I drove to Saginaw last weekend to visit our younger daughter, Lisa, who’s living in the cozy brick 1870s farmhouse where Joe and I raised her sister and her.
An innovative cook, she was planning a lunch for my two dear friends and me. She’d spent Friday evening baking bread and creating delicious custard.
In mid-morning on Saturday, she opened the refrigerator and gasped. “Mom, it’s huffing warm air!” What?? I rushed into the kitchen. It was! I opened the freezer compartment. Drip. Drip.
Hastily we boxed all perishables and set them outside the front door in the forty-degree weather. Rats! Now what?
Fifteen years ago the previous refrigerator had failed, so I’d purchased this reconditioned one for $150. It had performed flawlessly until now.
Desperate, but inspired, I rang the same shop. They had no reconditioned models today, the salesman said, but - there was one new white scratch-and-dent Frigidaire that opened in the right direction. The marks on its side would be invisible. The price was perfect. Alas, it couldn’t be delivered until Monday: he had to mind the store. I was mute with disappointment. But then, after a little silence, he said, slowly, “I might be able to find someone to cover for an hour…I’ll call you back.”
Ten minutes later the phone rang: He’d found help!
Within forty-five minutes the new refrigerator was delivered, and the old one hauled away. Furthermore, the guy remembered our house, which I found remarkable.
Back in Traverse City a day later, I wearily surveyed the plaster dust, paint cans and piled up chairs. The kitchen redo was into its third week, and the bleak weather - it was sleeting - didn’t help my mood.
Suddenly sunlight shot through the clouds, highlighting golden leaves piled high in spots. Patches of grass sparkled with slivers of sleet. The huge plumed orange, red and brown miscanthus grasses swayed sensuously. And, a rainbow was developing! Staring, I lowered the dripping brush, leaving a streak of Victorian Lace on my overalls. The light was lovely out there, and I’d almost missed it!
I ran outside to stand on the front sidewalk. The rainbow framed the rich reddish-purple leaves of the Fairy Garden’s dogwood tree, and the freshly painted iron fence set off the weeping birch’s shimmering golden cascade. Rain made everything shine —
I came to earth with a bump. Hey! A squirrel was tugging at a porch roof shingle! He worked a little piece loose and flitted down the lilac tree, holding it in his mouth. Egad! My elderly roof was becoming nest lining!
Uh-oh! Binoculars revealed other missing or crooked shingles dislodged by that recent two-day windstorm. I’d been too busy inside to appreciate the damage it had sustained.
An attic inspection revealed a seven-inch crack right at the roof’s edge; water had been slowly drip-dripping onto the attic floor. Les immediately sealed it, but I knew the twenty-five-year-old roof wouldn’t last the winter. Now, well into November, was it too late to re-roof?
Fortunately, we found a competent firm who will begin Monday to roof over the one I have. It’ll be a race to finish before snow stops everything.
During all this I shut my finger in the front door (and howled), spilled paint, tried to fix a dripping furnace humidifier, and worked out why the alarm kept indicating trouble where nothing seemed amiss. Lately, my life consists of ‘plug here, patch there…’
There’s a Chinese proverb that goes something like this: One cannot manage too many affairs: like pumpkins in water, one pops up while you’re trying to hold down the other.
Oh, yeah.