The glamorous life of a writer part 2

With a day off from my day job as a community newspaper journalist, I looked forward to a long weekend of rest. It wasn’t without work. I had one assignment; the assignment I have every year on the Fourth of July. Each year, for nine years, I’ve gotten up early on the Fourth to photograph the Village of Britton parade, which consists of fire trucks, baton twirlers, a single float with village council members, old cars (we are near the Motor City), kids on bikes and a line of John Deere tractors. Still, it’s my own little tradition and I look forward to seeing the people on my beat celebrating Americana in pretty darn genuine way.

That went as planned, so did dinner with my in-laws and their friends, though I was already a bit tired from my husband’s overnight brisket smoking project the previous night. I kept calling it the “baby” brisket, because we were up every two hours making sure the brisket was smoking properly. I made it through the evening and even gave in and decided to stay the night at my in-laws’ house, though I really wanted to wake up at home. But, I figured I could come home and nap and then work on my book or an essay or something.

The trouble began after breakfast this morning when I got in our Jeep Cherokee to drive home. The passenger window switch elicited a sound that normally comes from a garbage disposal and the window wasn’t going up, but it kept going down. When it was halfway down, I made the brilliant, writerly move of pushing it all the way down in the door by hand (Book smarts doesn’t equal smart smarts).

I rode home with my hood up because the window was down and there was still a bit of a morning chill. That would have been enough of a pain, but we had not made it home yet. When we did, I figured I’d throw some laundry in and take a nap. Of course, that didn’t happen. I went downstairs and noticed water by the upright freezer. My first thought was my husband retrieved something and didn’t close it all the way, but the door was closed properly and everything was frozen. Then I looked around and more than just that corner was flooded. Water was covering most of the basement. We looked for the source but couldn’t find it. I went outside and noticed my neighbor’s sprinkler was on. I figured that must be the only thing causing the flooding. He came out and turned the sprinkler off and told us that the night before he’d had another sprinkler on and forgotten about it all night. He apologized and we were just happy to know it wasn’t some pipe leaking somewhere. So, our Sunday afternoon project was sucking the water out with a Shopvac and throwing things away. Nothing of importance was damaged because we keep most things in plastic containers. The flood just forced us do some cleaning. I just wasn’t ready to do it today, and I really wanted to get more work done on my novel. Oh, well.