My bathroom has been leaking
into my kitchen for some time now. Years, actually. Back
when I was having my condo redecorated, the book-phobic
homophobic painter recaulked the tub and patched the
ceiling, claiming that the leak was simply water
splashing out of the tub when I showered. This repair
held for awhile but it eventually became clear to me that
there was more leaking going on than met the eye. The
pieces of ceiling in Wilbur's food dish were a clue. So,
desite my phobia of handymen, who are not all book-phobic
and homophobic but I have to be reminded of this, I
called one after another after another from the
classified section of my local paper. Much like the first
three window guys, who failed to show up, each one I
called failed to show up. As the basement window was much
more annoying to the neighbors, though less important to
the integrity of my unit, I forgot about the bathtub and
focused on the window.
Sooo, long story short or long
story long... the window guy is also a handyman and since
he actually showed up and did the work I asked him for an
estimate on the bathtub work. At first he also thought it
was just splashing out of the tub and said all I needed
was to install shower doors, so he did an estimate for
that. Then he looked more closely and came to believe
what I neeeded was a tub surround -- one of those plastic
ones that goes on over the tiles. When he started
installing the tub surround last Friday he took the
faucet handles off as you would expect and the
distribution pipe was so corroded that the part of the
pipe connecting to the faucet snapped off in his hand.
I'm not talking heavy action with a big plumbing wrench,
I'm talking finger pressure. Grrr. So I've got a half
installed tub surround and no faucet handles -- I can
still shower by using vise grips to turn what's left of
the pipe -- until I get a plumber in to replace the
distribution pipe. Grrr.
Negotiations with the condo
assocation to get the water shut off. Dueling estimates
from plumber and handyman. Nothing is simple. The
neighbors object to my having the plumber start work at
8:30 tomorrow morning. They called the condo maintenance
place and requested starting at a more reasonable hour.
Fer the luvva mike they all, except the Russian Parking
Space Blockers and myself, are up, showered, dressed, and
out of the house by 6:30 AM. And this silly condo place
makes us move our vehicles out of the parking lot at 7:15
AM during snow storms and sand removal and landscaping --
but I guess none of these activities require showering
first let alone turning the water off. Turns out it's the
Russians who are objecting. OK, fine. I actually get
along fine with them now since I found out that the
Parking Space Blocker in Chief speaks Hungarian and lived
in Esztergom for awhile. Small world. Also it helps that
I once tried to kick their door down when the Drummer Boy
had me blocked in... they got the message. So, OK fine.
Mister Plumber will come at 9:00 or a little after. If
it's not the same guy who came yesterday the chances are
he'll get lost and be here later anyway. My condo is so
hard to find even my mother gets lost coming here.... And
this was all going to be fixed last Friday. It takes
village and it takes a week...
Oh and the crazy lady is upset
about having the water turned off at all because she has
a doctor's appointment. I can't figure that one out. If
she's at the doctor, what difference does it make? Is the
doctor coming to her? At 9:00 in the morning? Everything
revolves around the neighbors here. This is not your
average condo. The neighbors aren't just on top of you,
they are in your shorts. Pajama Woman keeps doing things
to my windows that I don't want done, not to mention her
barbecue guests all stand there with their Miller Lites
and look in my kitchen window. And she's on my case for
making the place look like "the projects" by not cutting
the grass in the common area outside my fence when she
doesn't cut hers either it's just a smaller area. Her
weeds of the common area impinge on my walk, while mine
are nowhere near her walk -- she just doesn't like the
way it looks and wants to put big flower boxes there. She
wants to put flower boxes on my kitchen and bathroom
windows too. So anyway, I made astounding progress
against the bittersweet vines in my yard and created a
veritable desert and called it peace ("solitudinem
faciunt, pacem appellant " -- some Celtic guy quoted in
Tacitus -- if it's good enough for Pax Romanum it's good
enough for my yard.) However, with the recent rains and
the passage of time, the bittersweet is back. So is the
sumac. The neighbors will not be amused. For some reason
I am particularly vulnerable to other people's opinions
at the moment.
What a time to have one of my cat
shelter colleagues out of the blue and in the middle of a
controversial series of emails ask me a deeply personal
question about my recovery. Boy that came in under the
radar. No wonder I feel exposed.
Yet with all that I have been
walking around in a little pink cloud of gratitude all
week . Whatever caused the gratitude attitude to strike
me right now is yet something else to be grateful for. I
could so easily become one of those people who speaks in
slogans and only has one mood... but fortunately I'm
still me, defects and all.
I had lunch with two of my Walking
Buddies today as one of them is moving to the Pacific
Northwest in a couple of weeks. I hadn't seen either of
them in awhile and they asked for an update so I told
them, among other things, about the Beach Boys' wedding.
One of them (not the one who's moving) asked "Is that
legal?" I and the one who's moving incredulously
exclaimed "Where have you been?" We had a good
laugh but I'm a little concerned that my friend has not
read a newspaper since before May 17 nor apparently
watched the TV news. So the one who is moving regaled her
with a tale of a usually totally out of it old guy
related to her daughter-in-law in the Pacific Northwest
who normally pays no attention to current events but went
on a tirade against gay marriage when she told him she
was moving there from Massachusetts. So out-of-it old
guys in the Pacific Northwest know about this but my
friend who lives in Haverhill, which the last time I
checked was still in Massachusetts, does not. She used to
be very up on current events but now all she thinks about
is golf and drinking. It must be the golf, right? It
couldn't be the martinis? There but for the grace of iced
coffee or whatever my higher power may be... yet more
reason for the gratitude attitude.
