I scared the bejeebers out of a cleaner this morning just by pressing the elevator button in the library on campus. She was cleaning inside the elevator, which kind of astounded me because I don't believe I've ever seen anyone cleaning the inside of an elevator before but of course it must happen or they'd be a mess. When the door opened, she just about jumped out of her skin. She wasn't expecting anyone to be in the library at 7 a.m., but there I was. (The library opens at 8:30--good thing I have a key pass!)
I explained, as coherently as I could considering everything, that I needed to get up to my office to brush my teeth. I couldn't get home last night, see, and while I was able to do some shopping and put together an outfit to wear today when I have to present information in front of the full faculty, I had neglected to buy a toothbrush, so this morning my mouth felt like I had slept in it. (Not that I got much sleeping done at all, but never mind that.) I keep a toothbrush and toothpaste in my office, which now is in the library while my former office recovers from the mold infestation.
Am I making any sense at all?
In the 22 years we've lived out in the woods, our driveway has been under water maybe once a year, and the ramp up to the bridge has been thoroughly washed away three or four times. Until this year. I wrote already about our previous flash flood a few weeks ago (click here), but I didn't write about the much smaller flood two days ago that left our driveway difficult but still driveable. The July flood required us to bring in a truckload of gravel, some of which washed away Saturday night.
And the rest washed away yesterday, along with...well, that whole chunk of driveway. There's no way to get up and over the creek until we can find a gravel guy who isn't already tied up with everyone else's flooding problems.
I knew our driveway was in trouble yesterday without even seeing it. I turned in at the end of our road and saw how high the creek was there, and I knew I wasn't getting across all that water. I drove far enough up our road to encounter a neighbor, who convinced me that proceeding further was futile. So instead of going home, I went shopping (so I don't have to wear yesterday's jeans and T-shirt in front of the full faculty this afternoon), and then I found a room in town and failed spectacularly at getting any sleep.
Today while I'm feeling my way around campus trying to appear competent, my extremely competent husband will be trying to track down some gravel and cut up the trees blocking the bridge. Will I get home tonight? No idea. If not, at least I know where I can find a toothbrush.
See all those trees? Not ideal! 
Nobody's driving over that. 
This rainbow greeted me as I stepped out of Kohl's yesterday. A sign?
2 comments:
Oh NO !!! Sending good thoughts that things get put together quickly so you can get home, that your son finishes his chemo as quickly as possible and that you get a lovely time with few disasters after this!
It looks like it will be a few days before the driveway gets repaired. I managed to get home today by parking out by the road and then clambering, with my husband's help, up onto the bridge, across the debris field, through the mud, and up to the house. But before all that, I picked up the mail in our box on the other side of the road and found the bill for last month's gravel delivery. I can't tell you just how futile it feels to pay a big chunk of change for gravel that has now washed down the creek. But we carry on because that's what we do.
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