Things Life Teaches Us

Our condo community is usually pretty quiet.  Plumbing malfunctions have altered that for some time to come.  Drainage problems caused by aging have led to repair of the building drains.  The plumbing inside the units are good but the downstream pipes have narrowed due to a layer of many years of grease and what-not.  The noise though is something else.  The main connections are right under my kitchen and I have periodically spent the day somewhere else anywhere else.  It's posted by the mail boxes when it's happening and if the water will be off. Once someone weekending in the vacant unit downstairs here "borrowed" the coin-op washer on our floor and loaded it up with a king-size quilt and left. It flooded the hallway and several of the storage units below it. It also ruined the hardwood entry floor of my neighbor.  It was repaired in a couple of weeks and after much finger-waving it got paid for and by the absentee owner. Things happen.

Then  another watery thing happened in the same vacant unit in the basement near our storage spaces. The condo above it had a leak in a shower. Every day it was depositing layer after layer of water down there for a long time.  The out of state owners have no one here to check on it and wouldn't allow the condo board a key. It was discovered by a neighbor who was down there checking her storage to find a flood in the hallway.

One of the local restoration companies was called and the whole 1700 sq. ft. had 4-5" inches of standing water in it. Soaked up the walls. Everything was moldy. Appliances had rusted. I'm sure you get it. So we were told to visit our storage (which were miraculously untouched) because it would all be sealed up for about two weeks. The damaged home was emptied out of all loose things and giant tubes exhaling damp air were installed at every window to exhaust the damp. Noise wasn't too bad.

After three weeks the serious tear down began. The owners were poopy neighbors although this last thing was not their fault except for the access business. Then they sold the sodden place to the restoration company who understands it cannot become a rental anymore per the condo rules. So maybe it's a good thing for everyone.  The the shower owner moved out for two weeks at her home was repaired.  The restoration people are nice polite young guys and just got everything stripped down to the studs although one of them told me they replaced most of those too.  So except for the fews weeks of grungy smell into the parking lot it hasn't been too bad.

Meanwhile the nighbor (the board president) next to me remodeled his place: we share a wall and the noise was hideous. Dueling saws in my kitchen, for days. Then the plumbling repairs have begun again and they are right under my kitchen too, same noise. Hells bells. Yesterday an early bird started sawing at 7:30am. I put my sweatpants over my jammies and me and my bedhead went down to check it out. I was polite, and I'm glad because it turns out it was the newly hired property manager couple. The board president had scheduled a plumber to finish the plumbing at 8am and had promised an access hole would be cut. He didn't want to pay the plumber to do it but he forgot to do anything about so El President called these people up at 6am and got them over here;. Yes, yes, being on the board can be a thankless job. Bugger.  Then they mentioned that the water was going off too and no one in the building knew about it.  And I had company company coming. I thanked them, mentioned advance notice would be good next time and dragged my wheezy self up the stairs and went over to El President's house. He wasn't happy to see me. But by the time I got there I couldn't breathe after climbing the stairs, COPD, I do forget. So when he opened the door I couldn't deliver get my well justified b.....ing, just a gasps. "no water" wheeze "no shower" cough cough "no notice" " company coming." Thought I was going to pass out. I'm sure my lips were turning blue, he looked horrified and I just went home, very slowly.

I sat down, took my meds, called my daughter-in-law Heather "got room for me, no water, no coffee, wah, wah" She just asked if I could drive, "yes," and told me that she'd have coffee and breakfast for me when I got there.  I packed my clean clothes, rescheduled my visitors, and ran away from home. My God what a blessing Heather has been.  Makes me want to cry. Scrambled eggs and coffee and people who love me.  Life is good.

The Sound of Rain

A noisy, wild storm showed up last night. The trees took beating again and the roads have roof shingles on them. No one was injured. Power lines were down a block from me but it didn't go out here just kept blinking off and on. I finally turned everything off and went to bed with book and fell asleep in spite of the racket. Good evening to stay in. We do need the rain in Eastern WA but still...

Photo courtesy Henry Hubbard

Not now I'm Watching Something

I love movies and I'm a fan of Asian film.  In early grade school when my family lived in Honolulu my Dad took us to Japanese movies. Early Kurosawa and others. While my former classmates in Portland, Oregon were watching Cowboys on Saturdays my sister and I were watching Samurai's. It stuck. I have (on DVD) all Kurosawa's films with Toshiro Mifune.  Later I branched out.

Mifune and Kurosawa on the set of "Seven Samurai" - photo NPR 2016

Now I'm up to episode 47 of 53 of "All Quiet in Peking." It's set in the last months of the Republic of China (1949).  I was 7 then, in Honolulu and oblivious to China's struggles and civil war. I'm watching it for the second time.  It's on Netflix, in Chinese (Mandarin) with subtitles. The first time I spent A LOT of time backing up and re-reading the dialog for scenes that were visually involved.  It is a great drama. Well done and visually interesting. But who were those people? How real is this? So I went to the library and online. There is so much going on with China now and it affects us in many ways.  I can't pretend I know much. But now with some historical background, maps and a small history of our involvement with China during WWII and after it's like watching a completely different series.  It's also got me staying up until the wee hours reluctant to let go of the story line.

It's overcast and blah here today so I'm going to see "Avengers, Affinity War" this afternoon.  Both my sons and all my grandkids went, without me, bunch of weasels, I guess I was supposed go into sweet old grandma mode and say "that's OK sweeties."  Fat chance weaselly offspring.  They all want to talk about what happened but it's verboten, no ruining for me.  Eleven year old Adam says "you're going cry." Probably, my Grandfather used to cry at some movies. Runs in the family. Oldest son wants to see it again so I'll have company.

Meanwhile I swept my patio, trimmed and finally remembered to water my only two (potted) plants, a hearty lavender and a tall, heat proof grass.  Except for a couple of spectacular lightening storms with gully washers we've really had little rain. I need to be better about the watering.  I kill off the weedy things that spring up in the rock covered edging by pouring boiling water on them.  There aren't too many, mostly clover and boiling water leaves no chemical residue harmful to birds and small barefoot children. Later today I will take a break from "Peking" and start the second PD James novel I got from the library.  Hope your weekend has been good.