This is week 146 of The Life of Riley, a weekly post detailing my activities since I ended a thirteen year career as a corporate drone. These posts are usually long, personal, and geared more for my own memory than the reader’s entertainment.

Sunday (Day 1015): Water To Whine

We had gone to daylight-saving time the night before, so I woke up late. I threw on my clothes and ran down to the basement. Our troubled window well was full and dumping water onto the floor. The robot was rolling back and forth through the giant puddle, and seemed to be entranced by the wake he was creating.

“What the hell, robot? Why didn’t you tell me?”

The robot beeped a few times, and I heard the EEEEEEEskhhhhhh of his modem connecting. The phone rang upstairs.

“Stopstopstop. I needed that call when the flooding started.”

The robot flashed ZZZZs on the screen.

“I don’t care if I’m sleeping. Remove any time restrictions on your dialing subroutines.”

The robot beeped a few times and the phone rang upstairs again.

“Not NOW. Gah. Sometimes, I swear. Just, back up. Backup backup backup.”

The robot rolled out of the water, and I surveyed the damage. It looked as if the water had been coming in for so long that the tide had risen, flooded, and subsided by the time I got there. The robot was shifting back and forth at the edge of the puddle and watching the ripples.

“Robot. So help me, if you don’t get out of the way, I’m going to hang your circuit boards out on the fence and let the crows peck at them.”

The robot backed up and I went out in the rain and bailed out the window well. I came in soaked.

“What can I do?” asked #1GF!.

“Nothing. I’ll take care of it,” I said.

“I want to help.”

“I know, but someone has to keep an ear out for the baby…”

#1GF! reluctantly went back upstairs. The robot and I vacuumed up what was left of the water, but the walls were still seeping. They weren’t dumping enough water that patching was a necessity, but it was enough water to be annoying.

There wasn’t a lot left that I could do, so I went back upstairs, changed out of my wet clothes, and had a bowl of cereal. I sat down to watch some Flight of the Conchords while #1GF! made sauce. The show was sort of like a musical Dumb & Dumber with New Zealand accents. It would’ve been relaxing if I didn’t have to jump up every fifteen minutes to check on the window well from hell because the robot had proven himself to be beyond untrustworthy.

We had to drop some things off at #1GF!’s mother’s house, so we got dressed, got some coffee, and headed over. On the way, we stopped at Lowe’s to pick up duct tape and caulk. There’s no problem too big that it can’t be solved with a lot of caulk and little duct tape, I always say. We were going to pick up a plastic cover to keep water out of the window well from hell, but the ones they had looked as if they had been melted by a splash of something hot.

It started pouring on the way home, so as soon as I got in the house, I checked the window well. It had a couple of inches of water in it. That wasn’t good, but it could’ve been worse.

I went down to the basement and sealed the pipe insulation with some duct tape because the self-sealing insulation I bought was starting to separate in places. I then patched some of the new leaks in the foundation with some hydraulic cement. When I was done, I checked on the window well again. The water appeared to be receding.

I went back upstairs to play with the baby before she had to go to bed. I was laying on our bed and practically tossing her up in the air as she laughed. “I’m always worried I’m going to drop her,” I said to #1GF!.

“It’s a good thing you’re in the middle of the bed.”

“I know, but still.”

“Just think. Seven months ago, you had no idea how to hold her. And now look at you.”

I was wide-eyed and nodding. “I know.”

At the baby’s next nap, I went through one of the LOR posts that I was supposed to have finished the week before. In between baby care sessions, I managed to make it through one editing pass by the end of the day. It was looking like I could only do about two and a half posts per week. At a break, I checked FB and got my uncle to join.

At 8:15 PM, I sat down to write down the day’s events. The combination of the rain hitting the side of the house and the din of the ocean made it sound as if we lived close to a highway.

“All this water keeps me on edge,” I said to #1GF!. “Why can’t it rain during the day, and be quiet at night? Then, I could keep up with the water. Rain just feels colder in the pitch dark. And it’s just inconvenient.”

“I know, honey,” said #1GF! as she picked up the phone. “Should I call Mother Nature or Jesus for this one? Who handles water complaints these days? Mother Nature doesn’t seem to have a phone and…let’s see…walking on water…water to wine…water slides. Nope, no water complaint number listed for Jesus either.”

“Would you like to go down and deal with the water, smarty?”

“Sure, I can—”

I waved my arms. “Gah.” I waved a finger. “You.”

“Good one. I love you. Good luck down there.”

I went down to check on the basement. The water was trickling out of one spot that I had already patched, and the window well was holding steady at a couple of inches of water. The water bothered me like a sleeping gorilla, so I let it be, but kept my eye on it.

#1GF! went out to pick up subs because there was no way that we were cooking. We watched a stupid game show and I went back to the basement at ten. The water was pouring through a crack that I had already patched not once, but twice. “What the fuck?” I said to the wall. “It’s not called water slow down concrete. It’s called water stop.”

The robot flashed an exclamation point on his screen to back me up.

“Don’t act like you’re helping. You’re supposed to tell me about—” I heard him dialing again. “DON’T.”

The robot dropped the call and a dial tone came out of his speaker.

“Anytime you want to hang up, robot.”

The robot hung up.

I grabbed a bucket and created an ultra dry mix of hydraulic cement for a third patch. It seemed to stop the flow, but that’s what it did the first two times. Once it was done, I rinsed my trowel before emptying a few gallons of water from the kiddie pool that was my window well.

#1GF! went to bed, but I stayed up because I had the feeling that the basement would be flooding at some point. The later I stayed up, the more water that I could take out of that well before sleep gave the water an advantage.

I wiped a thick layer of dust off of my feed reader and sat down to catch up on some RSS feeds. While I chipped away a snow cone’s worth of information off of an informational iceberg, the baby woke up. I couldn’t get her to calm down, so #1GF! stepped in. #1GF! and the baby soon went back to bed, and I went back to the PC. I looked up XFN to see if it was in any way valuable, but it doesn’t seem to be, at this stage of the game.

I checked the window well again at 2 AM, and it was miraculously dry. I groggily rolled into bed and lay there listening to the water pounding the windows. I wondered if I had seen the water level correctly. How hard is it to check a water level? You look at the water, and it’s there or it’s not. It was not, yet I lay there in thinking that my eyes might’ve been playing tricks on me.

Monday (Day 1016): Weeping Water

I dreamed all night that I was in a house that was leaking. I had patched ceilings with layer after layer of cardboard, and the water was finding its way in.

I woke up at 5 AM. It was still dark and I was running on three hours of sleep. I grabbed a flashlight. “I’m going to the basement.”

“Don’t you want to wait until the baby wakes up?”

“If I wait and there’s a mess down there, it’s just going to get worse in the next hour.”

I checked the basement, and one of the places that I patched three times was still weeping water. I couldn’t figure out how the water was getting through, but it wasn’t producing more than a drip, so I moved on. I checked the window well, and it was empty. I went back upstairs feeling like I won the lottery.

I went back to bed and slept on and off until 8 AM, which was really late for me. I could hear #1GF! cooking, emptying the dishwasher, and doing laundry.

She came in at 8 AM and woke me. “Are you getting up?” she asked.

“Why, do you want to make the bed? I was hoping that you might mop the floors and wash the windows first.”

“I’m not supposed to be in work for an hour, and I’m bored.”

“You’ve only been up for an hour. Now, you understand a tiny fraction of my life.”

I got up and took the recycling out before emptying a couple of gallons of water that had filled the window well since 5 AM. It was still raining, and everything was saturated. There were puddles on the lawn where I’ve never seen water pool. The ocean and the winds droned in the background all morning.

#1GF! was working from home, so she took over the baby so that I could jump in the shower. I then took over the baby care for the next few hours, as usual. The baby was asleep by noon, and I sat down at the desk to type out the day’s events.

The baby didn’t stay asleep long, and I split the rest of the day between baby care, emptying the window well, and jamming hydraulic cement into crevices that already had plenty of hydraulic shoved into them. By 7 PM, the lawn was a giant puddle, and I hadn’t written a thing. The water prevention program had eaten almost the entire day.

I worked on LOR for a half hour before the wind really kicked up. I could hear it angrily hurling buckets of rain against the windows. I went to the basement to check on the water situation. There were still droplets taunting me from behind bits of waterstop, but the basement was holding. I went to the attic, and it was dry, although I found a rotted board, which I wasn’t too excited about.

#1GF! made baked ziti for dinner at 8:30 PM. Our DVR was refusing to update its program guide, so #1GF! sent me off to fix it. #1GF! doesn’t make many demands around here, but being prevented from taping shows is one of the few issues that #1GF! wants fixed immediately. I figured out the issue, and #1GF!’s DVR was back online by 9.

By the time we finished dinner, I didn’t feel like doing anything. It was still raining, and I was sick and fucking tired of water. I didn’t have the will to sit down to write, and gave up the day as a writing loss.

Tuesday (Day 1017): All About Asphalt And Fluorocarbons

The sun was out. The sun. The fireball in the sky was actually out. After all that rain, I was so pissed at the weather that I didn’t care. Mother Nature could keep her concessions. I was now a man who was all about asphalt and fluorocarbons. I tried to estimate the expense of paving my entire lot, and idling a diesel dump truck in my driveway for the next year or so, but it turned out to be more than was in the budget for payback.

The baby was fussy all morning. I got her fed, which didn’t help. I dusted and swept the house by taking her from room to room because she refused to nap.

I finished up, fed her lunch, and got her to sleep. I got everything cleaned up, made a sandwich, called my dad to see about his water situation, and then talked to #1GF! and her mother. By the time I finished the last phone call, the baby was already awake. The closest I got to the computer was opening a post to start writing.

It had been less than forty minutes after the baby went to bed, and it was already 1 PM. The baby didn’t take her afternoon nap either, so the day ended up being a total writing loss. Because she had missed so much sleep, the baby was beyond cranky. I had to stay within a foot of her and continuously talk to her to keep her from whining.

I thought that I was supposed to make dessert for #1GF!’s mom because she was coming over for dinner on Wednesday. I made key lime squares over the course of four hours. They only take about fifteen minutes under normal circumstances.

I took the baby out to the store to buy condensed milk for the recipe because the can I had went bad. I didn’t think condensed milk went bad. I felt like I was nine hundred years old for having condensed milk on hand, and nine hundred and fifty for having it long enough that it went bad.

The baby seemed to enjoy the short trip, and when I got home, I opened the can of condensed milk with a knife because THAT’S HOW A MAN OPENS A CAN WHEN HE DOESN’T FEEL LIKE POUNDING IT OPEN WITH HIS BARE HANDS. Okay, so maybe I don’t have an old-timey punch can opener like your mom used to use on giant cans of Hi-C back when your dad still drank beer from pull-top cans.

When #1GF! got home, she took over the baby care. I was toast. It’s not a mentally or physically demanding job, but entertaining a cranky baby for eight hours without a break is not easy. It’s not. It grinds you down.

“Are you okay?” asked #1GF!

“Yea.”

She tried to get me out of the room. “Why don’t you go write?”

“I’m not aggravated.”

“You seem aggravated.”

“That’s just the way my face is. Days like this happen. My brain is toast.”

#1GF! agreed. “It’s hard.”

“I feel like a pussy for saying things like that, but sometimes it is hard.”

“Entertaining a baby all day long isn’t easy. Eat some dinner. You have some writing to do.”

I rubbed my hands over my face. “You want anything? Food, a drink, anything?”

“Not now,” said #1GF!. “I’ll eat later.”

I sat at the table and had a plate of leftovers while #1GF! fed the baby. “I see you made dessert.”

“You know, I knew that you were bringing something home and I completely forgot. I’m telling you, my brain is mush. I walked into the kitchen and said, ‘Shit, what the hell am I going to make for dinner?’ three different times because I kept forgetting that we were having leftovers.”

Once I finished eating, I jumped around to make the baby laugh before #1GF! put her to bed. She then went out to the store to pick up some fries that I forgot.

I sat at my desk and finished off LOR 138. I wrote until 11 PM because I was way behind on my writing for the week.

Wednesday (Day 1018): Guns With Bombs In Them

It was sixty degrees out and the flowers were poking up through the mulch. It was a drastic departure from the constant rain.

I had a very typical morning with the baby, which despite the weather, didn’t leave room for going outside. My father and #1GF!’s mother were coming over for dinner, so I spent what little spare time I had cleaning and cooking. I will admit to spending a part of one of the baby’s naps researching multifunction printers because my printer and scanner were both really good when I bought them back in 1998.

I put ribs in the oven at 3 PM to get them tender by dinner time. The baby refused to take her afternoon nap, so we sat outside in the balmy sixty-nine degree weather. A gang of neighborhood kids toted neon guns and hit the deck when they saw me. They soon moved on because there were incoming choppers. Their guns could shoot them down because there were bombs in them. Or so they said. I didn’t challenge their assertions, just in case they were true.

#1GF! brought her mother over and I made a salad and finished prepping the rest of the dinner. My father showed up soon after. They seemed to enjoy the meal, although I thought the ribs came out dry.

For desert, I served up some key lime squares on a graham cracker crust, topped with fresh whipped cream and lime slices. Those were a hit.

I cleaned up while #1GF! put the baby to bed. My father left to pick up my mother from a trip, and #1GF! took her mother home. It was only 9 PM, but it felt like midnight. I finished cleaning up the kitchen and shut off the lights. I typed out the days events on the PC, but my heart wasn’t in it. I was too tired.

Thursday (Day 1019): Better On Paper

The baby was up in the middle of the night. I could barely piece together what happened because #1GF! took care of it. I know I offered to help, and I know the baby was crying on and off for a couple of hours, but it was all very blurry. I remember it like something you see in your peripheral vision that you can’t seem to see when you look directly at it.

I woke up exhausted, but not cranky. The baby was a lot of fun, and slept a good amount so that I could finally get a little writing in. I also managed to squeeze in some multifunction printer research, which burned a bit of my already limited writing time.

It was warm out, so the baby and I went for a walk in the late afternoon. The neighborhood kids were out with their moms who walked over to get a look at the baby. They all thought that she looked like #1GF!. I made a couple of beard jokes and then said it was probably the height. Like your favorite band, I’m not as good live.

I didn’t bring the baby’s stroller on the walk, because I figured that it’d be a better workout lugging her than pushing her. She was only seventeen pounds, so she wasn’t even as heavy as a grocery bag.

The tide was high and the surfers were out. The wind kept blowing the baby’s hat off, so after chasing it out onto the boulder sea wall, I opted to pocket her hat and put her hood up.

I thought the baby would like the walk, but she seemed confused by it all. She fell asleep within five minutes of getting home. All the stimulation must’ve worn her out. When I put her in her crib, I noticed that she smelled like salt. It was one of those days where everything was as easy as a smile. It was such a good day, that when #1GF! got home from work, I thanked her for letting me stay home with the baby.

After the baby’s nap, I fed her and hung out with #1GF! for a while. We walked the baby up and down the hall, and I started walking her so fast that her feet were only brushing the ground. She laughed uncontrollably. #1GF! took over the baby care soon after, and I went in and bought a printer. It needed to be done. You can only do so much research when time is limited.

I went back and hung out with #1GF! and the baby for a while despite having only one post done for the week. The baby crashed at 8PM, and I went in to write down the days events. I didn’t feel pressure to write, even though I was way behind for the week.

Friday (Day 1020): Don’t Bother

#1GF! took her mother out to her appointments, and then worked from home. I ran out to do the food shopping once #1GF! was done with work, and because I was by myself, everything felt like it was moving at double speed. The end.

Whoa. Don’t go giving me that face like you got ripped off. I think you’ve been reading long enough to know that something was going to suffer for the robot’s return, and even though you were given fair warning not to bother (please refer to title 1, line 1 of said post), you’ll see a one-time credit for this day on your next bill.

Saturday (Day 1021): The Great Cannoli Fake Out

I grabbed a couple of Bon Appetit magazines that had been sitting in a magazine rack for at least a couple of years. My intention was to find something new to eat. I only had to go through half of a magazine before I remembered why I hate Bon Appetit: every recipe uses at least one ingredient that I’ve never heard of to make dishes that I wouldn’t know when or how to serve. Are they meals? Are they appetizers? Are they for breakfast or dinner? Do I really need creme fraiche and leeks to make what is essentially onion dip? Do I really need recipes in case a semi-formal garden party breaks out on my property? Why do I feel like I need new friends who laugh jauntily and never spill a drop of creme fraiche and leek dip on their $200 shirts to serve this pretentious, overblown shit to? This magazine calls out ingredients like we all have an limitless time and an expense account at the gourmet market. I mean, who the fuck keeps creme fraiche on hand? Seriously. I had no idea. I put the magazines in the recycle bin, where they should’ve gone a couple of years ago.

We were supposed to bring dessert to #1GF!’s family’s house, so we drove to Montilio’s Bakery. We drove through the flooded sections of Quincy that had been under six feet of water during the recent storm. There were so many pieces of furniture and household items spread over people’s yards, that it looked like a neighborhood estate sale. It made me realize that even though I had water in my basement, my water situation wasn’t all that bad.

As we drove out of the area, we saw a five-year-old wearing a Batman costume and running through the furniture in one of the driveways. I could only imagine that when the family was cleaning up from the flood, the kid saw the costume and was adamant about wearing it despite its seasonal inappropriateness. Either that, or the city as spending so much on cleanup that it couldn’t afford to call the regular sized Batman to help out.

For family events, #1GF! and I typically have to drive into Boston to get cannolis from Mike’s Pastry because #1GF!’s mother thinks that Mike’s baker drives his truck up to heaven every morning to pick up cannolis. I have always maintained that Montilio’s kicks Mike’s ass in every baking category, but her mother would never believe me. So every birthday and holiday, #1GF! and I would drive into Boston, double park, fight the crowds, and buy cannolis from Mike’s. This year, #1GF!’s mother told us not to bother.

We pulled into the parking lot of Montilio’s, and I encouraged #1GF! to tell the baker that her mother loved Mike’s cannolis, so it was important that the cannolis were fresh.

“I’m not telling that story,” said #1GF!.

“You have to. It’s a good story.”

“Not happening. You want anything?” #1GF! asked as she got out of the car.

“Yea, get a Hawaiian eye.” A Hawaiian eye is a ring of flaky pastry filled with custard and fruit. It’s similar in taste to a fruit covered lobster claw.

“Seriously?”

“Oh, yea. They’re so good. And this is the only place that I know that has them. And tell the story.”

“I’m not telling the story.”

“Tell it. We may never have to drive all the way to Mike’s again.

#1GF! went in and told the story. The baker assured her that the cannolis were made fresh that morning.

We went to #1GF!’s family’s house for dinner, and I don’t know how, but her brother happened to have an empty Mike’s Pastry box. I chuckled. I had been threatening a similar prank for years, but never went through with it. The Montilio’s cannolis were transferred into the Mike’s box, and #1GF!’s mother said that they were delicious. I don’t think anyone ever told her that they were Montilio’s cannolis, which means we either have to tell her the truth before the next family gathering, or pick up a supply of Mike’s pastry boxes.

We were home by 7:30 PM, but it felt like 10 PM. #1GF! put the baby to bed, and we watched a few shows off of the DVR.

What I Learned

• XFN is currently pretty useless.
• I can make a well-presented, thoroughly delicious key lime square.
• Sweetened condensed milk doesn’t have an infinite shelf life.
• The neighborhood kids supposedly have guns with bombs in them that are powerful enough to take out a helicopter. This is unconfirmed.
• A walk can wear out the baby.
• Walking a couple of miles holding a baby isn’t easy, but it isn’t a workout.
• Bon Apetit still sucks.
• Montilio’s cannolis are just as good as Mike’s.
• No matter how bad you got flooded, someone else probably got it worse.

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Posted in Life of Riley