Geysers

Oy.

Gevalt.

At about 11:00 this morning I heard the sound of a rainstorm, but oddly enough no rain was falling on the back deck. Impossible for it to be raining in the front, but not the back. Then I realized the entire rainstorm was coming from the garage. A pipe in the far corner by the garage door had apparently burst and the ice was now thawing. The geyser that greeted me was rather, well, astonishing. I'd only slept 3-4 hours the night before, thanks to this dreadful cough, so I was a bit hazy in my thinking. I managed to call Dean at work, but he didn't answer. I called our neighbor and managed to sputter something like, "Doug (her husband)? Garage... flooded! Ack... oof." Doug was not home. She offered to come over and take the kids while I sorted this out. The burst pipe was just above the cement hole that houses the shut-off valve. I dove in to the gushing spout, reached into the murky water, and after several attempts got the shut-off valve turned. Then I changed clothes.

I got a hold of Dean at work. He had been there a whole 30 minutes already. He finished up and came home. Seven hours and three trips out and after consultations with the neighbor, who was now home, Dean got it jerry-rigged well enough that we could turn the water back on and (please, hashem) have it hold until a plumber can come out. Which will probably be Friday given that it's a holiday.

At last we proceeded with channukah lights and beignets. We're all exhausted. I really hope I get to sleep tonight before 5:00. I really don't like having our whole routine messed up. It's been a weird couple of weeks with the trip to Milwaukee, the snow storms, then many of us coughing and coughing. I've been really out of it. I have no voice, so we can't even do our readaloud learning (torah, Hebrew, stories). I'm hoping, hoping, hoping I'm better by Monday. There are so many things I want to do with the kids. Here's to a better Thursday.