Well, today was one for the books. Started out sunny and wet, ended dark and wet.
Explication (to that not-so-extraordinary-sounding beginning):
Took some of the kids on a field trip to the public pool this morning. We did the usual field trip thing (rode the bus to get there; got there; I got sunburnt; rode the bus home) and, surprisingly, everything went off without a hitch.
Then, Peter Pan the handyman (he actually did introduce himself to me as "Peter...like Peter Pan!") came upstairs to fix the fridge, which had been making such horrible groaning noises over the past week that my visitors and I were obliged to turn it off so we could finish our screening of
A View to a Kill in peace. The Christopher Walken / Grace Jones villain duo requires minimal background noise, else you won't understand what's going on at all versus the normal not understanding what's going on just mostly.
So Peter Pan fixed my fridge, but it still sounded like it wanted to make noise, so instead of resettling my perishables I decided to give it a cleaning. This I accomplished with Clorox spray and a stack of paper napkins. It took a while. Meanwhile, as the refrigerator runs (
Is your refrigerator running? - Yes - Better go catch it) and I see whether it behaves, my perishables are upstairs in a previous volunteer's old fridge. And my fridge is sortof in the middle of my apartment at the moment and still has a few panels unscrewed from when
Cristina and I attempted to fix it. And the mattresses Cristina and I bought during her visit don't exactly fit my futon. And my futon is still stuck in the open position and refuses to close.
But I soldier on.
After cleaning the fridge and myself, I felt very, very tired. So I lay in the hammock in a rather enchanting state of bliss until the sun went down, upon which I clicked "play" on a movie, and then the biggest clap of thunder I've ever heard hit and the power went out with a POP. There I was, sitting on my bed and eating a peanut butter-and-banana sandwich in the dark. Nothing to do, really, but keep chewing and swallowing.
Two seconds later, host brothers Marcelo and Andrés and cousins Sebastián and Jorgito were pounding on my door as if the Ringwraiths were after them. They dragged me and my sandwich downstairs to be with the rest of the family, and eventually I made the huge mistake of bringing them back up to my place, where they spilled the water I poured them and threw the popcorn I popped them all over the kitchen and sala. (Admittedly, I was complicit in the popcorn debacle. We were aiming for each others' mouths, you see.)
Happily, my kitchen was not flooded (wonder of wonders, miracle of miracles!). Then Marcelo alerted me to the fact that my bedroom floor was covered in a sheet of water. While I held aloft my candle and tried to figure out where all this water had come from (not the kitchen...not the balcony...), Marcelo helped by following along and making snide comments such as,
Buena deducción, mi querida Watson! And then - could it be? No, no way - I opened the door to the adjacent bathroom, which had completely flooded and spilled over the inches-high step into my bedroom. GAH.
After the boys left I spent a good amount of time sopping up water and wringing out towels and muttering to myself. The bad thing about living in a city is you really miss the amenities when they're taken away. Though fortunately for me, this power outage did not leave me stranded on a tropical island at the mercy of a group of very intelligent velociraptors. Also, I really do love candlelight.
Just when I had decided me and my 97-year-old back had had enough of the sopping & wringing, I realized I could turn the oscillating fan on and let it do the rest of the work for me. (This is what I had done the one other time my bathroom flooded, the night Mike was over and said, Whoa, I've never seen your apartment flooded before, as he wrung himself out from his walk over from the bus stop. And I said, Me neither, not to this extent. And we raised our beer glasses and moved on. Except this time there was no beer, because my fridge has been out of commission.) Just as I finished pouring out the last sopped-and-wrung bucket, the power came back on, and then I realized my fan plan would not have worked if the power were still out, and then I became thankful that I hadn't realized this before and despaired; my soft citified hands were starting to blister.
So now the lights are on, the fan is on, I've set up shop in the dry (drier, at least) sala, and I'm pretty sure Marcelo peed off the balcony earlier when I told him he couldn't use my flooded bathroom. He said, Well where should I go? and I suggested the balcony. Marcelo usually understands sarcasm, so I think he consciously chose to interpret my suggestion literally. Likely it seemed an adventurous proposition. BOYS. Shoulda known.
And with that, ladies and gentlemen, I bid you goodnight.
