The wind knocks restlessly on the roof and through the courtyard the sound of the evening traffic reaches the house, the woosh of an occasional car and the put-put-put of a skooter sweeping off somewhere into the falling night. Today was mild and warm. The first day of spring perhaps, but each time we take that long, satisfying sigh of relief, another cold front leaps upon us. Winter was aggressive only because this house is poorly insulated and the electricity shorts out with the usage of very few appliances at once. We put on hats and gloves and wrapped our necks in scarves each night when we gathered around the dinner table and sat shivering as we ate. We created a system in which we kept the heaters in the big room turned up as high as the circuits would allow and tried to remember always to turn them off before using the vacuum cleaner, toaster-oven or coffee machine. We are fortunate enough to have both a toaster-oven and a coffee machine. They just cannot be used at the same time.
We were thankful that our electricity usage was so carefully regulated, keeping the electricity bills down and wearing less on our delicate environment. We also learned lessons in water conservation this winter. It began first with a clogged pipe, somewhere between the shower and the kitchen sink. We began to notice strange things surfacing in the shower. At first it was just chunks and flakes of unexpected colors. Over the following days, the unidentified blobs took form and it was clear that what went down the kitchen drain was coming up in the shower. While rinsing shampoo from my hair, I would look down to see capellini or rice vermicelli slithering slyly between my toes. In order to maximize our benefits, we discussed recycling what the shower provided. Adding some fresh onions, chili, tomato sauce, a nice parmesan, salt and pepper, always succeeds at refreshing leftovers. However, we decided against it for obvious reasons.
After about a week of this and several bottles of De-stop down the drain to no avail, we took a plunger to the shower aggressively for about a half an hour. What at first seemed a success turned into an equal, but different disaster. Somewhere in the elusive networking of pipes, there was a rupture. This we found out after exiting triumphant from the first shower free of breakfast, lunch and dinner, to find that all of the water that had seemed to so productively disappear down the drain had actually leaked out into the house forming little ponds in unexpected places, trickling away from the bathroom, beneath the tiled kitchen floor and into the office/bedroom sizzling pleasingly as it seeped into the computer placed on the floor beside the desk. How we might profit from this difficulty was less evident than the original problem but not impossible. During an especially harsh cold wave when we could see our breaths curling white against the air of the living-room, we discussed ice skating, but the ponds never froze over.
Perhaps we were all secretly having fun, or perhaps there were some of us that really believed the problem would fix itself, but for whatever reason, it took a good two weeks before a plumber was called in. Or the original construction company was called to send a plumber. I had already stopped looking for explanations when they sent instead an electrician. The electrician looked around, scratched his head and said what we’d expect him to say, “You’ll have to get a plumber for this one.” A week and a half later, a builder came who broke down the walls that hid the pipes, and two days after that, the plumber, to fix the pipes.
Today, as spring wakes slowly, our plumbing is in perfect working order and beside the toilet is a breathtaking view of the plumbing through a wall which was never repaired.
I don’t mind the wall as long as everything’s working.
I find I feel more at home than I’ve felt in years maybe. I bought a small Himalayan salt lamp for the bedroom that glows in soft amber. I'm not alone in the house anymore and in the next room JB is playing a soft melody in a major key on guitar that washes away the sound of the traffic and the wind has gone away. In wafts the sent of Marine’s cooking from the kitchen signaling that it’s time for us all to sit down and eat.
