Water, Water--Everywhere . . .

Like many others this past week--a pipe in our basement gave way to an imitation of the great Niagra Falls. Being a light sleeper came in handy this time around when I heard water at 3:30am, but I assumed it was coming from the nearby bathroom. Perhaps one of the kids was up getting a drink or washing their hands. But, then--the water kept flowing. What were they doing in there?

I got up. Nobody was in the bathroom. Nobody else was even awake. Just me. Maybe it was coming from my dish washer. I went downstairs. Nope. Kitchen was dry, but the sound of water was getting louder and I spun around, flicked on the basement lights and opened the door: Water! Cascading over the light at the bottom of the stairs which was now hanging out of the ceiling that had dissolved. Screams to my husband to turn off the main . . . 

Everybody was up. My youngest was as frightened as if we were in a sinking ship that was taking on water. My oldest? Being a teenager who values every minute of sleep left her only annoyed by abruptly being woken in the middle of the night. She went back to sleep. The other two took it all in with reactions floating somewhere in the middle of the youngest and the oldest. 

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I usually work in our basement, so last week was a week filled with working on borrowed time as well as borrowed laptops. While my laptop came out of the ordeal dry, the power chord was immersed in water. So, when the battery ran out, then I lost access to my laptop until a replacement chord could be delivered.

​As I attempted to balance the virtual world with the real one, I felt displaced and unproductive trying to figure out new laptops and the parental controls that would kick me off the internet suddenly. A remote meeting I facilitate took extra time and two different borrowed laptops to get up and running.

Papers that hadn't been soaked were shoved away in the rush to clear the basement. I still don't know where everything is as I sit at our dining room table with my own laptop fully powered up again and attempt to catch up on a week's worth of discombobulation. I continue to fall into the "it could be worse" or the "you're lucky" category, but I'd prefer to just fall into the category of "nothing happened" or "none the wiser." But, thinking of how much worse it could have been makes me feel such empathy for those who experience any sort of flood, fire, weather-related or not, event that leaves your things and your thoughts scattered. In this age of online, a seemingly simple power chord was a real problem when it came to getting work done, communicating with others, etc.

So, hopefully you weren't as "lucky" as we were when the latest, "hasn't happened in 150 years" weather event presented itself. But, if you were the recipient of more water than you would have liked last week--hopefully this week is a drier, calmer, better week:)

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