The good, the bad, the electrical

I had some vague idea that this summer would be relaxing, that I could leisurely undertake some modest home improvements, that I could spend a couple hours each day working on a creative writing project, that I could imagine my courses for the fall as I planted hostas and watched my jalapeños grow. I thought that just maybe J and I would drink cocktails on the patio in the evening, marveling at our good fortune and savoring the fresh summer dinner that I’d just whipped up with delights from the farmer’s market. I’d even open the dreaded dissertation manuscript and start the revisions. Oh, and we’d surely travel to Michigan and then out East, for a meandering road trip in our new car.

All of this seemed possible as I packed my bags in Philadelphia. After all, the blogs I read each day make it seem so easy, so beautiful, so perfectly uncomplicated. So unreal. How did I forget that home improvement doesn’t actually happen in the space of a blog post? How did I forget that my relationship to writing is so vexed that I’d rather make the bed, mow the lawn, and pick up dog shit than sit down and put pen to paper? Why didn’t I remember that having a puppy is like losing an arm and having to work one handed, the other one constantly throwing the ball, removing the bottle cap (or the rock, the sock, the sleeping pill bottle (!), the drano bottle (!!), the shoe, the sandal, the rug) from that damned puppy jaw? And wait, what about this whole marriage thing? Why didn’t occur to me that it would actually take time and energy, patience and fortitude to negotiate all of this with another?

And so now, as we scramble to get out of town for one last breath of coastal air before the grind begins, I feel frantic, made ever more so by the first major house problem. A little bubble on the kitchen ceiling, one that I diagnosed even before I’d mounted the step stool turned into this:



Well, actually, this is the brand new fix. I was too horrified by the problem, I guess, to get a good picture of the old lead pipe (yes, it was actually lead) that was so contorted that it had practically split in two and was spilling toilet “water” into the ceiling. I’m trying to forget the fact that we had just had this ceiling redone a few weeks before. I’m also trying to forget the fact that this drama was playing out on top of our refrigerator. Gross.

The plumber was here all day yesterday, dashing out every hour or so because he was missing yet another part or tool to fix this decided singular set-up. He spent most of the time sawing cast iron and lead pipes, spewing metal filament all over the kitchen. In the fruit bowl, on every plate, glass, and mug. He draped the kitchen in a black snow. And so I spent last night drinking a stiff gin and tonic and mopping up the mess. This all would have been well and good had I not insisted on standing on the counter to wipe the top edge of the window trim. It was then that I noticed that all of his banging had actually dislodged a new light fixture above the sink. I was annoyed and wanted to see if I could sort of jimmy it back into place. I grabbed the metal bar and zap, I felt the shock shimmer up my arm. The light went out and I thought, huh, that was sort of weird, but I didn’t register the problem. So I turned off the switch and grabbed it again. Another zap and then another. I thought maybe I was losing my mind and so I made – forced, really – J to try it also. And of course, electricity knows no favorites and he got zapped also.

This struck me as truly bizarre. How could a fixture be zapping us if the circuit was turned off at the wall? I still don’t know. But a quick google search suggested that we were liable to burn our whole house down. And faced with an unlabeled breaker box (now on “the list”), we decided to be safe and flipped the entire house breaker. Good thing it’s summer and we found the flashlights beforehand. I took down the fixture today, resigned myself to calling an electrician, and I’m forcing myself to just walk away from it for the moment. Argh.



But wait, wasn’t this post going to be about everything evening out? About finding balance in the midst of struggle? Wasn’t I planning to linger on the good, the beautiful, the moment of grace that washed all of this away? Well, I was. Really, I was. But come to think of it, this moment has no beauty and has no grace. It’s just a hot day in Kentucky with a hole in our kitchen and a few singed hairs on our arms.

That last bit, well, that’s just a bit of narrative exaggeration for rhetorical effect. Arm hair remains healthy and growing.