The Ides of March

[sooZen]

I should know better by now...something goes on in March that afflicts both Nathan and myself. I can look back at the calendar and see it written there through the years. The year that Nate got lost, got bit by a pit bull, nearly got shot by a policeman and on and on...all those things happened in March. But you don't think about those things when you are 'in the moment'...I don't anyway.

Cecil and I decided to go out to dinner with some old and dear friends on Wednesday. We normally don't go out for dinner (it is expensive) but we hadn't seen these folks in awhile and on a whim, I called them and asked them if they wanted to go to a favorite Mexican restaurant that has killer margaritas. We had a great evening (Nate wanted to stay home to watch his show) and when we got back home Nate met us at the door..."HELP!" was all he could muster, "the water is everywhere!!!" Cecil zoomed in the door and down to the basement where our bedrooms and Nate's TV and art room are. Water was everywhere...everywhere...all throughout the entire area, the carpets were soaked, lots of stored items were soaked, it was an ocean and poor Nate kept saying, "I'm sorry, its my fault!"

Seems the toilet got plugged and Nate was unable to stop it so the water just kept coming. Cecil and I stayed up until the wee hours trying to sop most of it up...which was futile. Finally, we fell into our bed which was now an island and Nate had to sleep upstairs in our guest room. Thursday was spent talking to insurance companies, with huge suckers and blowers brought in by water removal experts. Carpet and padding stacked in the front yard, ripped out in huge hunks. Piles of trash which once was treasures are everywhere. Furniture is here, there and yon. To top it off, I feel down on the tile floor last night, bruised and skinned my knee, sprained my finger and had a good crying jag but otherwise I am just fine. Hah!!!

I am writing this to the hum (actually, it'sa roar) of dehumidifiers and drying fans. It is a wonder I could sleep but I guess exhaustion just kicked in.

Nate is okay too. He was more concerned about me and my apparent shock at the whole ordeal. He gets over stuff fast and recovers his peaceful countenance quickly...it will take me a bit more time.

Beware the ides of March...maybe 'be aware' the ides of March should be my motto this time of year but you never see it coming.

SooZen

Note: because I don't have the energy to write this whole thing more than once...it will be posted more than one place that I tend to write in.

[stilltrucking]

Note: because I don't have the energy to write this whole thing more than once...it will be posted more than one place that I tend to write in.

I know. Sometimes I will write the same snippet over and over. Each time I write it again from memory more information emerges. The more I see it as it was. I wish I could see what Nate sees. Husserl who I think was a zennists even if he didn’t know it-he had this bit about bracketing the world to see it as a child for the first time. I came here to write a macabre Friday bit about funerals. But I think I will work on it some more. Sleeping on an island doesn’t sound too bad. Just visualize the sound of the surf.

Excellent snip SooZen,
Thanks

[Arcadia]

march is a con-motion month for me too every year but for other reasons.
I hope you find confort in your house again soon.
un beso,

Arcadia

[stilltrucking]

I hope you find confort in your house again soon.

ten four

I wish you could get Nate a panic button, they got these refurbished disposable cell phones, tracfone.com
like 29.95 with a hundred minutes talk time. You have to buy more time every two months to keep them activated half hour for about ten bucks would do it. If you could rig it so he would have just one button marked in red to push to reach you on another cell phone...
just a thought. Nate is an artist not a plumber.

soggy treasures,

"I hate grave yards and old pawn shops
how they robbed me of my childhood Souvenirs"

[sooZen]

Thanks for the kiss Arcadia...I needed it. I hope your March marches away with no great problemo.

ST...thank you also. That cell phone idea is great and I will check into it. Nathan likes to be left alone (after all he is an adult) but it is always risky. He doesn't like momma always worrying about him and if we didn't leave him occasionally, we would never get out of the house for a break. I told him the next time to go to the neighbors house and ask for help and Cec is going to give him rudimentary toliet fixing measures.

[Lightning Rod]

this is a great snippet, sooz.

sorry about the disaster.

this is something I wrote a few weeks ago about tsunamis

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In Lampasas, Texas there is a little golf course that straddles the banks of Sulphur Creek. When I was a child, my grandfather was the pro at this golf course and also ran the municipal swimming pool that was there. The pool was approximately Olympic sized but not rectangular. It was filled from a spring that also fed Sulphur Creek. The water bubbled from the ground and it was COLD. When you swam in the pool, it would only be three or four minutes until your lips and fingernails turned blue. We didn't put chlorine in the water, we drained the whole pool once a week and refilled it. The water was free.

When I was around ten years old I would spend summers with my grandparents who lived in an apartment which was on the second floor of the clubhouse building overlooking the pool. One year there were heavy rains. This happens on occasion in Central Texas. There was enough rain to turn Sulphur Creek from a crystal clear spring creek into the muddy torrent of a flood creek. The waters rose to about six feet deep in the second floor apartment.

One of my uncles was the local doctor and lived about a mile up the road from the park. When the waters subsided they found my uncle's ten foot long deep freezer in the swimming pool still full of venison. Water is powerful. You can drown in a half cup of it. I can barely imagine a twenty foot tall wave moving as fast as a freight train carrying refrigerators and cars and dead bodies and small houses.