A Very Merry Unvalentine

I’m glad we don’t find it necessary to celebrate Valentine’s Day on February 14 anymore. February 14 was not at all even remotely romantic. It still hasn’t been a romantic weekend either. Whew; lemme splain.

I usually shower in the evening or just before bed. It’s the MS thing; even mildly warm water knocks me out. After showering I take about an hour break to rest and regain strength and relax on the bed with my current book. If I fall asleep I read less but I love the fact that with an ereader I seldom lose my place! So Wednesday night before bed I showered and read until David came upstairs, brushed his teeth and joined me. Lights out, end of Wednesday.

Thursday morning I got up and turned on the faucet to fill a cup with water to take my morning pills. Faucet on, water not. I told David and he checked the sink in the kitchen; also no water. A little more Internet and phone calling and we discovered the main road several yards away from us was closed due to a water main break. Well, that explains the water problem. Only it didn’t.

At the end of the day when the main was fixed it was also mentioned that no residential customers suffered any interruptions associated with the break. What? Hey now, we’re residential customers! It seems that our water stopping overnight and the main break was a coincidence. A phone call to the water department revealed that there were over 80 customers who called in trouble (and the list keeps growing) and they’d call back to file my problem.

Just a note; if you’re married to the homeowner and the homeowner asks you to call the water department, just say you’re the homeowner. The woman who took my call asked where the meter is. I told her I didn’t know but I’m disabled so I really can’t physically search for it. She asked if I was the homeowner. I answered truthfully. I told her I wasn’t the homeowner but my husband was. He’s not here but is it possible for someone to come check it. She told me to call my husband if we’re on speaking terms and ask him if he’d come over and see if the meter needs warmed. She was setting up a call to have it checked but it would help if we warned the meter. If my husband and I aren’t on good terms don’t call him; it would just take a little longer to get the water running once someone comes out. All I could wonder was how many women get that upset with their husbands over problems they don't have any control over with water service? As it turns out when I said my husband was the homeowner she assumed he didn’t live here. I never imagined that if you separated from the person who owns the home you’d be the one who stayed if someone moved out.

We stayed in a hotel Friday night so we could take showers and the Water Department was here this morning to assess the situation. The freezing is not on our part of the line, but the city part. Seems the stone irrigation under the new pavement they put in our street a couple summers ago conducts rather than insulates when the ground freezes deeply. This is the first winter it’s really frozen this deep since the new road was put in and most of the many frozen pipe problems are homes on those new roads. We’re in the queue and they’ll service us in the next few days. I’m sure there’s another hotel night in the future for shower, shave, brush teeth etc. Right now David brings in snow by the bucketful to keep us able to flush the toilet a couple times a day. I’m trying not to use a lot of dishes as the sink and counters pile up. I’m really seeing how much water we use in a day!

--*--*----*--*----*--*--*--*----*--*----*--*--

I had a sweetheart of a cat that I found as a kitten at Noni’s when I was 17 and he died in my arms before I was 21. Ritchie loved eating popcorn that was left in the bowl from movie nights the next morning when it was stale and kinda tasteless, but was salty and had a decent crunch. He found a box of packing peanuts in the basement and ate a bunch of them, probably thinking it was popcorn. When I found him down there he’d already thrown up once and lots of pieces of Styrofoam were in the clear liquid. He was trying to hide from me, which cats do when they’re dying. His breathing was labored and he threw up again. I picked him up and held him because I knew what was happening. It was only a few minutes before he took his last breath. I was shattered. That was when I searched for all the Styrofoam in the house and threw it all away vowing that no Styrofoam would ever be left anywhere a pet could get it. It was sort of like the king in sleeping beauty banishing all spinning wheels after the princess was cursed. But just like a spinning wheel appeared (By evil magic in that story, but it still happened) so there would be a day that a Styrofoam peanut did not get packed away.

In the midst of the frozen pipes saga, Friday started with me doing the phone calling because David and Marco had to get the vet right away. As much as we try to keep any Styrofoam out of the house, Marco found a Styrofoam packing peanut. I shrieked trying to get him to put it down, David followed him into kitchen with it and he chewed it and it was a mess as David was fishing what he could get out of his mouth. He said it looked like about half of it; he must have swallowed the rest. I got on the phone with the vet to see if we should induce vomiting. They said to bring him in and they’d see him immediately. When they came back, Marco had a laxative and special diet food and instructions to watch for lethargy or vomiting. Thankfully 2 days later and he never had any symptoms of trauma. We remain ever vigilant in getting Styrofoam out of the house as soon as we can when something packed in it comes in!

That was our exciting weekend, one I’m glad to see end! Now it would just be nice to get the water back before the 3-5 inches additional snow we’re scheduled to get Monday night.