhound to another. Vanna will have both her Deerhound and her Border Collie with her at the book signing.

Happy Hills Animal Foundation will be on site with cats and dogs. And 20% of all book sale proceeds will be donated back to Happy Hills! Door prizes will be given throughout the day. So drop by, say hello, pet a cat and dog and pick up some gifts for the pet lovers in your life. 

Tell your friends and I hope to see a lot of you there!

Cheers,

 Dena