Water Everywhere
When the rainy season decided to start, it started. Every day this week there has been rain, occasionally punctuated with brief moments of high blue sky and scudding clouds. Today has been unrelievedly dreary and wet and cold. Spouse, in his guise as Superhero, clawed his way through the ceiling of Younger Girl's closet and found what he believes to be the source of all our discontent: some of the flashing over the Dutch gutter over the bathroom (which is set in about three feet from the side of the house) is corroded. So he was able to put a catch pan up in the innards of the roof; we can change it every day and there will be no further leakage into the house.
Stirred by his example, I finally reorganized the linen closet, which was about to explode (linen closets, at least in my house, are utilized mostly by people who rummage without respect to order, and leave them in worse shape than when they found them. I do not except myself in this). Then I tidied up the bathroom cabinet, in which it was impossible to find anything one really needed. At the end of this process Spouse had finished tearing out all the remaining insulation over that closet, and I was enlisted to help clear out the vast quantity of debris (wet-mouse-smelling insulation, flakes of paint, chunks of plaster and lathe). Then we sprayed the closet with Lysol, in the hopes of laying the last of the mold to rest, and set a heater in there to warm up the last of the damp plaster. Then YG and I went to work, reinstaling all the belongings that had been removed when she fled the room the other night.
Those who have small children will perhaps recognize this sentiment: if I'd done it myself I'd have been half as tired. Getting an almost nine-year-old who is not interested in cleaning her room to clean her room is Augean Stables-calibre work. In the end, however, she was awed by how good things look. It will last a week, of course, but at least it's done, and it no longer smells like a large, wet hound in there.
Sarcasm Girl spent the day up in her aerie, working on a school project and being fourteen, which seems to take up an inordinate amount of energy. I feel like I've been beaten all over with small sticks, but I probably haven't.
Stirred by his example, I finally reorganized the linen closet, which was about to explode (linen closets, at least in my house, are utilized mostly by people who rummage without respect to order, and leave them in worse shape than when they found them. I do not except myself in this). Then I tidied up the bathroom cabinet, in which it was impossible to find anything one really needed. At the end of this process Spouse had finished tearing out all the remaining insulation over that closet, and I was enlisted to help clear out the vast quantity of debris (wet-mouse-smelling insulation, flakes of paint, chunks of plaster and lathe). Then we sprayed the closet with Lysol, in the hopes of laying the last of the mold to rest, and set a heater in there to warm up the last of the damp plaster. Then YG and I went to work, reinstaling all the belongings that had been removed when she fled the room the other night.
Those who have small children will perhaps recognize this sentiment: if I'd done it myself I'd have been half as tired. Getting an almost nine-year-old who is not interested in cleaning her room to clean her room is Augean Stables-calibre work. In the end, however, she was awed by how good things look. It will last a week, of course, but at least it's done, and it no longer smells like a large, wet hound in there.
Sarcasm Girl spent the day up in her aerie, working on a school project and being fourteen, which seems to take up an inordinate amount of energy. I feel like I've been beaten all over with small sticks, but I probably haven't.
posted by Madeleine Robins at 8:51 PM
1 Comments:
I'm always delighted to see you, Claire--but the cleaning up part has been taken care of (unless the roofer does something truly horrifying). You like rain, don't you? We certainly have a lot of it here. You could put it in boxes and peddle it as an exotic commodity.
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