May 2006 Blog Archives

May Articles

An Introduction

Leaky Pipes and Midnights Always Get Me Down, Part 1--1/28

An Introduction

The View From My Perch is a name that my husband suggested for my blog because of my office, which is an enclosed sleeping porch on the second floor of our old farmhouse. From there, I look down at the neighborhood, watching everything that happens on this side of the house. He says I’m like a bird on a perch.

We have firsthand knowledge of perched birds because we own His Highness, Winston the African Grey Parrot. Parrots love to sit on their perches, scrutinizing the world around them. They are notoriously opinionated and let everyone around them know what they’re thinking, one way or another. Many of them have a wicked sense of humor. Winston drops things on the dog and yells, Zeus! Bad, bad, bad dog! I always have the feeling that behind those little pinpointing eyes, Winston is laughing at all of us.

While I have a perch, and I scrutinize the neighborhood, I’m not as bad as a parrot. I do have strong opinions but I understand that to get along with people in general I need to keep my mouth shut about certain things and try not to offend by blabbering indiscriminately. But sometimes that’s hard. I’ve been accused of being facetious. A sarcasm spitter. One could interpret that as a wicked sense of humor. I love to laugh. I try to see life and people through the filter of humor, especially at the worst of times.

All that to explain that my personal blog is my platform (or perch, if you will) for me to air my facetious commentary on life. A glimpse of the world through the filter of my mind. Once a week, I’ll publish an essay. To make things fun, many of my entries will be serialized. Okay, maybe not fun for people who want the end of the story immediately, but a good thing for me. When I know you’re coming back for the rest, I have good reason to keep spitting out words.

So, come back. My first essay will be Sunday night.

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May 28, 2006

Leaky Pipes and Midnights Always Get Me Down Pt. 1

Part 1 – Friday Night
Before I begin, I’d like to point out that over time you’ll notice my propensity for butchering oldie song titles and using them for my own. I would love for you to try to guess the real names of the songs, as well as the groups that performed them. I’ll tell you the answer to this essay’s title next Sunday when I publish the conclusion.

And now on to my regularly scheduled article. . .

Owning an old house means dealing with old things. Duh, you say. That could have gone without saying. Well yes, except that our old house gives someone like me lots of humorous fodder for blog articles. Unfortunately, what is humor for me isn’t exactly a laughing matter for my husband—at least not at certain moments.

He has invented some new and creative ways to express things. For example, URG said at the top of his lungs might mean, “Well, now how about that? The plaster ceiling just fell on my head sprinkling me with seventy years of dust, wet plaster, and old mouse poop.”

In our house, the old situation is made worse by the fact that the guy who did most of the “recent” work (in the 70’s) didn’t know what he was doing. So, we have things like live wires that go nowhere and pipes that aren’t the right size or that were creased when installed. We even have some pipes with nails through them. To be fair, we’re not sure who did the nail thing.

What we do know for sure is that nails through pipes aren’t good. That also could go without saying, except that I should explain that if a nail stays in a pipe, it doesn’t leak immediately, so it’s not obvious. The nail acts like a plug until it rusts away little bit by little bit over years. And soon a drip becomes a small leak until finally the hole bursts open. As in this case.

(By the way, pipes are like certain African Grey parrots with no conscience named Winston. They don’t care how much damage they do. Ceilings, walls, floors, books, papers, framed art—all of it is fair game.)

So at around eleven at night, when Brad heard water dripping in the closet of his study, which is under the upstairs bathroom, he went to investigate and found (you guessed it) water. The ceiling was bulging and dripping, and the floor was soaked.

Now here’s the really great thing. (Can you believe there’s a great thing about this?) Until just recently, that closet was used to store framed pictures and art that I hadn’t yet decided what to do with. Some nice stuff that we inherited from Brad’s family. If I hadn’t been in a frenzy of house rearranging a couple months ago, the pictures and art would still have been in the closet, and everything would have been ruined.

So, let that be a lesson. The impulse to rearrange could be a sign of future plumbing problems.

Anyway, I was oblivious to the water leak discovery because I was in the midst of reading a gripping book about HTML, and I wasn’t paying attention to what was going on around me until the third crash came from the upstairs bathroom.

“Hey, what are you doing?” I hollered, thinking Brad was pointedly making noise to indicate that I had left something on the floor in the bathroom that he fell over. Being his height, he tends not to see things on the floor. Being me, I tend to leave things on the floor.

“Trying to find a leak,” he hollered back. Crash. Bang. “ARGAHG!”

I’ll pause here to say that crashing and banging is all part of the process of fixing leaky pipes and other broken things, as is the making up of new words.

And so it went. The drama tore me away from my riveting reading. By one in the morning, the rest of the ceiling in the closet had fallen on Brad’s head, the floor in the upstairs bathroom closet was ripped out, and the decision was made that the leak couldn’t be fixed that night. The water had to be turned off until the next day.

I wasn’t planning to take a shower at that time of night, but perversely, knowing I couldn’t, I wanted to, even though I’d already had one. However, I didn’t dare say a word. Brad wasn’t in a good mood, not that I blame him. And he had to work the next day, so he had to get up really early to try to fix the leak before he left for work. I didn’t bother to tell him that’s what happens when you’re Mr. I Can Fix Everything Myself Including the Plumbing Guy. (And he can.)

Needless to say, neither of us slept well. Brad didn’t because he knew what he had to do the next morning. Me, out of sympathy for him.

As I close the first part of this blog entry, I’d like to say that Brad and I aren’t perfect. By that I mean, little sleep, no water, and falling ceilings aren’t conducive to being the picture-perfect, loving couple. What? You exclaim. You weren’t laughing, joking, and being affectionate as the closet ceiling was falling on Brad’s head and the pipe spewed water?

Right. Exactly. Although I am prone to find humor in things other people might not find funny, wisdom dictates there are certain times that even I don’t laugh. This was one of those times. But I was mighty tempted.

With that, I’ll leave you anticipating the exciting conclusion next week. Will the pipes be fixed? Will Brad and Candice fight? Will Candice finish her book? You have a fifty percent chance to get each answer right.

Now, can you tell me what song I stole that title from? And what group performed it?

Sorry, no prizes if you do. Just the satisfaction of knowing you were right.

May 31, 2006

This, Too, Shall Pass

This, too, shall pass is a platitude often said by well meaning friends or family to friends and family when bad things happen. I find it irritating, but to give the wishers of this annoying bromide the benefit of the doubt, they probably can’t think of anything else to say and they don’t like to see anyone upset, so instead of just giving someone a hug, they blurt the first thing that comes to the tip of their tongue. Oh, don’t worry, honey. Be patient. This, too, will pass.

On the other hand, there’s also the possibility that they just think you’re overreacting, and you should get over it.

For instance, your husband has discovered a leaking pipe in the ceiling. The ceiling falls on his head, so he’s covered with wet plaster and old wet mouse poop. (See my blog entry of May 28th.) You stand there frowning because the vein in his neck is pulsing, and he’s making up words. Of course, in similar circumstances, you would never allow a vein in your neck to pulse while you made up words. YOU are perfect. YOU are ALWAYS patient. YOU are just SO SPIRITUAL. So, you cross your arms and say, Tut, tut. Why are you overreacting? This, too, shall pass. After all, it’s ONLY a leaky pipe.

Here’s some advice from me. This platitude might tumble easily from the tongue of a cliché virtuoso, but the receiver often doesn’t take it well. Even if the receiver doesn’t gnash his teeth while the vein in his temple starts to keep beat with the one in his neck, AND even if he doesn’t say, If you don’t shut up and go away now, I’m going to share this wet plaster and mouse poop with you in a way that you won’t like, he might be thinking it.

(No, I didn’t say that to my husband. And I didn’t even think it. I can’t judge anyone. I have a vein that pulses, too.)

Okay, for those of you who are history buffs, I can’t find one particular source for this platitude. I suspect it’s a combination of things. Perhaps one of its origins was Scripture.

For verily I say unto you, That whosoever shall say unto this mountain, Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea; and shall not doubt in his heart, but shall believe that those things which he saith shall come to pass; he shall have whatsoever he saith. Mark 11:23

This is an awesome Scripture, by the way, but it’s very easy to use as a battering ram to beat faith into people. Pious citations that make someone feel worse than better (like today’s platitude). Sometimes we need to apply the whole wisdom of God—take into account other Scriptures like, Ecclesiastes 3:4: A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance. . .

Here are two other quotes. I guess you know which one is my favorite:

Expect trouble as an inevitable part of life and repeat to yourself, the most comforting words of all; This, too, shall pass.
Ann Landers
American advice columnist, 1918-2002

This too shall pass - just like a kidney stone
Hunter Madsen

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