Another Writing Prompt from Ann Linquist

Prompt:  The road sign said the end of the journey was just ahead.  Was I ready to get there?

What can I say?  The road sign said the end of the journey was near.  Heck, there have been road signs since last summer.  Was I ready for it to end, for this relationship to reach its end?

I did everything I could on my part.  Maintaining a relationship with Bob while living in different towns was beyond difficult, especially with his work schedule.  I never saw him at all during the summers, and only a few times during our long winters.  We talked on the phone occasionally, usually when he was coming my way and would plan to stop in for a bit.

The times when he was here were fleeting, but intense.  Very intense.  Most of the time, as he was preparing to leave again, he asked for money, and I, I am reluctant to admit, never quibbled but pulled out the check book and gave him whatever amount he requested.

The last time he was here, just a few days ago, he brought another man with him, probably to help with what he had decided to do.   Sure enough, as they were leaving Bob said, “You shouldn’t have to call me again.” 

There is was—the end of a friendship.  Was I ready for it to end?  Yes.

In fact, I’d been preparing for the end myself.  I already had a 100 watt light bulb keeping the lift station floats from freezing.  I thought that would end it.  But when Bob, the Roto Rooter man, and Travis threaded a thaw cable down the septic line and plugged it in, we both sincerely hoped that would solve my winter septic line freezing problems.

Never in my life has a relationship ended with such happiness and hope for the future.

♫ Yesterday♫

Remember that Beatles’ song “Yesterday?”

♫Yesterday, all my troubles seemed so far away?♫

Well, yesterday I felt the same way as I was delivering mail along the 130 mile route.  The weather was pretty nice, sun peeking through, temperatures around 30 or so, the previous day’s slop now turned to ice.

Everything was rocking right along.  Just the usual winter things like horrendous fuel bills and horrendous snow-plowing bills.  The sun was back in the valley, though with the overcast skies, you wouldn’t know it.   

I saw a bald eagle in Hope, and eight more in Cooper Landing.  The ones in Cooper Landing hang out along the Kenai River, waiting for a stray salmon carcass to float downstream.  Two eagles were side by side in a tall cottonwood tree and three more buddied-up across the river,  so close to the road I could almost have touched them.

Sorry this photo is blurry, but I was driving across the bridge and trying to grab a quick photo before traffic caught up with me.

Where the bridge crosses the mouth of the river at Kenai Lake, a few swans and their hangers-on floated at the edge of the ice while fishermen tried to catch rainbow trout.

Yes, nice day.  I was thinking about all the fun projects I wanted to do when I got home.  Instead of heading right for the post office to finish up, I pulled into my driveway for a quick pit stop.

Actually, I didn’t pull into my driveway so much as I bounced into my driveway over the more-than-a-foot-high mound of broken ice chunks the highway plow had piled across the top of it.  I had cleared a similar mound the previous day and I wasn’t happy about this one.  That stuff is heavy.

The dirty snow in the foreground was a present from the highway guys.  The dirty snow in the background is why I can't shovel the new dirty snow out of my driveway.

I added “clean the top of the driveway” to my list as I headed for the bathroom for my pit stop.  What met me there, I won’t describe.  Suffice it to say my pit stop occurred outdoors and I added “clean up the bathroom mess” and “shovel a path to the lift station” and “call the Roto-Rooter guy” to my list of projects.

I thought I had that septic line freezing problem whipped when I hung a 100watt rough service light bulb in the lift station.  That was supposed to keep the floats from freezing in place, a problem that meant the floats wouldn’t trip the “on switch” to the pump, resulting in the septic tank filling and the water backing up into the line and freezing.

♫Yesterday, all my troubles seemed so far away,
Now it looks as if they’re here to stay…♫

First things first.  I finished the mail route and headed home to clean out the driveway.  While I was struggling along, my friend JJ came by and offered her help.  I was reluctant, but knowing what my shoulder would be like afterwards, I let her start the path to the lift station opening.  The snow, variously like sugar with layers of ice, or wet and heavy, was four feet deep.

My 300 gallon propane tank is buried on the right.

I finished the drive and came back to help her, wading through the snow to where I thought the lift station was and starting to shovel while she worked her way towards me.

Everything seemed okay in the lift station.  The floats weren’t frozen though the bulb had self-destructed, leaving its base in the socket.  I went back to the garage to get tools and a new bulb.  That’s when the right ear piece on my VERY expensive titanium eyeglasses frame broke.

♫Suddenly, I’m not half as calm as I used to be,
There’s a shadow hanging over me,
Oh, this trouble came suddenly.♫

With needle-nose pliers, I removed the base of the broken bulb and then installed the new bulb.  Nothing.  Apparently the heat from the light had fried the socket.  I added “get a new light socket” to my list of projects, along with “go to Anchorage and hope the ophthalmologist has a new earpiece in stock and doesn’t have to order one.”

JJ finished the path and we went in the house and groused about being “property managers” all winter rather than having fun.  We also talked about our various options to cure that situation.

I added “get through this winter” to the list and also “figure out what the heck you’re going to do with all this stuff” if and when you sell this house.

♫Yesterday, seemed such an easy game to play,

Now I need a place to hide away.♫

Dixie returned my call and asked if I wanted Bob the Roto-Rooter guy to come over that evening or the next morning.  I told her morning would be fine.

“You sure?” she asked.

“Yeah, I still have the red bucket I peed in last winter,” I said.  There was a long pause before she started laughing

“I wasn’t expecting that.”  We made arrangements for Bob the Roto-Rooter guy to be here at 10 AM.  I grabbed my shovel and made sure there was a pathway to the septic clean-out opening.  Fortunately, that clean-out is under my front deck, which normally is an annoyance.  This time, it’s a blessing, otherwise it would be under four feet of snow and ice.

One of our many blizzards this winter actually sculpted the snow like this.  I only had to remove the newer snow to clear a path to get under the deck.

Back in the house, I put an artichoke on to boil and sat down to sulk and watch a movie on Starz.  It was a pretty good movie, Low Down with Robert Duvall as a cranky hermit trying to arrange for own funeral to be held while he’s still alive.  

Very entertaining movie.  That’s why I forgot about the artichoke, which ran out of water and incinerated the lower leaves of the tasty thistle.  I ate the rest of it anyway and decided I’d had quite enough of yesterday, so I went to bed right after 8 PM.

♫I’d had enough of yesterday.♫

PS:  Bob is going to come by next week and install a heat trace in the septic line.  That should solve that. 

My hero.

NOTE:  A wee bit of an apology to the Beatles for some minor lyrics changes.

Half Full, Half Empty

I suppose if you search long enough, you could find a bit of good in anything, no matter how dire the situation.

As I recently told a friend who was having a bad day, “all of life is a writing prompt.”   Take my frozen septic system, for instance.  Following my own advice, I’ve been having fun writing about that chunk of ice that effectively blocks the effluents from flowing to their intended destination.

All is half-well now, because the line to the tank is thawed and I can use the indoor facilities, as long as I keep the tank pumped down so the liquids don’t back-flow into the underground line and freeze again. 

And they will if they have a chance, because a very stubborn high pressure system has been homesteading over Alaska since forever.  That is causing temperatures at and below zero each night. 

Yesterday when I looked at the thermometer, it was two below zero.  Ditto today.  “I’m getting tired of this,” I said.  Now that we have several hours of direct sunlight, I want temps in the thirties and forties.  Or higher.

Today, I think zero is just fine.  Why?  Because that obstinate high pressure is forcing the jet stream to move south of Alaska.  And why should that make me happy?

Because it keeps any radioactive particles in Japan that rise high enough to enter the eastward-blowing jet stream from drifting over me and Pablo Parrot.  That’s why. 

NASA photo

Don’t think that’s so far-fetched.  A couple years ago, we could see smoke from Russian forest fires and clouds of dust from sand storms in the Gobi Desert as they wafted overhead.  So, you see, Tina Fey wasn’t too far off the mark when she “quoted” Sarah Palin as supposedly saying, “I can see Russia from my porch.”

While a jet stream missing Alaska is good news for me, it doesn’t bode well for the rest of the West Coast.  Assuming, of course, that glow-in-the-dark stuff rises high enough, and that’s a big “if.” 

I guess this is as good a time as any to leave on a pre-planned trip.  My bag is packed and here is the astonishing thing about that:  18 days in Germany and Austria, including travel days, and all I have is a carry-on bag weighing 25 lbs.  Plus my usual purple shoulder bag with laptop and Kindle, and my “bedroll,” which consists of a neck pillow, a small fleece travel blanket, and a pair of warm socks.

I find all that hard to believe as I usually fight to stay under the luggage weight limit.  I’ve picked up quite a few tips on light-weight travel, so perhaps I’ve learned.

Either that or I’m forgetting something really, really important.

Bob, the Night Visitor

After my visitor left about 8:30 last night, I washed the dishes that were piled in the plastic dish pans, except this time I ran water and detergent into the stainless steel kitchen sink.  When all the dishes were clean, I pulled the stopper and let the water run down the drain line.

The dishwater didn’t burble up in the ground floor toilet and flow across the garage floor.  Miracle of miracles.

Then I cleaned and flushed the four toilets in this house, the ones that had clean water sitting in them for almost a week.

The water didn’t geyser up in the  ground floor toilet and flow across the garage floor.

A little while later, I took a long hot shower, letting the water run down the drain.

The ground floor toilet didn’t regurgitate that shower water and sent it flowing across the garage floor.  All the effluents were flowing to their proper place.

My visitor, you see, was Bob the Roto-Rooter guy.  Once he got everything set up, it took him about fifteen minutes (or less) to thaw out about 80 feet of solidly frozen ice from my house to the septic tank.  He even cut the cast iron stand pipe down to ground level, and that prevented the hot thawing water from backing up into that ground floor toilet.

Today, as we speak, I have a load of clothes in the washing machine.  First load in more than a week.

I caught this temperature on

 the way up from 8 below.  The 38 is humidity.

When they’re done and in the dryer, I get to dress up in warm clothes, go outside and play in the septic system again because, while the line to the tank is open, the leach field line remains frozen.   Only Mother Nature will thaw that and she won’t get around to it for a couple months or more.  So, I will hook up a pump, stick the suction line into the septic tank, and pump the liquids up into the raised mound that is the leach field.  I will do this probably three or four times a week for the duration.

In the meantime, I am hearing about all sorts of folks in this area who are having the same problems that I am.  A lack of snow and cold temperatures are the culprits.  The more than adequate snow level we had before Christmas was decimated by rising temperatures, rain, and Chinook winds.  Since then we’ve had very little snowfall, nowhere near enough to insulate our underground water and sewer systems.  This morning the temperature was 8 below zero; by noon it was 6 above zero and time to go outside.

What worries me the most during winters like this is not the inconvenience of frozen lines, but the ptarmigan and grouse that burrow into the snow for warmth.   I picture them out there, scrabbling for food and shivering.  That bothers me.

As for frozen sewer lines, like the Bob the Roto Rooter guy said, this is Alaska.  We have cold, frost-heaving ground, and earthquakes.  You can install a line absolutely straight, with the correct amount of fall, and one little shaker will ruin all that.  Then water will puddle in a low spot and freeze.  It builds from there.

Or, in my case, a skim of ice in the lift station will freeze the floats in place, the pump and the alarms won’t come on, and before you know it, the tank is full, the line is full and frozen, and water gushes out of the ground floor toilet and streams across the garage floor.

This time?  This time I caught it before the ground floor toilet overflowed.

Bob, the Roto Rooter guy,  went on his way last night, headed to Kasilof, about 70 miles from my place, and another frozen septic line.   It would be at least 10 p.m. before he reached that job site, and probably midnight when he finished, and he'd been doing this since early morn..  Just another typical day in the world of a man who thaws underground lines for a living.

I wish I’d taken photographs last night, but I had other things on my mind.  Like a ground floor toilet turning into Old Faithful.  I was spared that mess.  So far.

Life in Alaska, one frozen septic line and one earthquake at a time.