This day started out tremendously. We all got up early - but not too early - and walked to Grand Central Bakery for breakfast. I always get a jammer (hollowed-out biscuit filled with raspberry jam) for me and a brioche bread pudding for the girls. These are my two favorite pastries there and the girls never finish the bread pudding, which means the last few bites are mine (I wouldn't want Dude to call me a waster). Our plan was to come home, get organized, and have a fun-filled family trip to the plumbing store. I've been complaining that Dude only takes Saturdays off work and then ends up doing chores all day, leaving me without a day of co-parenting, making me cranky, causing arguments to ensue. No fun. So, a family trip to the plumbing store was a compromise. I was promised we could also look at a new mattress for the girls' bed (which hurts my back) and this was the real reason I was down with the plan. But upon arriving home, Dude called the store to make sure they had the part he needed and discovered that they would replace it for free if it could be mailed. This left us with a free morning. I was all ready to go to just the mattress store when Dude said something most unexpected: "Let's go to the zoo!" What? The ZOO? I know we have a membership and everything but Dude almost never flies by the seat of his pants like that.
So off we went to the zoo! I think the girls are finally at the right age for it, too. They know lots of animals from books and were astounded to see them in real life. I think they were a little stunned at the magnitude of some of the animals, especially the giraffe. The mama and baby elephants together were ridiculously cute. When we got to the zebras, I asked the Bug how many she could count. She said, "Uno, dos zebras." The giant brain on that kid scares me. I pray that she is not a conniving teen because I think she's going to be very, very good at whatever she wants to be very, very good at. The primate house was our last stop and just as we were strolling up, it started to rain - and rain and rain and rain and rain. This was not a light little mist or a gentle shower. It was a thunderstorm. We waited 20 minutes or so and since there was no end in sight, I put the rain cover on the stroller, broke out a few umbrellas and off we went. But Belly was TICKED that she had to ride in the stroller and was not being carried by her mother (who was trying to keep the diaper bag dry). She started screaming in the monkey house and continued all the way to the truck in the parking lot. Honestly, it sounded like we were doing a poor job of covertly smuggling a monkey out of the zoo. People stared. It pretty much blew.
After we got home, I noticed some water in the bathroom and the family room, which is our finished basement. Dude and I immediately knew the problem. We had a new roof put on about a month ago, but the gutters were shot. We've been lackadaisical about getting new gutters because we've been trying to decide between regular downspouts or something fancier. We finally reached a decision (regular downspouts) and the gutter people will be putting them up on Tuesday. In the meantime, we got nothin'. And water was pooling up against the front of the house.
Dude ran outside and nailed plastic sheeting to the front of the house, creating a water slide to the driveway. I sussed out the situation downstairs. We ended up peeling back the carpet, using the Shopvac to get the water out of the carpet and the padding, propping everything up to dry, aiming three fans at the area and putting the dehumidifier right there, too. We'll see what we're dealing with when it's dry. I've already decided in my head that we'll need to replace the carpet and the drywall. Frickin' frack. This so could've been avoided and we were just stupid about it.
Somehow, neither Dude nor I have become bitchy about this. I feel like we've been a really solid team today, even complimenting each other about good ideas and stuff. We had planned to make catfish for dinner (one of our favorite things ever - prepared only after daughters are sound asleep and served with a few beers apiece) and watch old episodes of The West Wing. Instead (because the tv is downstairs in the family room), we're going to drop a three-hour Duraflame log into the fireplace in the living room, turn on some music, and pig out in front of the fire. Now some of you might be thinking, "Have they had their fireplace fixed yet?" And the answer is no, but we've been told that a couple fires using that specific Duraflame log - as opposed to a roaring fire - will be just fine (we need to have the mortar shored up in the firebox; the chimney is in fine shape and clean and ready to go). This house sure is charming but DANG we're putting some work into it.
0 comments:
Post a Comment