Here's what Moose noticed on the wall of the breakfast nook this morning, as she was putting the a.m. load of carbs and proteins on the table:
(Photo Credit: Moose, 2/9/09)I told you it wouldn't be pretty if she saw signs that ice dams were starting to force water into the walls of the house. I told you there'd be hell to pay, and indeed there was, as Moose stuffed an egg and two orange danish (snow day diet, obviously) into her mouth, while stealing dark, sidelong glances at the ugly blister on the wall. She downed her orange juice in one angry gulp and pounded up the stairs to get into her snow gear. She didn't even stop to make the bed -- and the moms firmly believe that beds must be made every day in order to keep the forces of barbarism at bay.
When she came back downstairs, she had a wild yet determined look in her eye. "I am taking a hammer with me," she announced to Goose. She ordered Goose to venture down under the deck to retrieve the ladder so that she could get up to the gutters to do whatever she had to do to clear a path for the water. While Goose dug a path to the ladder, Moose frantically shoveled the deck, getting the snow away from the house, pounding the hammer against the wall to break up the ice. She was . . . possessed. She spent the next three hours shoveling and banging, moving the ladder from here to there, wiping ice out of her eyes, accidentally throwing piles of icy snow down on poor Goose's head. I hate to steal a page from GayProf, but there really is no better way to describe what Moose looks like in these transcendentally crazy I will strike the snow if it insults me moments. She looked like this:
(Image Credit: Picked up here.)Meanwhile, just a few miles from Roxie's World, First Dog of the United States, Bo, cavorted happily on the grounds of the White House:
(Photo Credit: Pete Souza, Official White House Photo, via)For the moment, the house is warm and dry. The snow is piling up on the deck again, and who knows what tomorrow will bring? Moose sits quietly in her red chair, muscles pleasantly aching and fire happily cracking. She wonders languidly if there are ice dams in the White House. Damn, she thinks, I bet Michelle wouldn't put up with that $hit. I bet she'd bang the hell out of the gutters on that joint if there was water in her breakfast nook. Girl would not put up with that. No way.
Peace out, snow angels. And lord let the power stay on!
Fact is, our architect was always worried about that part of our house (the part that enabled the water to creep in) -- it's a beautiful part, where the pitch of the big ole room and the pitch of the old house come together with the screened-in porch and the kitchen and there are more angles there than anywhere. Thanks to our wonderful architect, they are gorgeous in relationship, but arranging them, even with copper flashes, does not seem to have staved off the sheer power of the material, the strength of physical being, and so the water, which will always find its way, crept back in. Such is life. We learned *that* with the first round of ice dams in the old version of the house, and we learned that again in building the new house -- anything torn down or in any way deteriorated can be rebuilt, can come back. That's the way it is, and that's the way it should be, and as we too often don't remember that about the human condition and in human relationships.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, only tomorrow will tell how many inches we'll need to dig through to reach the outside world -- in the mean time, party on, kids!!! Life's sweet, even when encased in snow.
--Goose
I'm with ya, Moose! If I could, I'd be up on the roof of my building, shovelling off the snow myself. The ice WILL NOT WIN!
ReplyDeleteI'm also with the moms on the need to make beds to hold the forces of barbarism at bay. Nothing says "all is right in the world" like a neatly made bed.