One Crisis Averted

When I was married to an engineer, I never had to worry my pretty little head about opening a pickle jar, let alone dealing with a car that wouldn't start, a flooded basement, or ominous scratching noises coming from the attic. Very little goes wrong in the first place when you have loads of money, loads of knowledge, and nice new houses with state-of-the-art components installed.

Well, that was then. Lots of things go wrong now in this creaky old Victorian owned by a fiscally-challenged woman who's afraid to plug in her phone charger, let alone tackle a project that begins with, "locate your gas meter and shut it off." Although I'm actually amazed at how many new tricks this old dog has learned to do, new problems surface faster than I can learn to or afford to deal with them. These days I'm satisfied if I can just tell the difference between a real crisis and a major annoyance. If it's not life-threatening or guaranteed to lead to much worse in the future, I can live with a surprising amount of inconvenience.

Recently, I've been living with a bucket under a leak around my boiler. Well, under most of the leak. Turning down the heat even lower than usual (ouch!), washing the dishes in cold water, working out faithfully at the Y more for the hot showers than for the exercise, and making frequent trips down cellar to mop up and empty the bucket. Also tossing and turning a bit at night, wondering if the $$$ situation was going to improve enough to allow a visit from a licensed plumber before the intermittent dribble turned into a geyser.

Here's Amir watching his dad make the problem go away in about twenty minutes. Diagnosis: plumbing that was never up to code to start with. Black pipe (lacquered steel) fitted to galvanized pipe. Result: corrosion at numerous points, failure at one. Something that my inspector didn't catch, nor the three or four gas company repairmen who have serviced the system since I moved in, nor presumably anyone else who has dealt with the plumbing down there since the late seventies when it was installed. Seems patently obvious now that it's been pointed out to me.

Replacement of the corroded section fixed the problem. Of course, all the other points are disasters waiting to happen. So I guess I will stop writing about it now and go try to earn some more money instead.

Always Appropriate

Today was an impromptu celebration of daughter Cordelia's new job at Smith College. I had planned a casual supper of pasta e fagioli, spinach sautéed with lemon and garlic, a salad of romaine and radicchio, and basil focaccia. Cordelia's dad walked in with a nice Cabernet and, for Cordelia, a bottle of 1998 Dom Perignon Brut. Suddenly it was a party!

Ali did the honors, and when the cork popped and some champagne splashed onto the carpet, Taz was right there to clean it up. She promptly passed out under the table. We toasted Cordelia's good fortune in the notorious flutes which go "thunk!" instead of "tiiiiing."

The champagne was lively and citrus-y, with notes of biscuit and a lingering finish. The non-champagne drinkers at the table were surprised that it was 1) not sweet and 2) very palatable. Well, duh! Champagne is delicious! And always appropriate. Even with pasta and beans.