It never rains but
I heard what sounded like pouring rain in the night and thought how strange the weather has been. At 6:00 when the fire alarm went off, I discovered the downpour in my hall and living room. Some pipes had burst upstairs, and there was an inch of water standing in the middle of my apartment.
Since the upstairs tenants moved out last month, the landlord's son, Craig, has been coming to tear the place apart and repair it. It smelled so bad he would leave the windows open. Yesterday morning I woke to discover the winter windstorm blowing down the stairs, through my hall and into the bathroom. It was nearly freezing in here. I went upstairs and closed one window, but the other was frozen open. When Craig showed up, I complained, and he blocked the window with a board. Meanwhile the kitchen pipes must have frozen.
Sometime during the night they thawed. I don't know how long the water had been running or how many gallons poured through my apartment and into the store below. I phoned the landlord to come over to turn the water off. By then I was soaking wet from running around, moving everything I could get out of the way. After he came, I went to Sylvie and Sarah's for a shower.
When Sylvie met me at the door, the dam burst. This couldn't have happened at a worse time. They fed me the healthiest breakfast I've ever had (steamed sweet potato and scrambled tofu with broccoli), then I drove Sylvie to work and came home.
The insurance adjusters just dropped in. I didn't have insurance, so they won't touch my belongings. Somehow, today I have to move the entire contents of my living room, kitchen and hall into the rooms that weren't damaged: my office, bedroom and bathroom. The carpet has to be replaced in the hall and living room. The ceiling has to be replaced in the living room and kitchen.
The rust-coloured chair and couch are soaked, destroyed. Three shelves of books got hit. I had just moved my library around last weekend, so the natural history books narrowly escaped. Gardening and cook books got hit, some not too badly, but it's going to be painful to sort through them. Most of my footwear is destroyed, but somehow the coats and knitted things in the hall closet remain barely damp. There are piles of wet magazines, and a box of photographs from most of my life before digital.
Craig said he will help me take a load to the dump.
I called Dad to tell him what had happened. Mom is doing better, so it seems that stopping the morphine was the right thing to do, and it took a few days to get out of her system. Somehow I will get through this day and head down to visit them this evening before the storm hits. There's no point in me staying here for the next few days.
It's time to work.