Friday Five, Raindrops Keep Falling

I know many parts of the country are suffering from a terrible drought. I wish I could give them some of our rain. We’re seventeen (yes, 17) inches above normal.

Most of the time, I love rain. It fact, I love the extra 17 inches. Except that those extra inches are coming into my house. Normally, when there's excess water we have a basement issues. This time, it's the roof.

And it wasn't, "Oh, look, there's a water spot on the ceiling." It was, "Oh, look, the shelf of books from the 1800s is swimming in water and the books are ruined. And, "Oh, look, another room has water dripping down the walls." And "Oh, look, the area around the fireplace in our bedroom in leaking and water is dripping down one of Cal's paintings."

So we called roofers, and they inspected. (I didn’t really expect to have roofing problems since we had the roof stripped down to the decking and replaced just over six years ago.) In any case, according to the new roofers—not the losers who did our re-roofing—we have a section of roof that needs to be replaced, leaks that need patching, and flashing that needs to be redone because the original roofers did it wrong.

They made an appointment to come on Tuesday or Wednesday. It’s Friday, and they still aren’t here.

So I’m beginning to wonder why. Here are my theories.

1. The roofers have no plans to fix the roof. They have a sadistic need that forces them to go from house to house stressing out homeowners on the state of their roofs.

2. My children are paying the roofers money to stay away so they can find out how long it takes me to “snap” due to the stress of having books, furniture etc., stacked all over the house to protect them from water damage.

3. The roofers are waiting for the next deluge so they can charge extra for working in the rain.

4. Since my laptop is now fixed (even the repair people are surprised it’s working), I need a new source of patience-producing frustration.

5. The roofers are in cahoots with builders and they’re waiting for a good case of rot to set in. Or mildew. Or paint damage—oops already got that.

Maybe we need to rethink our roof and go with this. But I wonder how you’d mow it. Or do you have to buy a goat and let him do the trimming?

Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

Raindrops Keep Falling on the Computer

On Sunday, a huge band of storms moved into the area where we live. By Monday morning, a huge puddle had formed in our library (sounds fancy, but it’s just an oddly shaped room where we have a lot of bookcases). The puddle engulfed a computer.

Thankfully, the computer didn’t short-circuit (and none of the books were ruined—they were on the other side of the room). So we moved the furniture. We mopped floors and wiped walls and ceilings. Of course, the storm kept storming. We put basins, bowls, and towels everywhere.

Cal bought tar and went on the roof. Our roof was entirely replaced five years ago, but the warranty has expired. Of course. In order to give you a visual picture I have to describe Cal. He was wearing jeans with cut-off sweat pants over top to stay warm and a sweatshirt. But it was raining heavily, but he didn’t want to get his raincoat wet. So we got a contractor’s plastic bag and cut out head and arm holes. Then he put on a wide brimmed hat—I wish I’d taken a picture.

So he slapped tar all over the roof seams where one part of the roof attaches to the house. It’s a “vintage” home, code word for very old, so the roof does all kinds of weird things. After an hour, he came down. It seemed to help. Sort of.

On Tuesday, the leaking got worse. Cal bought more roof repair stuff—being that we own a “vintage” home, he’s on a first name basis with the Ace Hardware people. So he went and slopped more tar and plastic mesh on the roof seams. Halfway through, he came into the house. The bad thing was that Cal was wearing black shoes and didn’t realize that he had tar on his shoes until he’d tromped all over the house. It was especially evident on the winter white carpeting (so not my choice of colors). He called me. I took one look at the floor and said, “Oh, ‘cow poop.’” Okay, “cow poop” isn’t the word I used.

In case you don’t know, the only thing that gets lumps of footprinted tar off of carpet is turpentine.

It all seemed worth it when the leaks stopped. In spite of heavy rain, the roof stopped leaking for four hours. Then, the leaks started again. And not even lighter. Just as heavy as before, if not heavier.

So it’s time to call a roof repair company. And I’ll begin to ponder my new project—patching the walls and and ceiling, and then painting. Sigh.

A Wet Slipper

This morning dawned dark, and rainy, but that was okay because I let myself sleep an extra half hour—what else are dreary days for? I dragged myself from my warm covers to the kitchen to boil water for coffee. Yes, we use a French press—it’s the only way to experience caffeine the way God intended. After I put the kettle on, I stepped into a puddle in the middle of the kitchen.

Normally, any unexplained puddle of water is blamed on Jezebel. But even my befuddled brain knew that since she was still in her kennel there was no way that I could blame her. I took off my wet slipper and sniffed. Rainwater. Not good. So not good. That this point a little adrenaline made its way to my brain, and I heard a dripping sound followed by a splash.

Rainwater was leaking from the middle of the window frame, splashing onto the ledge, spilling onto the counter, racing over the edge, pouring to the floor, and streaming to the puddle into the middle of the kitchen floor. Heavy sigh.

Cal got up and said, “How’s the basement?”
Me: Basement’s good. Kitchen’s bad. (See, I really need that first blast of caffeine.)
Cal: The kitchen?
Me: My slipper’s wet.
Cal: Right. (Cal knows that there’s a connection somewhere, and I’ll get around to it.)
Me: The window frame’s leaking, hits the ledge, flows onto the counter, hits the floor, runs to the middle of the kitchen. And I stepped in it.
Cal: Oh, guess we’ll have to do something.
Me: I cleaned it up and put a bowl under the drip.
Cal: I mean so it doesn’t leak anymore.
Me: Right.
Cal: I was thinking of sealant and flashing. It might be a bit ugly.
Me: But the kitchen will be dry, and my slipper won’t get wet. (I really hate wet slippers.)
Cal: Precisely.
Me: I can live with ugly. Now, if only there were a way to uglify the basement.

The Law of Averages

No, this post isn’t about math (sorry, you math-o-philia-ities)…well, it’s a little bit about math. You know how everywhere has an average rainfall for the year, well, here in Chattanooga the average yearly rainfall is 54.52 inches. Last year we had a drought and ended up way behind in rain. This year things were looking pretty dismal too. But, and here’s where the law of averages comes in, the thing about average rainfall is that sooner of later you catch up. Sadly, it seems to be happening at all once.

Last week, it rained and rained and rained some more. And that was great—plants drink in the moisture, depleted reservoirs fill, and basements flood. Yes, basements. Most houses in Chattanooga don’t have a basement, and there’s a reason. Flooding. Our basement floods, that’s why it has a drain in the corner. (It ought to be in the middle, where the lowest point is. I’d normally say that the engineer got his/her degree from an internet diploma mill, but since the house was built in 1940, I don’t suppose that will work.)

Early in the week, we suspected the basement would flood, so Calvin took the plastic bins and cardboard boxes and stacked them in nice piles. The idea was to keep everything as dry as possible. But, at some point, like a house of cards, the boxes tumbled. No one knew this until I went downstairs to put away a couple of Christmas things… Now in case you’ve never stumbled onto a scene of epic disorder, let me explain: there is a moment when you look upon the chaos and your brain tries to fit it into some kind of harmony. “Surely this can’t be a catastrophe of soaked boxes floating in a sea of mildew-y rainwater.” Of course, your brain gives up, and the reality of disaster follows closely afterward. The next thing that hits you is that the person who stacked this tragedy is currently out giving your 16 year old daughter driving lessons and will not be around anytime soon. In case you haven’t guessed, at this point you yell, “Arugh!” (After this, you call your husband and whine very loudly about your suffering. He doesn’t seem too concerned as he is instructing your daughter how to navigate a narrow ridge road without driving over the edge.)

Then you call your three sons and inform them that they will be taking their father’s place in this debacle. Now, you should be aware that the two youngest sons, who are card-carrying members of the “communist workers’ brigade,” aren’t eager to help, but they are willing, especially since they’ll be conscripted anyway. So they get assigned to wash the toys and toy bins. Apparently, they were confused and thought this entailed throwing soap bubbles at each other and spilling water on the kitchen floor. Suffice it to say, they now know it’s NOT part of the plan.

The 18 year old bears the brunt of the labor—he’s the only one strong enough to carry 30 rolls of soaked toilet paper out of the basement into the rubbish bin. He also carried out the bins of soaked books, clothes, and blankets. Unfortunately, there are no medals for meritorious service during a basement flooding. Oh, well.
Later that night, when you sit with your beloved trying to figure out how this came about, it hits you. It’s the mouse in the basement that refuses to be caught—this is his revenge for the traps. It’s going to be a long winter…