Torrential rains made me thankful for 4wd in the city last night, when I had to employ Jack’s brute strength more than once to rail through flooded and abandoned streets in dark. Windshield wipers weren’t keeping time with anything, including the deluge that fell from the sky and the spray that kicked up over the front end while I rolled through standing water high enough to hit my step bars.
The streets were barren in the neighborhood, thankfully so as I questioned my ability to make it through each pavement bound river with nothing but adrenaline to keep me moving. “It’s not the water/mud/dirt/grass you need to worry about, it’s the things you can’t see…” John told me that years ago when we took Blue out for her maiden voyage and I learned her stance and her personality. I still hear him in my head when I have to color outside the lines with Jack.
I arrived home safely, my bladder a wreck from all the water rushing around me and after barely making it up the stairs because my black sparkly flip-flops + water = slicker than snot, I made a beeline for the loo.
I plopped down and glanced at my floor tilting my head like the RCA dog and thinking briefly “I didn’t do that…” at the puddle on the floor. I rewound the stretched and abused tape in my mind and pieced it together with what I noticed a few days ago – the paint on my bathroom wall was sagging like a 45 year olds breast after years without proper support.
I grabbed a pot, some mascara, a ball point pen, a loofah and a roll of Duck Tape and prepared for my best MacGyver impression as I rearranged furniture to climb into the attic only to find that I couldn’t access the source of the leak.
Foiled again.
So here I am on a Wednesday turned Monday with a puffy eye, a leaky ceiling, and a kink in my neck. I’d cry, but I’m too busy laughing because I’m forced to remember this sign my mom had when I was a kid that once hung in my office as an adult –
“If you eat a toad for breakfast, nothing worse can go wrong all day”.
It’s a fine line between being an optimist and being the village idiot, and I’m breakdancing on it. You should see my moves.
(P.S. I feel only slightly better for having just sent a note to the APD via peds.org requesting a speedbump)
05 Jul 06
8:06 am
Sorry to hear about your problems.
Please, no more speedbumps!!! The are a scourge to traffic flow. People slow down as if they were hauling nitroglycerine, and they are no fun for cyclists either. What’s next in our efforts to have people slow down? Cars that can go no faster than 35mph? All way stops or traffic lights at every intersection? Education and enforcement are the only solutions.
05 Jul 06
9:14 am
Ack. Your place is new? Home warranty or something? I hate house crap like that
05 Jul 06
9:25 am
Federally funded traffic calming came to my hood a few years back. The work commute now traverses 22 speed bumps (not including the 6 in the parking garage).
Glad to hear you’ve been taking your laughter medicine.
05 Jul 06
9:59 am
Paulie, when you move into a neighborhood with a single lane b/c cars are parked on the other lane…when it’s a lumpy bumpy road which connects The Path to itself and you’re almost nailed twice in a week by cars traveling in excess of 45mph…THEN you can talk to me about speedbumps being the root of all evil. Don’t like it? Don’t cut through my neighborhood.
Kissy boo!
Ming – TG, yes, I have a warranty and my builder has guys looking at it this morning. Cross your fingers/eyes/what have you.
vc – I just want one. One speedbump. It’s either that or I make my own out of quarry rocks/boulders. Which do you suppose folks would prefer?
05 Jul 06
10:52 am
You might get lucky this summer and have one of your neighbor’s water lines break near the curb. The resulting repair envariably leads to a ‘speed ditch’. And nothing slows down speeders like the thought of replacing bent rims. Jack probably won’t mind either way.
05 Jul 06
1:11 pm
That’s just it, put a speed bump on road A and traffic moves to road B. Speed bumps don’t solve the problem, at best they move the problem, and not very far at that.
My street is all of one block long, people still manage to make speeds of 45mph+.
They’ve already installed a stop sign at the end of your street. Why not encourage police to enforce the law and make money for the city by issuing tickets instead of costing taxpayers money by performing further road alterations?
05 Jul 06
1:35 pm
You say “already” like it’s new…have you ever seen how often it – or the NO PARKING sign right next to it are observed? Rarely.
I like the cop idea, believe me…but I’d also rather that they be out fighting real crime than catering to my petty source of frustration.
Don’t like speed bumps? Don’t cut through my street hauling ass.
Pretty simple…no?
05 Jul 06
2:49 pm
Maigh,
I know your frustration. There are so many idiots that drive through my neighborhood at stupid speeds. What makes it even worse are the darn kids in the neighborhood. They are never paying attention and seem to always go into the street just as you are ten feet from them….
05 Jul 06
3:57 pm
I see the stop sign obeyed daily. It might also help if they removed the tree limbs which obstruct the sign travelling west.
Why should people who are not disobeying the law be punished? Everytime I have to slow down for a set of speed bumps I feel as if I am being punished for the crimes committed by others.
Education and enforcement. Vehicular manslaughter is a real crime, ask anyone who has lost a family member in a car accident (thankfully I am not one).
What would you say if people say “Don’t like me using your street? Move to the country or live on a cul de sac.”
btw- I am not defending the speeders, merely my desire not to have drive down roads with speed bumps.
05 Jul 06
4:08 pm
Precious, you’re either on crack or you don’t remember where I live. There are no trees anywhere near the sign of which I speak.
As for manslaughter, you’re barking up the wrong tree on that one. My street is also frequented by cyclists and I cringe at the thought of one of them going down every time I hear a car gun it.
Being punished? Get down off the cross, honey. It’s a fracking speedbump. You’ll barely notice – if you’re going 35.
05 Jul 06
5:16 pm
Paulie, take the blue pill and simmahdahnnah!
It’s a speed bump and would help prevent much of the ‘shock and awe’ in your post above.
How you equate vehicle manslaughter to a speed bump is beyond me.
06 Jul 06
8:34 pm
I don’t have any idea what might be making you get water in your house, but since its near the bathroom. perhaps you could look for the “exhaust” pipe in your attic above your bathroom to see if water is possibly just streaming down the outside of that pipe. you may not see it because it’s down the side of the pipe. could be the seal at the roof. Just a thought.