Christmas Eve: Not According To Plan

Well, my Christmas Eve started out fine, as I awoke to the sound of pouring rain and knew that my boating plans would not be foiled by a shortage of water. Things quickly went south as I headed down to my basement office, aka: The Bunker, and was greeted by a drip of water on my head as I neared the bottom of the stairs. SHXT! (Yes, I cursed) DA#$&^()T!!, a roof leak. Then I entered the office and noticed that the carpet was soaked, something that has occurred on occasion since we had a sprinkler system installed a couple of years ago. The digging disrupted the soil structure next to the house so the water comes in through the footings during those rare events when we get more than about 3" of rain in a day. Of course, those rare events have happened every few weeks this year. Instead of bouncing down an Ozarks creek in my kayak, I found myself at Sears at 7:00AM on Christmas Eve in search of a wet vac. For those among you who just love to shop and have a disdain for being cold and wet, this may have more appeal than roaming the hills in pouring rain and spending the day running rapids in a 7 foot long boat, but in my world, this was not a positive trade-off.

I have become determined to avoid self-induced negative energy, so I'm taking this in stride. I've been on my roof three times and feel the tarp I secured over the roof of the stairwell will suffice for now. I've lined my side yard with tarps to direct water away from the house and avoid any more saturation of the vulnerable area. I've been to the friggin' MALL on Christmas Eve, sucked up a bunch of water, soaked a few washer loads of towels and been soaked myself several times by a driving rain. Sucks, right? Well, I'm not letting the bullshit get me down! The floor is going to be wet whether I'm in a good mood or bad. Life is good and it's Christmas Eve. I think I may put my rain gear back on and head down to the trail. I've been wanting to see the water pouring off the walls at the quarry on a really rainy day and there's something to be said for being outside on days like today. I'm missing the boating but I'm not missing the day.

Another positive thing about this story is that Diane seems to really like the Craftsman wet/dry shop vac she got for Christmas! Imagine her delight!! She even got to open it early under "Emergency Santa" clause! I just love it when I can surprise her with something totally unexpected. As she adjusted her ear protectors to the roar of her gift, I could see her lips moving apparently singing a joyful song.She did give me a glance from time to time and, though I couldn't hear above the jet-engine sound, she appeared to be mouthing "Vacuum, vacuum" in expressing her gratitude. I will admit, though, that I have sometimes have trouble distinguishing between V's and F's when reading lips so I may have missed her true meaning. In the spirit of the season, I don't think I'll ask her for clarification.