Wednesday - here's the water

The deck guys actually finished up a little early and the results look great. I need to paint the new support pillars so I ran into town for some paint brushes. When I got back, we opened the garage door to get the paint – and water poured out. It was flooded. Turned out we had a broken valve. Dean thought maybe all the variations in the pressure over the past few days broke a valve that was probably already weak and ready to go.

So I got out the towels we use for the dogs (sorry boys) and we started mopping and wringing and mopping and wringing. After an hour or so it was looking a little better so we set up a fan to help dry it off and then started dealing with the rest of the mess. Our garage has really needed a cleaning for two or three years now. We have stacks of stuff packed to the rafters. And now it’s all soggy. So ready or not, time to toss some of this stuff out.

We were probably in a frame of mind to be particularly effective at this unexpected task:

“Your mom gave us this.”

“Throw it out!”

“Your dad made this.”

“Out!”

“This looks like the long-lost Orson Welles director’s cut of ‘The Magnificent Ambersons.’”

“Out!”

“This is the Faberge egg that Tsar Nicholas gave your great-great-grandfather.”

“Out!”

Another couple of hours and we had a good pile of stuff in the front yard. At least a couple of hours ago we considered it “stuff.” Now it’s officially “junk.” We still have more to go, but it’s a good start. You’d be surprised how much room those Faberge eggs and film reels can take up.

So, after all this it’s late and we’re hungry. Dean fires up the grill and . . . after 20 minutes it’s still barely at 200 degrees. We knew we’d have to replace the burners soon. But with exquisite timing, they chose today to fail.