September 29, 2009

When the water bill leapt from $97 to over $1300, I assumed it was a mistake, and called the utility company. Evidently, it was not a mistake. Somewhere is a leak which spills, they estimate, the equivalent of filling a bathtub endlessly. The charming variation is that though this happened in the past (on a smaller scale) there was always some evidence, a bubbling pool in the hedges, a rivulet in the street. Now, nothing at all. You’d think all that water would have to go somewhere. I woke this morning with that chill dread I’ve had in the past and hate almost more than anything, the dread of victimization by forces out of one’s control. Part of the dread is that they will have to dig a wide, deep trench, and what that will do to my garden cannot be thought of.

The sump pump in the basement died in the middle of the last rains. No basement disaster, but the pump needs to be replaced. $350.

Just after I wrote the above, I read online of a little boy whose skull was fractured by a line drive at a minor league game in Ohio. The boy is fighting for his life (in Akron Children’s Hospital, where I spent so much time). The Lord reveals something like that when I’m feeling sorry for myself, to yank the words “I haven’t got it so bad” from my throat. I think it’s a lousy tactic.

Perfumaria was up 22.92% yesterday. I’d never seen such a thing. I don’t know why. They sell other people’s perfumes a little cheaper. It’s pretty much all voodoo.

Searching for the leak in the pipes, I discover that the cyclamen is in full lovely bloom. The asters are a purple cloud, which I mention most poignantly because they may be gone tomorrow when Steve the Plumber and his crew drive a new water pipe up from the meter, assuming the old one to be faulty and superannuated past help. I’ve already had them move the route once, for the original route went right through Jocasta’s final resting place. One’s search for stasis and immutability is hopeless. Steve the Plumber went through long explanations of apparatus and supplies and types of pipes. I was impressed by the myriad of things to be known. One couldn’t know a fraction of a fraction. Some things, like pipes and fittings, one, alas, never thinks about at all.

Lorena cut herself on a filing cabinet, and I drove her to the emergency ward. She was practically the only patient, and still the time was gobbled up. Would hate to see it on a bad night.