MARSHMALLOWS OPTIONAL

I don't know what possesses me to stay up late because I am exhausted. Oh, wait - yes, I know what it is: THE BOX FROM HOME DEPOT.

Inside the box from Home Depot is an electric fireplace.  Unlike the other electric fireplace that I already own, this one is less expensive and states "some assembly required."  Anyone who knows me also knows that I cannot follow those visual picture instructions to save my own life and actually put off building a desk I bought for three years over fear of failure building it.

This doesn't leave much room for hope where the fireplace is concerned.

I carefully open the big box to reveal another box inside of it.  Excellent!  Apparently Home Depot has shipped me a giant Matryoshka doll; I will keep opening more and more boxes of increasingly smaller size until I discover a Bic lighter in the bottom.

No, wait.  I open the second box, and there is actually a fireplace inside of it.  This is good news.  I pull the styrofoam off and notice a bag of screws.  Pissah.  There really is "some assembly required." That's the bad news.  The good news is that it's only one bag of a dozen screws.  This should only take me a little while to figure out.  Right?

Once I get the fireplace out, the first thing I notice is that it's substantially larger than I expected for the amazingly low price I paid for it brand new and out of the (two) box(es). The second thing I notice is that it has no legs.  I look into the Matryoshka box and find the four legs all set for me to assemble.  I guess having the factory actually put the legs on is too much to ask automatons.  Four legs plus twelve screws equals easy. Right?

Well, the fireplace is black.  The legs are black.  And, you guessed it, the screws are black, as well.  Simply assembling the multiple pieces to attach where they're supposed to is hard enough because there's do delineation of color, and everything is now in Ninja mode.  I grab a flashlight, but it is impossible to hold the legs in place, the screwdriver in the correct upright position, and actually see what I am doing using the flashlight and every light in the house because I still only have two hands and a pair of strong reading glasses.

Oh, and the instructions.  With pictures.  And arrows.  Because I am a moron.

The screwdriver (and its operator) is failing badly, but I have a drill that will screw these bad boys into place in no time. I look for my drill at eleven o'clock at night, like this is something normal people do, realize my daughter has my drill, text her that I need my drill ASAP because I need heat ASAP.  Like real normal people, she is sleeping.  I make due the best I can as the screws do not want to sink completely into the feeder holes.

I finally get the legs, all four of them, secure enough to take a chance and stand the fireplace up into its correct position.  So far, so good.  I plug the cord into the wall, immediately start playing with the controls, decide I should probably at least skim the manual, then set my new fireplace onto its hightest heat setting.

SUCCESS! 

I now have enough heat between two mobile and safe electric fireplaces to hopefully heat the rooms I need, including the bedrooms upstairs and the bathroom that is in the farthest point of the house totally away from anything that makes sense and tucked behind my kitchen.  But, I HAVE heat.  Considering that I still have no gas service to my house so I still have no hot water or cooking gas, either, this is huge.  This is worth staying up for. 

This is freaking EPIC.

Best of all, the "flames" look better than the bigger electric fireplace that I have in my living room.  I'm really going to enjoy this one (and I can watch the "flames" without the heat if I want to).  Now I can go to sleep (well past midnight and beyond) and be secure in the thought that when I wake up and it's fifty degrees outside and slightly more than that (but not much) inside, I can at least warm up by the pretend fire... marshmallows optional.

I EARNED THIS BROWNIE

I hate this week at school.  I hate it even more without the benefit of heat or hot water in my house.  I am talking about the week of school, about three in, when the first round of grippe hits me.  The kids breathe and cough and sneeze and occasionally puke in school, and then I get sick. Meanwhile, grades need to be posted, data from last spring and the early school year needs to be calculated and interpreted, administrative meetings start, plus it is Back to School Night this week.

By the time Friday rolls around, I am teaching on auto-pilot.  Already this week I have dozed off at my desk.  Well, it isn't actually dozing off because I am aware of where I am and I am cognitive that my eyes are open, but I have those few seconds of a floating sensation when I know that my eyes have glazed over.  I could be speaking in tongues at this point.

Of course, if I had hot water, I'd take a nice long shower as soon as I get home, but I have no hot water and probably won't for at least another six or seven weeks.  If I believe the gas experts who do not control the politics in this state, I could actually be looking at half a year or more.  The politicians at the local, county, and state level are shitting royal-sized bricks knowing that their promise to reconnect appliances to working gas will not make it in time to save their political careers come election time in one month.

It is no surprise to me at all when I sit down for a moment then gently place my face down on the kitchen table and fall into a dead sleep instantaneously.  I wake up after about four minutes, but those four minutes of sleep are thorough and profound; I definitely hit a REM cycle.

I'm tired.  I'm tired from a week of professional juggling, I'm tired from the dog and pony show I perform at this time every year (I love the parents, but I suck at this performance art stuff), I'm tired of washing dishes, hands, and myself in ice cold water, and I am tired of going from hot to cold to hot to cold with the weather both inside and outside of my house.

I do, however, make myself a microwave brownie during the midst of all this because I feel that I've really earned it this week.   Well, THAT plus I'm a chocolate fiend, and if anyone has earned it this week, it would be me.

THAT FUNKY SMELL

The running joke amongst my friends and colleagues is that I have not showered in three weeks.  The punchline is, however, that this is the absolute truth.  Since the infamous gas explosions, I have, indeed NOT showered (in the 21st century traditional "stand under jets of hot water for ten minutes" way).

(Steamy makeshift bath!)

On the other hand, I have been enjoying hot baths so well-prepped that the mirrors steam up in my cold bathroom.  I have improvised steaming showers with plastic storage containers and red Solo cups (hey, they're not just for drinking anymore).  I invested in new washcloths and have used so much shower and bath gel that I probably should buy stock in Bath and Bodyworks.

Yes, I have mastered the fine art of juggling the following means to heat up water: microwave, semi-operational free hot plate, coffee maker (with water only), and an electric tea kettle.  Coordinating all of these things at the same time, I can have a hot bath or hot makeshift shower ready in thirty minutes.

People scoff at my ingenuity.  They tell me things like, "Just shower at the Y.  Shower in the women's locker room at work.  Shower at my house!"  But this requires planning, toiletries, towels, clothing, and a satchel of important things, like make-up and hair dryer.  To me, the amount of time I'd invest in the prep and execution is well-beyond my half-hour of entertainment when I have a hot bath on my mind and feel like playing a live-action version of Musical Water Bowls.

Apparently, actually showering is my biggest inconvenience at the moment.

Anyway, back to my friends and colleagues.  At first this whole hot water thing was frightening.  Then I was in denial.  Then I got worried.  Then I tried to find solutions.  Now I am just plain old pissed off.  Oh, sure, it's still funny when my friend gives me an air freshener just so it's safe to hang out with me.  It's still thoughtfully annoying when the custodian keeps telling me there are women's showers available for teachers.  It's still very sweet when people offer up their showers so I can recall what running hot water feels like.

I'm getting by, but I'm also getting disheartened ever so slightly.

I'm at work this morning when I hear the lockers outside in the hallway all being systematically opened.  It's too early for the students to be in the hallway, and I don't believe a teacher would be standing in the hallway kicking the metal doors, so I pop my head out.  The assistant principal is in the hallway with the head custodian.  They have about two dozen lockers wide open and are going from one to the other, inspecting each, then slamming doors closed again.

"What are you doing?" I ask.

The vice principal tries to brush me off then finally admits they're searching for something.  My God, I think, what can it be?  Is it contraband?  Something volatile?  Body parts?  

 Seeing my odd expression, he finally relents.  "The superintendent walked by this morning and said he smelled something funky coming out of these lockers, but we don't see anything."

"That smell would be me," I respond.

Hey, if I'm going to be the brunt of jokes, I might as well get in my own punchlines now and then.

P.S. I really am clean, so I don't need any more washcloths, air fresheners, or odor-neutralizing sprays.  Thank you, though, and I mean that from the bottom of my smelly little heart.

DEATH BY OLIVE, AND OTHER HAPPY THOUGHTS

• Hot plates given to citizens in the Red Zone of the gas explosions do not work.  Some start fires, and some only one burner works and the other burner is a slow, low heat only.  Pissah.  Thanks.  Thanks for nothing.
• Gas company here again in my house to check meters.  How many damn times are you going to "check the meters"?
• Gas company employees in the know (not connected to the gas company that effed everything up in the first place) say earliest estimate for gas/heat/hot water probably more like February with 47 miles of pipes to replace.
• Tired of trying to piece together meals on a faulty hot plate and without hot water to even wash my hands, so I order a pizza from Bertuccis.
• Traffic takes me an hour to go ten miles.
• Pizza is sitting on counter when I arrive at Bertuccis.  Girl waits on two customers while I stand there for fifteen minutes, then she walks away.
• "Excuse me.  I can see my pizza on the counter.  May I please pay for it and go?"
• Harrrummmph.  Silent treatment; pissy attitude.
• "Trust me. You may be having a bad day, but mine is worse," I say.
• She throws my pizza at me, throws my change at me, and runs away.
• I stop another employee.  "May I please have some rolls?"  He goes and gets them off someone's table.
• Traffic is so horrific that I am forced to run a red light to get home.  Not to worry - two more cars behind me make the same desperate move.
• The pizza is ice cold.  The rolls are ice cold.
• I hope that bitch chokes on an olive.  Maybe even two.

MY ONE PIECE OF MAIL

I have been saving the best for last on this whole Columbia Gas disaster situation.

Last Friday when I enter both my home and the Red Zone illegally, I am surprised to get mail delivery.  I mean, no one is supposed to be in this neighborhood with the open gas dig mere yards away at one end of the street, and the red-carded house that had the fire at the other end of the street.

Yet here comes the mailman, dropping my mail in the mailbox.

I wait until the coast is clear, then I slip out to grab the mail.  Remember, I'm not supposed to be here.  Nobody is supposed to be here, right?  Anyway, there is one piece of mail.  Just one.  Nothing else.  No flyers, no political postcards, no junk mail, nothing except for one envelope.

It's my gas bill from Columbia Gas.

Fuckers.

ON NOT BEING RED-CARDED OUT OF MY HOME

I know now that I will not be getting gas service back to my house for weeks, maybe longer.  Back when this started, my street has a large gas leak, and my old apartment two houses over had a fire in the basement.  I am very lucky to be in my house; my neighbors are very unlucky to be red-carded out of theirs.

Now come the adjustments.

The gas company, which I will call out by name because they're assholes - Columbia Gas Company - has been remarkably silent throughout this entire thing.  I know, they don't want to open their mouths or make any kind of statement due to liability.  However, they are doing assholey stuff like setting up meetings with town and city residents then no-showing.  I don't care what liability you're worried about; this behavior makes you a fiend of the lowest sort.

Many people are worried about cooking and heating their homes and taking showers.  First of all, I rent; I do not own my townhouse.  Plus, I rent it by the month, so I am free to flee in any given thirty to sixty days.  That being said, I've been here for over fifteen years.  I'm not going anywhere yet.  (When my youngest moves out, then I'm fleeing this over-sized homestead.)  Owner or not, though, I've been through a few episodes with my furnace over the years and with my hot water heaters (iron in the water + hot water heaters = lots of leaks and repairs and replacements).

I understand preventative preparation.

Now that I have power back, everything is relative.  Instead of cooking gas, I have a grill (with two back-up canisters of gas), a toaster oven that cooks steak tips better than any full-sized broiler, and two crockpots.  Yes, I invested in my own countertop electric burners for forty dollars rather than wait in line for something free that the town deems acceptable.

I don't want to make do; I want to make food!

Instead of heat, I have an electric fireplace that is lightweight, mobile, and heats up a room in about four minutes.  I decided to invest in a second small electric fireplace so that I don't have to move the other one around if my son is watching television in the living room and I want to warm up the bathroom three rooms away or the bedrooms upstairs.

Again, I could wait for the town to provide a solution, or I could make my own solution to the specs that suit me.  I'm kind of a stickler that way.

Hot water is a bit of an issue, though.  I have, however, perfected the fine art of filling the tub with warm water for a bath.  It takes about thirty minutes, but it's worth it.  I keep multiple ceramic bowls of water going in the microwave, run two full pots of water through the coffee maker, and now I have my electric tea kettle from work plus my counter cooktop burners.  I also can boil larger pots of water on the grill.

Sure, sure -- I can also shower in the faculty locker room at work or at the Y or at the showers set up at the local pond, which is great, except that these options don't solve the most important issues: How to wash on MY time, and how to be prepped for when my son arrives home late at night from lacrosse after the volunteer local showers have closed.

Right now my biggest problems are inconvenience and a small expense.  I know people are filing claims against Columbia No-Show Assholey Gas Company and contacting their insurance agents.  I'm not completely stupid.  I've started a file, just in case.  But really.  I barely lost any food, I've only invested about $400, and I'm feeling damn lucky compared to some of my friends and neighbors.

Small expenses, small adjustments, and the freedom to flee whenever I please, if I so choose to do so (which, at least right now, I don't ... but I will eventually, when I'm ready).  Of course, having gas service back would be super-dee-dooper, too, but one disaster at a time.

GRILLING FOR THE CAMERA

On the Monday after the Great Merrimack Valley Gas Disaster of 2018, my daughter and her friends, who live a half mile away, invite me over for a barbecue.  They buy me steak from a butcher in another town that still has power and is open.  I feel a bit like an asshole because I have no food to contribute, and the grocery store, like every other business for miles and miles, remains closed.

I head over anyway, and we settle in to an impromptu grilling session along with some music and some wine, our local version of what we call Redneck Grillin'. Just as the cooking is getting underway, a news truck rolls by, pulls over several yards away, and parks.  "Watch this," I say, "they're going to come over and want us to be on camera."

Sure enough, two minutes later, over comes the very nice and lovely reporter from Fox News and her cameraman (who, coincidentally, used to live in the house behind mine where his mother still lives, also stuck in the Gas Explosion Red Zone).  The reporter begs us to be on camera.

"No way," I tell her.  "I don't want my students seeing me with wine in my hand on a Monday afternoon."

My daughter and her friend don't want to be on camera because at this point neither has showered in two days and they feel like they look slovenly (they do not -- both young women are still gorgeous).

Thankfully, one of my daughter's friends, Chris, agrees to step in front of the camera.  He is wearing Memory Foam slippers, is manning the grill, and is sipping a whiskey and coke.  (Don't judge us; it has been a harrowing five days.)  He speaks on camera about the sucky ways around the cold water situation, and the cameraman takes shots of the grill.

The news crew also takes a screenshot of my daughter's phone because she has been receiving automated text updates from Columbia Gas about the progress they're attempting to make in repairing their mess.  When she texts back a question, Columbia Gas opts her out involuntarily so they won't have to deal with her. 

After the news crew takes off, we finish Redneck Grillin', return to our homes, and wait for the ten o'clock news.  Honestly, it's nice that they stopped to chat with us, but we really are not being inconvenienced to the point of concern.  Not yet, anyway.  When we run out of gas for the grill and steak for our bellies, then we will be looking to stand in front of the cameras.

DISASTER DAY #4 - BACK ON THE GRID ... SORT OF

Day #4 dawns but I sleep until about seven a.m., which is a bit like a luxury after not sleeping much at all in the last three days.  The phone is still charged up, and I only had one flashlight going last night that needed a single battery change-over around three a.m.

My cell phone service is spotty at best without my own home internet connection up and running, but I have discovered that one spot in the house actually receives a signal where I can access the rest of the world.  Like the old television series "Jericho," I am completely without information, technology, and communication abilities as if an EMP has wiped out every technological frequency in the air.

I climb up the stairs and nestle in front of the window in my youngest son's bedroom in the front of the house.  I need to touch base with my oldest son whose family is in the thick of the hurricane in North Carolina.  How are you guys doing, I text to him.  Fine, he responds, how are YOU guys doing?  How is your house, I text to him.  He responds with How is YOUR house?  The entire situation is still completely unreal to me. As I text him, I notice that I have a strong signal, the strongest it has been since I got home Friday afternoon.  That's strange.  That means ...

Oh.  My.  God.

I run into my bedroom and see the clock is flashing.  Every single time power comes back on in this house, everything beeps and I can hear things springing back to electrical life, but this time, I hear no such pomp nor circumstance.  I zoom down the stairs into the kitchen and notice that random lights I left on when I fled are glowing.  Digital clocks are flashing.  I turn on the television.  Cable!  Internet!

Holy crap.  I'm back on the grid.

One thing I want to do before everything cools and freezes up again is wipe down the inside of the fridge and freezer.  Over the last few days, the melting and warming caused some leakage and the whole unit smells funky inside.  When I'm done, I adjust the temperature, make sure everything is working, and begin the exciting process of creating ice cubes.   

Dear Lord!  Ice cubes.  I'm going to have ICE CUBES!

I am suddenly singing in my head the song from Bye Bye Birdie, "Ed Sullivan," but instead the words are, "Frozen ice cubes!  Frozen ice cubes!  We're gonna have ... frozen ice cubes!!!!!"  I promised myself that when power came back on, I'd open the cava and have a celebratory glass of bubbly.  I open the cooler (cannot put anything away until the temperature gets to the safe zone) and pull out the small, single-serving bottle I've been saving for this moment.  I don't care that it's eight-thirty in the morning.  It's noontime somewhere, damnit, and I have electricity.


The sun is shining and the temperature is going into the low eighties today, so I warm up bowls of water in the sun outside to add to microwaved bowls of water to make enough for a lukewarm bath.  I don't worry about my hair -- I stick my head under a cold faucet to do that, but a warmish bath is pleasant on a hot day.

It's like Heaven in my house at the moment.  I have lights, I have the fridge back, I have internet service, and I saved the food and alcohol that I would've lost had I not come back into the Red Zone illegally on Friday afternoon.  I may not have any gas heat or gas cooking or gas hot water, but I'VE GOT THE POWER!

Of course, at this point I am still naive enough (or, perhaps delusional enough) to believe I will be back on the gas grid, too, within mere days.  For the umpteenth time since this gas-related horror started, I am going to be wrong, wrong, wrong, and not just marginally wrong but monumentally wrong.

DISASTER DAY #3 AND INTO THE NIGHT

Once I leave the bank after my Flypaper for Freaks Parking Lot Debacle experience, I realize that my sense of humor and normalcy seem to be returning. Oh, sure, I have to go three towns away to cash a check, and I have to hop, skip, and jump to get to a grocery store, but really, now that I can access my (dark and powerless) house, I feel relaxed.

I continue driving around after the bank trip because I need to charge up my phone and the battery pack, which should feel like a chore, but the fog is finally starting to burn off, and it's nice to be out in the light and have the windows open.  I turn on the radio and start jamming along to the music, something I haven't even considered in seventy hours. I mosey around observing the stillness of everything.  So many evacuees have yet to venture back that it's like driving into a ghost town.

It is a ghost town.

I decide to head home for a while, and I pull around the corner from my house when I spot the utility trucks.  In the five hours since I first noticed them in front of my house, they've moved maybe fifty yards.  I pass the emergency team that gave me the all-clear yesterday, and they're going door to door with a locksmith.  Despite all this activity, still, I have zero power.

If I'm going to do this (staying in the Red Zone), I'm going to need more ice for the coolers.  And more food.  Maybe some gin.  If I'm going to barbecue, cleaning the grill will be an issue.  Without hot water and without power to make hot water, I can use the grill like a regular burner, so I wander around the store trying to decide what to do.  Then I remember the freezer has defrosted, and I have bread and rolls up the whazoo.  I also know from my disposable camping days that I can use foil pie plates for cooking.  I grab tonic water (I already have limes), ice, heavy duty foil, foil pie plates, tomatoes (I have mozzarella in the cooler and basil growing on the patio), and hot dogs.

Once I'm back home and settled, I make a Caprese salad.  I figure I should grill before it gets dark, so I make four hot dogs: 1-2 for now and the rest for later as needed.  I set up my foil fry pan and ... voila ... ten minutes later, life is complete with fried dogs and no grill to scrub.  I mix myself up a gin and tonic because, hey, why not, and wait for the sun to go down.

While it's still light out, I turn down my bed upstairs, determined to sleep in it tonight regardless of how dark it gets.  I also decide that if cars can go on my street and if we can be grilling, then I can have candles in the house, so I set up the kitchen table with enough candlelight to do some puzzles.

My phone is getting low, but I don't want to leave the house tonight to find a charging station.  Coming home in that pitch blackness freaked me out last night, and it's just as dark tonight.  Yesterday I grabbed my work laptop just in case, so I use up its full battery (except for about 23 minutes worth) to charge both my cell and the battery pack for the overnight.

I try to go upstairs to bed, but it's still too dark and too horrifyingly silent.  I set up a second make-shift bed on a different piece of furniture and sleep in the living room one more time.  I say "sleep," and it's more than I have gotten in the last two nights, but it's fitful.  The utility company is still nearby, up the next street over, and I do hear them working off and on during my restless rest, but it's light when I awaken, and I have my car, so I'll probably get ready to go out and get more tea after I make myself somewhat presentable with whatever means cold water will allow.

This is how Day #4 starts, and it rapidly changes from here.

DISASTER DAY #3 - THE MORNING

Even though I give in to the darkness around 9:30 on Friday night, I can't sleep.  Not really.  I'm uncomfortable on the makeshift bed, and the lack of sound is unnerving.  I understand now what people mean when they say "The silence is deafening" because it's so quiet that my ears hurt.  They feel full and swollen inside.

(Yup -- it is damn dark except for the utility truck)

I don't really sleep, though.  Like last night, I have terrible dreams that seem to go on and on and on thought I've only been dozing for maybe twenty minutes ... a half hour ... not much more.  Finally around five a.m., I believe I might as well get up. 

This is when I hear it.  Beep.  Beep.  Beep.

There's a utility truck outside of my house.  I look out and can only see their taillights on my street.  Maybe I'll get power today.  That would be swell. No such luck, though.  The utility company moves around the corner (where it stays all day long off and on), and nary a shimmer of light.  Which also brings me to daylight.  I am expecting light, anticipating relief, but the air is still thick and humid.  The fog descends like a final kick in the crotch -- Despite it being seven a.m., I will not be seeing "daylight" any time soon.

At a respectable hour, despite the grayness of the outside and inside, I get dressed, dismantle the make-shift bed I'd set up, and wait until the bank opens three towns away because there isn't another branch open in the explosion zone.  On my way to the bank, it is so foggy and gray that very little light is shining, so I pull into a side street to take a picture.  Ironically, the side street turns out to be the damn electric company (of course); stopping at Mass Electric as Mass Electric has stopped on me. 

I expect the bank to be open at eight a.m., but it doesn't open until nine, so I swing over to Dunkins and grab a tea and a pumpkin muffin, then I head back to the parking lot to wait. The deserted parking lot.  The lot is for a relatively large strip mall, so I park kind of away from the bank, but all by myself in the empty, empty lot.  Alone.  No other cars.  Nope.  Not a single one.  I intend to leave the car running so I can charge my cell phone battery, and I don't want to annoy anyone.  All alone.  Just me, my tea, the muffin, and my car.

Until ... an SUV pulls into the lot and parks right next to me.  As a matter of fact, the driver parks so close that I think she is going to sideswipe my front quarter-panel.  Really, lady.  What. The. Fuck.  Then another car comes in, swerves close enough to almost take off my front end, then backs into the spot behind me.

Let me remind readers -- I am ALL ALONE IN A HUGE MALL PARKING LOT.  The woman backing in gets so close that I panic and throw my car into drive, zooming across two empty lanes and parking several spaces away in another empty quadrant of the lot.  I start sipping my tea when a guy in a truck pulls up and parks ... you guessed it ... right next to me.  He is then followed by a white SUV that parks ... guess again ... on the other side of me.

Once more, folks: The entire rest of the damn lot is wide, wide, WIDE open.

By the time the bank opens fifteen minutes later, I am in an even pissier mood than I already was when I arrived.  People aggravate the hell out of me, the lack of electricity aggravates the hell out of me, and not knowing what the day will bring aggravates the hell out of me.  But, I have my tea, a muffin, and now I have cash, so it's all good.  I'm feeling lucky.  I pull away and leave the freaks in the parking lot behind me.

Seriously, it's like I am living the Weekend of Weird.  And maybe I am, as I'll continue next time.

DISASTER DAY #2 - THE EVENING

Leaving my daughter's house, I also leave behind electricity, cable, internet, and light.  I live only a half a mile away, but as soon as I leave the confines of Main Street, there is no light.  None.  The moon is merely a sliver, and my lights cast eerie slits into the thick blackness of it all.  Even though I see no other car lights, I am totally thrown by the vacuous velvety depth of nothingness.

It feels as if I am lost in deep space.

I cannot see the sidewalk.  I cannot see the buildings, I cannot see traffic lights, and I cannot see if anything or anyone is anywhere.  I am submerged in nothingness.  The sensation is unnerving.  I look in my rearview mirror at the fading reality behind me, so I know I am still grounded in some kind of operational universe, but I cannot wrap my head around the fact that I see nothing outside of my headlights.

I pull into my driveway forward - I do not even attempt to back in because I cannot see anything at all to judge where the bricks are or where the fence is.  I cut the engine.  The silence envelops me and swallows the car.  I grab my keys and a small but mighty flashlight and use that plus my phone to navigate the short but serpentine walkway from my car to my front door.  I can't see if anyone is waiting on the patio for me.  I can't see if anyone is inside the house.  I am Helen Keller at this point because there is no light and there is no sound.

I find small flashlights right at the doorway so I can light my way once I am inside.  I use the smaller ones because the D-batteries are too damn expensive.  I have lots of AA batteries for my camera, so I restock those into the fading flashlights every six hours or so when the batteries run out and darkness returns. 

Tonight I do not light candles.  I am concerned about residual gas pockets in the house and the neighborhood since we are at one of the leak sites.  I am a little concerned about looters, as well, so I set up my makeshift bed in the living room and put my flashlights on to point through rooms.  I am also a little wary of the emergency crews returning to tell us that we really shouldn't be there or of them trying to get in again during the night.  I want to hear anyone outside wandering or attempting to break in, so my bed upstairs will just have to wait.

Around 9:30 I decide the darkness is starting to bore me and get myself ready to sleep.  Sleep -- something that barely came to me last night and undoubtedly will repeat its mediocre performance tonight, which it does.  I wander aimlessly several times during the night I get up twice just to change over one flashlight for the other, replace batteries, and keep the fresh one for the next rotation. 

I am hopeful for a bright, sunny, clear morning with sunbeams streaming into the house so I can get some things in order by the light of day.

I am mistaken yet again.

DISASTER DAY #2 - THE AFTERNOON

I cannot even believe that my son makes it into and out of the neighborhood, but I suppose the police have far more important things to do than monitor who goes in and out of The Red Zone now that the gas has been shut off to our houses and to our street.  I mull all day about getting into my house.  If I can't get in, I'll have to go buy clothes and other essentials, and that annoys me, especially since I only have limited funds with me.

I know, I know; I should be damn grateful that the only thing affecting me is that I need some skivvies and deodorant.  I am relieved that my home is still standing and does not have a fire in it like the house I used to live in two doors away.  But I am also a little pissed off when I hear people from other Red Zone neighborhoods telling tales of mandatory evacuees who didn't evacuate.

I decide to go home after work.

I grab some boxes, determined that if I have to leave, I'm going to save my belongings to the best of my ability.  I text my landlady who assures me that she and her family will not be leaving tonight.  I decide to chance it, and I head toward my neighborhood.  When I arrive, my landlord is there, waiting for his wife and kids to return.  He and his oldest son stayed last night to protect the property, and he tells me that the gas company, police, and fire department showed up at 3:00 a.m. and let themselves into his basement, but that they tried and couldn't get into my townhouse.  The landlord and son hid, though, since they weren't supposed to be there.

I decide that I, too, will stay.  This is when I notice that cars are going up and down my small street despite an open gas dig about fifty yards away.  Hmmmm, apparently we aren't worried about random sparks anymore.  Suddenly the mailman shows up on his cell phone.  "Yup, this is my last stop," he tells the person on the other end.  Cell phone?  Mail?  Traffic?  Absolutely I am staying.  It certainly must be safe.

The house is so quiet and the neighborhood is silent.  No one is around but than landlord and me.  No one is trying to get into their homes; they have all evacuated and are staying away as told.  They are not as desperate as am I, apparently.  I have a clock on the wall that is battery operated and sounds like fog horns on the hour, and when it sounds off at four o'clock, the noise scares the crap out of me.  I realize just how incredibly wound up about this whole situation I truly am.

I check my fridge and freezer, both of which are still cold enough, so I rush to the store for ice. I see the gas station is open (but the bank is not), so I throw twenty of my forty dollars into the nearly empty gas tank.  Then, I head to the store a few miles away and out of the danger zone.

Score!  There's a free wine tasting going on at the same time that I am shopping.  Things are starting to look up for me!  Plus, the store still has plenty of bags of ice.  I taste wine (but don't buy any; I  only have twenty dollars), buy ice, cheese, and D batteries for the bigger flashlight.  This sucks up most of my last twenty dollars.

As soon as I get into my car in the parking lot, my landlady texts me that the emergency crew is at the property doing inspections, and she wants to let them in to check meters.  Sure!  I'm on my way!  By the time I arrive, the crew has cleared any home they could access, which includes mine.  I don't have electricity, and I don't have gas (obviously), but I will at least be able to have flashlights going legally and not worry about being hauled out of my own home for being in The Red Zone without clearance.

 I pack up one cooler of food and one of alcohol (beer and white wine), and I get the flashlights ready for the evening.  My phone, which is almost out of life, can receive occasional random texts if I'm lucky, so I head to my daughter's house a half mile away (that has already had power restored and still has wifi) to charge up my cell and the back-up battery.  It starts to get dark, though - slightly dark where she lives with the sliver of moon in the sky and street lights, but when I leave to head home, I am unprepared for what I am about to see, or not see, as the case may be.

DISASTER DAY #2 - THE MORNING

Following the gas explosion evacuation, I sleep restlessly at my friend's house.  It is comfortable and she and her family are wonderful hosts, but I'm worried.  There are reports of 35 or more fires in my town, some of them close by.  (Turns out that one is in my old apartment building two houses from where I live right now.)  I cannot go home.  I am in The Red Zone.

I get up at my regular time, even though I set my alarm for a little later.  When my coworker gets up, I am already dressed and ready to go.  I'm worried about all kinds of things, including not having deodorant, but I am thrilled to have on something almost completely clean and different than the dress I wore yesterday.

I am on my way to work, and I'm thinking about what I do know: multiple fires, multiple explosions, one teenager killed, people injured. On the way out from the mayhem, many other towns' emergency responders pass us coming down side streets to avoid the gridlock, and screaming up the highway from places as far as Chelsea and beyond.

I know nothing.

My son, who never makes it home and stays in Central Massachusetts overnight, texts me that he is going to try and get into the house.  Since I saw the emergency crews staging our area, I doubt he can get to the house, but he is determined to get clothes and other essentials if he can.  This worries me, too.  No one is supposed to be in my neighborhood.

All this and on my way to work, I suddenly realize that I'm hungry.  I didn't feel like eating anything last night at the restaurant, and my friend tried to feed me last night and again this morning, but I couldn't stomach anything.  What will I do for breakfast?  For lunch? For the night?  I have forty dollars to my name right now.

I pull into the parking lot at school and see members of the PTO bringing large trays of food into my school.  A breakfast.  We are having a Teacher Appreciation breakfast.  I don't know why, but this makes me cry.  I don't like to cry.  Crying pisses me off because it makes me look like crap and I have to work today.  And it's not like people have NOT tried to feed me in the last twelve hours.

I'm just tired ... and a little hungry ... and a lot worried about the house ... and super-worried about my son entering The Red Zone. He texts me that he makes it in and out of the house, gets my credit cards for me, and that there is no gas smell.  He does note that the sidewalk near our house that always has a faint odor of gas is now newly covered with a metal plate.

When I get into work, I grab a little breakfast and also stash some goodies for lunch, as well.  My stomach is going to be fine.  I also find ... tahdah ... and old deodorant (mine) in my stuff at work, but a coworker and friend brings me a fresh one (that's not a year or two aged - deodorant is not like fine wine or good cheese).

At least I am wearing relatively clean clothes, will smell fresh, and have food.  For now, anyway, because there's still so much more to tell.

DISASTER DAY #1

If anyone watches the national news, apparently our gas explosions are making headlines, and as well they should. An innocent young man was killed and a girl broke pretty much every bone in her body falling through an exploding house.

I arrive home on Thursday to nothing unusual.  I am getting ready for a meeting when I think I smell natural gas.  I sniff my oven, and it does seem to smell a bit more than usual. I think maybe I am insane until I jaunt upstairs to change my clothes from school-wear to meeting-wear.  It smells strongly of gas upstairs, too, even though all the windows in my house are open and have been all day.

The phone rings, and normally I ignore the phone because I get so many robo-calls, but this one I answer.  It is the police telling me to shut off the main gas line in my house and evacuate the area. I notify neighbors as quickly as possible and interrupt my landlady in the front house.  Her house has no gas in it (probably because her windows are closed); mine is fuming.  We shut off my gas and hers.  (Everyone, learn how to do it.  I had NO idea.)

(Watching the city explode on television)

We quickly realize the staging area for emergency responders is about one hundred yards away (we have a major leak in the immediate area), and that we have to get out fast or be gridlocked in a danger zone.  I grab my daughter a half mile away, and we follow each other through the gridlock until we get to the back roads.

Once we settle down at a restaurant away from danger, reality sets it.  We watch the mayhem unfold on the television screen, and we watch other evacuees line up trying to get dinner and decide what the hell to do. When I left, I grabbed my wallet, my phone chargers and phone, and my school bag.  Yes, I grabbed my damn WORK BAG.  When we left our houses an hour ago, we had no idea what was going on except that the city next door (and now our town) appeared to be on fire.  Realizing the magnitude of the calamity right now as we watch the live news feed, I also realize that I have no credit cards to buy essentials nor to book a hotel and no check book to get cash the following day.

Friends and colleagues start offering help.  I run to a friend and coworker's home, discover I have enough extra random clothes in my trunk, and am lucky enough to be wearing fresh clothes (my meeting-wear) that I quickly change out of and fold for work the next day.  After all, I have my damn work bag and I cannot go home.

The only thing I don't have and can't really comfortably share with my friend is deodorant. I put out the all-call and get many offers from coworkers who will bring some to me.

But, this is just the beginning.  There is so very much more to come.

Still powerless here. Getting a lot of great blog material with absolutely no way to share it. So aggravating!  Anyway, maybe tomorrow I will have power.  For now , I am going to mix a gin and tonic because I have lots of ice. Happy trails!

WINE FOR WHINER

Being in the line of fire (literally) with the gas explosions causes not only agida but it also brings out the best in everyone.  I receive many offers for emergency housing (at 8:00p.m. on a weeknight!!!) and I have to choose.  My pal Sal has already changed sheets on a bed for me, and she works with me and lives close to work, so I choose her offer.

When I arrive, she tries to feed me.  I am not really hungry despite not eating since noontime, but she knows one thing I probably need: a glass of wine.  And another.  And maybe even another.

I sleep reasonably well for me, and I don't think I wake her family by getting up twice in the night.  The wine is helpful and leaves no residual effects, which is good, since I have to go to work early in the morning.

No funny post today. My house filled with gas and may or may not be on fire, but I am at a friend's and safe. I will keep everyone posted!

KILLED BY CARPETS

My friend and I decide to meet at a place that's in between her house and mine and find ourselves at the Woburn Mall.  Anyone who is familiar with the area can tell you that the location of this mall is key: right off two major highways, around the corner from the industrial district, and situated on two very busy roads.

However, other than two anchor stores and a couple of die-hards, the place is deserted.  Half of the stores are empty, and we are among possibly thirty people milling around inside the mall itself.  Both anchor stores are crowded beyond reason: a local chain grocery store and a HomeGoods store.  My friend and I are fans of TJ Maxx/Marshalls/HomeGoods, so we wander in for a look-see.

Holy crap.  Holy crap on a goddamn cracker.  THIS STORE IS AMAZING.  This store is IKEA for people with agoraphobia who want a side of clothing with their furniture purchases.

This particular HomeGoods store has the best selection of clothing for every size and gender that I have seen in years at other stores, including specialty department stores.  It also has fabulous jewelry, tons of home gadgets, and enough furniture and decor to redo entire mansions.  It has beauty products, pet products, sporting goods, and Halloween costumes for kids.

It also has rugs.  RUGS.  Yes, rugs.  No, not the rolled up kind at WalMart or Home Depot, although they do have some of those kinds of rugs.  These are the master-class of rugs: room-sized, Oriental style, modern, decorative, and heavy as sons of bitches. 

The rugs are suspended from the ceiling by a contraption that allows consumers to see what the rug looks like all splayed out then pull the carpet sideways to expose the next rug.  Moving these monstrous rugs, even with the help of mechanical technology, is difficult.  The first few times I try to "flip over" to a new rug, the old rug comes swinging backward and basically kicks the living shit out of me.  Several times I am trapped between two humongous suspended rugs like cheese on a sandwich.

Finally, after freeing myself from the rug maze, I realize that the rug left in view is probably the best one in the batch.  It's not as large as the others that smush me into the sandwich (9 X 12 feet), but it is just as heavy.  It's an uneven tufted pattern of color.  I lean in closer and realize that the entire rug is starting to look like it has a more intricate woven pattern. 

This is when another rug that hasn't quite settled firmly into place decides it's time for fresh air.  The giant rug pulls at its metal hanging rod high above, and the momentum sends the rug careening back at me. I do not even have time to move.  I am suddenly smacked upside my head with the full force of an Oriental rug on steroids.  I am now officially a HomeGoods flapjack, just me and a bunch of rugs that are suspended from on-high like silver-dollar pancakes stacked at IHOP.

My friend, of course, is laughing and can't help me much because the entire rack of rugs probably weighs about 10,000 pounds.  She does, however, assist me in pushing my way out like some kind of spelunker suddenly shone the light of day after a near-death cave experience.  When my eyes re-focus to safety again, I notice the lovely rug that I'd begun admiring when this whole incident started: a bluish print style carpet with shapes on it resembling a mosaic.

How appropriate. Thank goodness the mosaic pattern is for admiring and not marking my rug-induced grave.  I may have been as dead as some of the stores in the mall.  But, on a positive note, my carpeted demise would probably make the news and create a buzz of activity at the mall again, so I suppose my survival or not would equal a successful shopping experience.

YOU NASTY MOTHER NATURE

Thirty days of hotness;
One day it gets cool;
Wearing sweaters for a day;
Other days the pool.
Briefly there is respite,
I think that I might live.
Then it's back to eighty!

Oh, what I would give
To feel the breeze and chill
Instead of constant sweat.
What happens when it cools off?
Rain! So, now it's wet.
Come on, Mother Nature,
You're making me insane.
What's with all the drama?
What the hell's your game?
Just a taste of autumn
Then summer's back for more;
Little bit of sunshine
Then muggy with downpour.
I know that you do hate me
And I often wonder why
You nasty, Mother Nature,
Are trying to make me fry?
Eventually fall happens
For a teeny tiny bit,
Then you'll dump the snow on
And the leaves all go to shit.
It's okay, I'm ready
If you'd maybe just agree
To bring a little temp drop
To make us all happy.
But don't be going crazy
Like you often get:
Just a taste of autumn --
'Cause it ain't winter yet!

OF COURSE I WANNA

One of my sisters and I tend to do strange things when we are together.  This isn't anything new.

It started years before the infamous rollerskating rope trick (me in old skates with a rope around me and tied about twenty feet behind her bike) when we were kids and has continued ever since.  When I was almost out of my teens, she convinced me to take horseback riding lessons, and we would lead the others in singing "Happy Trails to You" at the end of each lesson as we walked the horses to cool them down.  We walked through Walden woods, stopping to take selfies with the Henry David Thoreau statue.  We had to abandon a house at Strawberry Banke (old village) when one of us, I won't say who but it wasn't me, passed gas.

On our way home from her daughter's wedding in Maine, we decide to stop at the Stanley Auto Museum.  Oh sure, we know it's closed, but we just want to nose around and see if there's anything cool to photograph (other than the building, which is an old school building).  I mean, seriously -- the place is locked up tight.  How much trouble can we possibly get into?

And this is when I eat my words.

My sister, who has taken several steps ahead of me, is rounding the side of the building when she suddenly zooms back and shoots me a waggish grin.  "You are not going to BELIEVE what they have back here!"

I'm thinking, since it's an auto museum, maybe there's an old car out back for kids to climb on or for people to use as a photo op.  We are at an auto museum, so her excitement should be connected to that, or so my brain tells me. I catch up to her and her waving arm and focus in the direction at which she is now pointing.

There's no automobile, but there is a self-propelling mechanism of our childhood sitting squarely by itself near a children's playground.  Tucked behind the museum and near to a modern, SAFE playground, there is an old merry-go-round type recess ride.  You know the one: steel pipes to hold onto, set into a huge round disc that spins at whatever speed your legs can propel it.

It is, quite simply, one of the most dangerous amusements from our childhood.

"You wanna?" she asks me.

Oh my gawd, woman, you know exactly what I'm going to say.  It's the same thing I said when we decided the skates-rope-bike contraption was a brilliant idea; it's the same thing that happened when you encouraged me to join you and harmonize "Happy Trails to You" like we were some kind of Cowsills version of Roy Rogers and Dale Evans; it's the same exact answer that I gave you when you asked if we should take selfies with Thoreau, or when I had to run for my life or get blamed for the noxious fumes at Strawberry Banke.

OF COURSE I WANNA.

We both grab hold of the metal bars and start spinning the old merry-go-round at a decent clip, and then, amazingly enough, we both jump on without killing ourselves.  It's a lovely ride for about thirty seconds until we realize that someone must've greased the ball-joint on this baby because we are not slowing down.  Not at all.  We are, in fact, picking up speed.

I don't normally get sea sick, but I will admit that my eyeballs are starting to float just a little bit, and I might very well barf up my breakfast if we keep going like this.  Both of us scoot to the edges and start dragging our feet, which isn't so easy because I'm wearing pull-on shoes and she is wearing sandals.

Finally we get the ride to a standstill, and we sit for a few moments to get our own bearings back because we still have a three-hour drive ahead of us.  We need to save our shenanigans up and spread them out for the rest of the trip.  However, this is probably the high point of our commute, and I have to be completely honest and say that I certainly would love to go back and do it again and again and again (as long as someone doesn't claim it's too dangerous and get the merry-go-round removed for everyone's own good).

WHICH WINE GOES WITH HOT DOGS?

My refrigerator decides that the weather is too much for it.  About five days ago, it started to lose its cool -- literally -- during the last of the multiple heat waves we have had.  It's not entirely the fridge's fault.  I went away for four days during the thickest, hottest of the weather, and the poor thing tried and tried and tried to keep itself running.

Eventually as the weather changes and as I return from my vacation to put the air conditioners back on, the fridge does spring back to life with a vengeance, freezing nearly everything inside.  But, during its few days of being a little wonky, I have been averse to putting anything too valuable and potentially lethal inside its semi-chilly chamber.

That means I have been eating sedate things, like peanut butter and jelly, ham, and things I'm not worrying too much about getting salmonella from, like hot dogs.  Yes, I have eaten hot dogs for at least two dinners.

It's not so bad.

The first night I have a lovely English cucumber, so I slice that up and throw on some Caesar dressing to go along with my dog in its bun with mustard and relish.  The second dinner is even better.  My friend brings me fresh tomatoes from her garden, and I have some basil on a plant that has just about decided it's done for the season, so I make a fabulous Caprese salad by buying fresh mozzarella to add to it all.

Suddenly I feel like I should be celebrating.  I mean, it's not every day that Caprese salad and hot dogs are on the menu.  Plus, the fridge is still crippling along, and I might make it a few more days until I have to decide if it will recover or if I need to buy a new one (as you know, it recovers!).  I decide that some semi-chilled white wine would go perfectly with my wonderful Italian-ish all-American supper.

I'm not really sure of the wine pairings for Caprese salad and a hot dog with relish and mustard in a bun, but I will say that the sauvignon blanc does a wonderful job of making the meal more decadent.  I'm not sure if I am ready to go to Wine Spectator with that claim, but I guess sharing it with all of you via my blog will have to do.

FIGHTING FRIDAY FUNK

Returning to work after the summer break is always brutal.  I say it isn't, but then Friday night smacks me right in the face, and I know in my heart and in my brain that I am nothing more than a pathetic liar.

It starts after lunch on the very first Friday.  I suddenly notice that I have a splitting headache.  Seriously.  Not a little annoying one, not even a migraine; this headache is at retina-splitting levels.  I briefly wonder if I'm having a stroke, which I hope I'm not because I still have two classes to teach.  I pop Tylenol (super-heavy-duty, extra-aggressive, strength-of-an-Olympian, fastest-acting-on-the-planet Tylenol) and pray for relief.

I make it through the rest of the day, but by the time the bell rings to release the children for the weekend, I am ready to put my head in a drawer and leave it there until Monday.  I just want to go home and crawl into bed. But, I cannot.  I have errands to run.

First, I go deliver a bunch of goodies to my invalid sister.  Thankfully, she didn't ask for a laundry list of stuff when I visited yesterday, and I know she won't be there when I pop in today, so I dump the stuff and run, run, run as fast as I can with my head down so no one notices me and engages me in conversation. 

Then I remember that my fridge is sort of on the blink.  It has been running at less than optimal temperatures since the four days that I was away at the wedding and the house got to about a thousand degrees while I was gone.  I turned the fridge and freezer temperature way up, but I'm a little worried that it's time to invest in a new fridge.  I buy some beer anyway because I have a cooler and ice, so I can totally make this happen.

The car needs gas, so I stop and throw $20 worth in, then I have to go to the light and turn around in the plaza or else I'll be sitting trying to cross four lanes of traffic.  Oh, yeah, and I might as well stop at Whole Foods and get something healthy for dinner because I have a gift card ... an old gift card ... the kind that apparently doesn't work anymore, so I have to get a manager and change registers just to check out.

I finally arrive home ninety minutes after leaving work, still indulging a brain-bleed of a headache.  I put the beer on ice in a small cooler and decide that I should probably give it about an hour before the beer is as icy as I really want it.  Meantime, I open the fridge to check the temperature.

Damnation ... but, also, YAY.

Sometime between this morning and this very moment, the fridge decided to work again, and much of the shit inside is frozen.  This is bad for the waters on the top shelf, but fabulous for the cans of beer on the bottom shelf because they are beyond ice cold yet not iced over, so I decide to have one of those while I wait for the bottles that I bought and put on ice to get cold enough.

This is a mistake.  A bad, bad, bad mistake.

By five o'clock in the evening, I am starting to consider going to bed.  Yup, this is exactly what the First Friday of School looks like: Bedtime beats sundown.  My waning headache is not the biggest struggle I have right now; my biggest struggle is keeping my eyelids open.  However, five o'clock is not an acceptable Friday evening wrap-up hour unless I am a toddler or an elderly person.  Since I am neither, I force myself to stay awake.

I do some work, I play some games, I answer some emails, I text with friends, I watch television, and I have a beer from the cooler.  I do anything and everything I can to maximize my evening and the start of my weekend.  Certainly by now it is a respectable bedtime, right?  No, it's only six-thirty.  I repeat my activities in just about the same order, including the confident delusion that it must be time to go to bed because the sun has pretty much set.  This time when I check, it's barely seven-forty-five.

Finally, I make it to nine-thirty, an absolutely acceptable time to call it a night.  By the time I'm done putzing around and turning down the bed and all, it's ten-fifteen.  I put my head down on the pillow and then I don't remember a damn thing.  I get up a couple of times during the night, but then I'm out again.

I sleep ten hours.  Ten damn hours of my life, of my weekend, gone just like that.  When I finally roll out of bed, my headache has dissipated, and I feel a little sluggish.  I spend a few hours doing work I was too tired to do the night before, then I go about my day, hoping I don't look any worse for the wear of my first week of being back at school and being on my feet teaching.

It's going to be another long year, folks, and now you know why teachers hate Friday nights: Zombieland.  Yes, we are all zombies by the end of the week.  It's all good as long as you don't steal the beer out of my cooler because, even if I doze off, I'll be looking for it Saturday when my senses return.

COFFEELESS BUT LUCKY

On my way to a weekend wedding extravaganza, I have myself all packed.  I am so ready that I probably have enough gear and specialty items to last a month in the wilderness and look damn good while doing so.  I have everything from bug spray to eye liner, and my clothing ranges from work-out gear and sneakers to lace-overlay dresses and high heels.

I am so ready that all I need is an iced coffee for the road.  Yes, a simple thing, and then I'm out the door.  I'll drag my suitcase and bags to the car, throw everything but the iced coffee in the trunk, and start heading north toward Sugarloaf, Maine.  I'm even going to put the iced coffee into a disposable cup so I don't have to bring home four-day old coffee crud in a travel mug.  Oh, sure, I could buy an iced coffee at Dunkins, but their iced coffee is never quite perfect.  Mine is perfect.  Perfectly perfect.

Which is why the next thing I have to tell you is so horrifyingly tragic that I still cry a little bit as I recall the devastating events that are about to unfold.

I have a cooler with me on its way to Maine.  It's a great cooler, made of waterproof fabric, so it's flexible and has a long strap attached.  It has some beer in it and some wine in it and some waters in it, along with a crapload of ice to keep everything cold on this 90+ degree day.  The cooler sits next to my suitcase and my shoe bag.

For some reason, this also looks like a grand location at which to place my iced coffee.

As soon as I move the shoe bag, the suitcase wiggles, which in turn causes the cooler to buckle ever so slightly.  I watch with frightful anticipation as the cooler nudges the container of iced coffee, and, like The House That Jack Built, a chain reaction from one to the other to the other leads to the inevitable: over goes the coffee cup.

I swear a little under my breath because my son is still sleeping in his room at the top of the stairs, which is about ten yards from where the coffee has tipped over.  I notice that some coffee is spilling from the straw, which is being held in place by the cover I snapped on ... lightly ... apparently too lightly.

As soon as I reach for the cup, the entire top pops off with a sound that resembles a slap across the face, and the entire contents of iced coffee (cream, sugar, ice cubes, and all) rushes across the floor toward my packed bags (and some of my son's gear) with a whooshing sound that kind of seems to whisper "suuuuuuuuuucker" as it oozes across the entryway.

Now I'm swearing for real but still trying to do so through clenched teeth because, yes, my son is still sleeping, despite the sound of my packed bags flying across the den to avoid getting drenched and the stomping of my feet to the kitchen to grab paper towels.  The whole entire roll of paper towels -- which turns out to really be the end of a roll of paper towels.

After throwing down whatever paper towels I have in my immediate vicinity, I realize that's not going to be exceptionally helpful, so I run to the pantry closet and grab a full roll of paper towels to add to the ones already sopping wet on the floor.  Like a mantra, my mouth continues spewing swears faster than the nearly empty cup is spewing iced coffee.

The towels, dripping with sugary, creamy, coffee-stinking liquid, only make it partially to the trash can because I am so mad at this point that I sort of throw them into the barrel, but they sort of miss.  Now I have iced coffee on the trash can lid, running down the front of the can, slopping in huge droplets on the tile floor, and spattering the wall like some kind of surreal Andy Warhol pop art creation.

Sonofabitch.

Finally, I get as much cleaned up as I can, leave one final dry paper towel on the floor, write my kid a note, throw away the damn empty cup, lid, and straw, put my gear in the car, and take off.  If this is the worst part of my day (and it is), then I'm a damn lucky person.  Coffee-less, but lucky, just the same.

BUS-TED

It's still last week -- stay with me a day longer; I promise I'll catch up to you -- and I am going into my own classroom to secure the borders.  It's Walk-About Day, a day when parents and students that I am about to have are able to come waltzing through the school and our classrooms to see where they're going to be having classes. I don't have to be here, but I want to be here.  I might be able to get about thirty minutes of work done in the two hours we have open campus.

I don't want to be too early, so I make a loose plan to leave my house around 7:20.  My backpack has stuff I need to bring to school: tea to restock the team's supply, papers to copy, water bottles, etc.  I leave my driveway, turn right onto the one-way street and --

Damnit.  Damn, damn, damn.

Twice in less than twenty-four hours I have forgotten that school has already started in the town where I live.  I am stuck behind a school van-bus that is waiting ... waiting ... waiting ... waiting for the kid to come out of the house.  Finally, after the line of cars stretches back onto the railroad tracks, the van-bus moves forward without the student and pulls over into a parking space.

Thank you, considerate bus driver!  Now I can get going and no one behind me will be hit by the commuter train.  So far, it's a win-win. 

I head up a side street, trying to calculate the possibility of being stuck behind another bus.  I mean, I'm in no real hurry.  The Walk-About at my school doesn't start for another ninety minutes.  But, once it does start, I will be on point and en pointe for two straight hours.  I just want to get to my classroom and get some stuff organized before the mayhem begins.

Oh, no. I see one of the big yellow buses up ahead.  Booooo.  Luckily, it turns before I have to merge on to the main road that will take me out of my hometown and into my work town.  At the end of the street, I look to the left and see a line of traffic coming.  An endless line.  It's as if no one has taken the highway this morning; they're all on the back road track.  I decide to take a deep breath and relax while waiting for the line of vehicles to move past.  I even get a little misty-eyed when an eighteen-wheeler hauling Bud Light crosses my path.

Finally, I am on my way, but I hit every possible red light except for one that has been yellow for a bit, and I run it anyway as it turns red.  I know, I know; this is illegal.  Then I remember, "Oh crap.  School started yesterday.  The police will be EVERYWHERE."  I check out the speed limit, get my car to that exact miles per hour, and set my cruise control.  No way am I getting a ticket (now that I've already broken the law this morning).

The Walk-About goes well, except that parents and children are still coming into my room and invading the building over an hour after the end time of the event.  Finally, I shut off my lights, close and lock my classroom, and skeedaddle out the back door.  If I'm not going to get anything done, then I can "not" do it at my own house.

Besides, if I don't leave soon, I'll be stuck in the afternoon bus traffic back in my hometown.  It takes me two days to figure out this simple truth, but I guess I can forgive myself.  After all, I still have a little bit more of my summer before I need to get my head on straight for my own daily commute.