Every year the beach house has a little "surprise" for us. They are never good, these little surprises. Always bad. Bad, bad, bad.
Our first visit of the spring or summer always causes me a lot of stress because I don't cope well with surprises, especially ones dreamed up for me by inanimate, expensive possessions. I dread going to the house, all the while longing to see it again because this house is relaxing and comfortable and fun. Except for that annual first visit.
I forced myself to get down to the house for a weekend before Memorial Day weekend so that our holiday would not be spent without a fridge or a toilet or water, you know, some modern convenience necessary to our comfort and well being. When we got to the house all seemed well. Of course the outside shower had its yearly crack, but we had already dealt with that by paying the township $150 to turn off our water at the street and then $150 to turn our water back on at the street. Everything else was spiffy until I got to my bedroom and found one of the windows on the floor. How long it had been like that is anyone's guess, but the room did not smell of mildew and the house had not been ransacked so K. taped the window into the frame with an appalling amount of duct tape and we went about our business. We felt lucky, and Memorial Day weekend was fabulous for us and the kids.
This weekend the house greeted us with a large-ish puddle by the front door. Puddles do not generally send me screaming into the night, so I fretted not. Then K. looked under the house and realized that the crawl space was filled with water. A quick check with the neighbor suggested that it had been raining quite a bit and many neighbors' crawl spaces were filled with gallons of water and we were probably worrying unnecessarily. There was the fact that the puddle by the front door was bubbling, and that did strike both K. and I as rather ominous. Rain-produced puddles generally do not bubble. Despite the reassurances of our sweet neighbor I put my foot down and insisted that K. call the plumber.
Today we've been without water for hours as a good friend makes a huge muddy mess of the front yard while attempting to find the leak in the pipe that we paid a healthy sum to have replaced just 2 or 3 years ago. There's no laundry, no dish washing, no working on dinner, no showers for our muddy boys, no toilet, no water. Just us in this house that loves and hates us, waiting around for things to be resolved or not, grinning to ourselves to think that we were hopeful that the outside shower would be fixed today, and trying to decide what gift might appease the house this year. I'm guessing landscaping in the front or new shutters. K. thinks siding or new windows are the ticket. The house will be getting none of these things this year of all years of course, but perhaps if we promise something really, really good the house will let us be. At least until Spring 2010.
Posted by grrlTravels at June 29, 2009 3:40 PMLong time lurker but felt a need to comment. We have a cottage on a lake up in the country and we just went up this past weekend for the first time in 3 months. I, too, fret opening that door afraid of what may be on the other side. We've had everything from a frozen cottage and of course frozen pipes to wild life having moved in. So yeah, as much as I love that house, I can sometimes really hate it. Now I love it... no surprises last weekend!
Posted by: Susan at June 30, 2009 9:23 AM