Hot Water Appreciation Week

 

I mean, I didn't plan for Hot Water Appreciation Week to overlap Teen Week, but sometimes, stuff happens.

The water heater started going out while I was in California earlier this month. It randomly quit heating water a couple of times for the friend who was house sitting and dog watching. (Fortunately for me, she is willing to go with the flow. pun intended.) Both times, I called my brother Ted, who came over, glared at the unit, flipped the switch a couple of times, and, *poof*, it came back on.

They were replacing the gas lines on my street that week, so I thought perhaps a glitch in delivery caused the outages, especially when it worked just fine the first week I was home.

Then, the week before my granddaughter and niece came in to spend some time with each other and with me, it quit working again. This time, all the glaring and incantations and switch flipping we could muster didn't do the job. *sigh*

After several hours on hold, waiting to talk to the people at Rheem - they'd started using a new system the day the heater broke, and it took FOREVER to get through - a new part was on the way. Except, because the system wasn't working, the part came by truck instead of air, which means it arrived here the same day the girls did.

No big deal, Ted came back on over to install the control valve. It took him about an hour, aaannndddd... we got the same error code we'd gotten with the first part.

Back on the phone, back on hold - you'll have to return the unit to the place of purchase and buy another one to have it covered under warranty. No big deal, except it's a special order kind of unit. This was a week ago, the replacement is slated to arrive in a couple of days, just in time for Lexi to head on home. (Katy was already picked up last Friday.)

Oh, well. I tried.

It's been quite an adventure. 

I am so grateful:

• It's summer, not winter, so cold showers are MUCH more bearable.
• I have friends willing to let us use their showers on the days Lexi needs to wash her long hair.
• I have Ted, willing and able to install the new unit as soon as it arrives.
• It wasn't the air conditioner which broke. It's been mighty warm outside.

The girls and I didn't let the lack of hot water interfere with our time together. We went swimming, made cupcakes, and went to the store every day to replace the magically evaporating fruit. The girls spent several days giggling together on the sun porch over teenage things, just hanging out. (I did offer to take them to see the local sights, but they were ready to just chill for a while. I get it.) I've loved having them around for a bit - they bring good energy with them.

And, I have a renewed appreciation for the wonder of hot water coming from the faucet on demand. It'll be a while before I step under the flow of a warm shower without taking a moment to thank the clever minds who designed and built heaters to effortlessly dispense hot water, and Ted, who both knows how to install the things, and is willing to lend me a hand.

Things could be a LOT worse.

Not As Planned

I'm learning, still and again, to go with the flow.

This past Friday, as Ted and I were getting in the car to head to Waterloo, Iowa, for a family reunion, my phone rang. It was my brother Tony, who we were supposed to stay with for the next two nights, calling to let me know he has Covid. Yowza.

Ted and I looked at each other and shrugged. The car was packed, the dog was loaded. I was looking forward to catching up with cousins I hadn't seen in the better part of a decade. We got into the car and took off anyway, figuring we had five hours to figure things out. (Fortunately, Covid is not as scary as it was, but it's also still not fun. I would not want to have houseguests while nursing a bout of the bug.)

An hour later, plans had been changed - since we clearly were not going to spend Saturday evening catching up with Tony and Susan, I called my niece in Iowa City to see if they were free for dinner after the reunion. They were! I easily found a couple of pet-friendly hotels with available rooms, and we were back in business.

We had about twenty people, with food for forty, show up for our potluck lunch on Saturday. (Yum!) I have a big family, and have come to treasure these smallish gatherings; they give me a chance to have deeper conversations about the paths life is leading us down. I saw a meme last week - "I knew I'd get old, I just never expected it would happen so quickly!" - which neatly summarized many of the discussions my suddenly silver-haired cousins were having around the table.

After lunch wound down around three, we stopped by Tony and Susan's place to see how they were faring. While they were both yet not out of the woods, neither were they flattened by the virus, so we were able to spend thirty properly masked and distanced minutes on their back patio catching up just a bit before a rain squall brought our meeting to an abrupt end. (Just as well - they were starting to look a bit tired. Covid is a bear.)

Off to Iowa City we then went for a delightful dinner with my niece and her family. We also snagged a tour of their Victorian work-in-progress. (You KNOW how much I love a tour of a good house renovation in the making!) 

Sunday morning we grabbed her daughter Katy (we'd originally planned to meet up in Des Moines to do a kid swap), and headed for the Kansas City airport, where we arrived just in time to pick up my granddaughter, Lexi. I get to host the two of them this week! (Which, I think, mostly involves making sure the fridge stays full and playing chauffeur.)

I am so grateful for all the things, but I'll only make you read the top four. 

For the mindset which led me to calmly accept the detour, then just change my plans rather then cancel them when things went south. 

For cell phones and widespread wireless coverage, which made it possible, even easy, to change our plans on the fly. 

For the chance to touch base with my past - I always learn something new about the reasons underpinning my reactions to life when I show up for reunions. The lessons I learned from my family of origin matter. 

For the energy of the young people who will share my space this week. 

A full weekend, it was wonderful despite and because of the detours. Good Is.

Waiting, Hoping Anyways

It made logistical sense for me to stick to my original schedule and come home last week as planned, but you won't be surprised to hear I left a good portion of my heart in California, despite knowing Kate has good people there. She was able to schedule in all the recommended tests over last week and this, and is now waiting for the results to trickle in. 

Not much further planning can be done until she knows more about her cancer recurrence - all the things depend on how far it managed to spread before she found the lump. All that is known is that her path for the next year (and longer??) will not be an easy trek.

It seems somehow wrong for my life at home here to be so normal as I wait to hear the test results. I'm back to exercising, trying to get the weeds in the yard back under control. All my projects are right where I dropped them when I left town. I've been diligently picking up the threads and working to make progress on them.

There's a part of me that just wants to curl up and cry. Or shout and throw things. Or both. 

I am angry - she was doing so well!!! Cancer is SO UNFAIR!!!! 

I am sad - I don't want her to have to walk the cancer road again. 

I didn't want her to have to do it once, and it seems grossly unfair that she has to walk it again, especially since my cancer hasn't (as far as we know) resurfaced. I mean, aren't I supposed to go first, since I went first last time??? *sigh*

Back to the basics.

Today is the only day any of us have. Tomorrow is guaranteed to no one, and the margarita truck has been known to strike without warning. Cancer is not punishment, everyone dies at some time of some thing.

Evil wins when I let fear stop me from living today.

So, I take the next step, and the next one. I am afraid to hope she caught her cancer early, but I hope anyways, because I can. I remember to look for Beauty, because every time I remember to look for it, I find it in my day.

And I remember the overarching lesson I learned from my own cancer journey - I am loved. 

And so is she. She has to walk this road, but she doesn't have to walk this road alone. She has a team, walking along the edge of the route and supporting her along the way. I, as part of the team, am supported and carried along by my own (overlapping) network of people. 

Love Is.

Soon, But Not Yet

A few weeks back I wrote about the Not Yet space - the space between life as I know it today, and life as it will look once it changes directions because a something happens.

I've been back in that space this week, and I am NOT happy to be here.

Kate found a lump; her biopsy was a week ago. Last Friday, she was told the test results came back as positive. After nine years, her cancer is back. 

It's an eerie feeling, like watching a thunderstorm gather on the horizon. The storm is headed this way, you can feel the change in the air, but it's not here yet. And, to my surprise, instead of immediately getting mired in the weeds-of-doom, I've managed to hold on to my hard-learned lessons about living the days I have. Don't let tomorrow, with its unpleasant tests and sure-to-be unwelcome news, ruin today. It will come soon enough.

We didn't ignore the diagnosis this weekend, but neither did we dwell on it. We got the laundry done, went to yoga, ate yummy food. Yesterday, as is our tradition when I visit, Lexi and I kicked Kate and Edwin out of the house for the afternoon to fend for themselves, so we could indulge in a movie and some popcorn.

These ordinary moments were made precious by my heightened awareness of the coming storm.

Not Yet.

This Is Why I Have Gray Hairs

My granddaughter's birthday is today, and as we celebrated yesterday, my mind went back thirteen years (How did that happen???) to the day she was born.

I was at the tail end of my at&t career that hot July day. I'd already sold the house, and was staying with a friend while I tidied up the loose ends of my life before taking off in the camper van. I was working from home that ordinary day...

The phone rang, it was Kate. She was alllmmooosst at her due date, so I jumped on the call. Sure enough, she was calling to let me know she thought she was in labor! It didn't take but a few words for me to know it was the real deal, so I told her to call her doctor, and to keep me posted, please.

I pretended to go back to work, but you know I got nothing done as I waited for the phone to ring again.

When she called back, it was to let me know that she was already at the hospital, and the process was rapidly moving along. As I was talking to her, I saw Joe calling in, so asked her if she could hold on for just a moment, and switched the call over.

"Mom?? I just had an accident. I hit a cop car. It had its lights and sirens on."

What??? "Hold on - I'm talking to your sister, I'll be right back.

"Kate? Can I call you back? Your brother is having a bit of trouble."

"No, no, I don't think you can. I'm headed for the delivery room in a few minutes."

"Oh?? Oh!! OK! Call me when you can."

I closed that connection and switched back to the call with Joe.

"What happened???"

"I had the green, and didn't hear the sirens over the noise of the air conditioner, traffic noise and radio."

"Where are you?? Do you want me to come to you?"

"Yes, please."

He told me where he was; just a few minutes away. I hopped in the car to join him. 

Despite the damaged front end, he'd somehow managed to move the car from the center of the busy intersection, and one of the cops stayed to wait until we could get it off the street, so we didn't have to worry about it getting hit again. 

As we waited, he filled me in on the details. It turned out, because he had the green, the cop car should have yielded the right of way, so they didn't give him a ticket. *whew* (Though they did bill our insurance for the damage to their car - I didn't dare protest at that point.)

We fortunately were able to find a spot of shade, because we got to wait there on the street for almost two hours before the tow truck arrived. The car was repairable, Joe was unhurt. My heartbeat returned to normal-ish levels, my concern-o-meter steadied over the delivery room four hundred and fifty miles away. Clearly, it was not in the cards for me to get there in time to welcome this new life into the world, so I let that hope go.

The tow truck eventually came, and from there time started moving again. We dropped the car at the repair shop and headed back to Sharon's for a well-earned shower and a glass of wine for me. 

Just a few hours later, Kate called back. Miss Alexandra had arrived in a hurry, and was happily beginning to learn to nurse.

What a day - highs and lows and hopes and fears and happy endings all around! From such afternoons, gray hairs come forth, I am sure.