When I asked for a break...

I should've been more specific!

If I had to estimate, I'd say that I've worked approximately 6 months (regular hours) over the course of this (three month) summer.

Having missed many social events, including Wednesday night's comets game, because I had to work... I came home Friday at 1:30pm (after therapy... ha), bound and determined to nap, rise from the dead, and make the 7:30pm game.

Upon arriving at home, I let the dog out into the backyard, and she immediately flushed three squirrels: two straight up a tree, and a third from behind a large philodendron, across the yard and through the fence. Once the lightning bolts came to a rest, I thought I heard a noise, but readily dismissed it... as it must be a neighbor's sprinkler, or a hot tub pump.

I coaxed the dog inside, and settled in for a much-needed summer's nap. I got up around 4:30pm to make a telephone call to a client... who umch to my chagrin, insisted that I prepare and fax a proposal to him the following morning. Prior to making that call, though, I let the dog out into the backyard again, as her territory was contested, once again, by the gosh-darn squirrels.

The call ended, and I stepped out on the back porch... greeted first, by the noise; second, by a wet and filthy dog; and third by a flooded back yard. I waded through the yard to discover a broken hose bibb... the kind, not attached to the exterior wall of the house, but rising from a pipe in the ground, a few feet from the house. And, coincidentally, behind the large philodendron and directly in the path of the dog, as she chased the squirrel hours earlier.

I ran quickly to the front yard and opened the meter box... no shut-off valve... and next to the concrete cylinder in the side yard, where I clawed mud and muck from the top of the valve. [Note to all who are going through a divorce or separation: just because you're hell bent on purging, don't necessarily rid yourself of "rarely used unless it's an emergency"... tools, like a water meter key]. I tried a wrench, adjusted tightly over the key, with a pair of channel locks to turn... not enough leverage.

Meanwhile, the water is still GUSHING.

Next, with the help of a neighbor, I tried a piece of tube steel which fit over the key (and got stuck), but still... not enough leverage.

Luckily, and embarassingly, the neighbor asked what the red handle on the pipe near the sprinkler system controls did... "I'm not sure", I said. He turned it and oila... the sound (and gush) gradually faded to still.

Now... I'm wet and sweaty, my feet are muddy to above the ankles, my hands and fingernails are caked with much, there's no running water in the house, it's Friday night (not to mention a holiday weekend), and the game starts in an hour and a half.

I'm upset, knowing that there's no way I can make the game, but there's no need for panic or tears... I can call my "trusty" 24-hour service home warranty company... and in usual pattern, I am told that the plan does not cover the ailment from which my home suffers.

Why am I surprised??? (And as an aside, for those of you who think I'm not an optimist, just because I tend to display a realist perspective, preferring to be pleasantly surprised, rather than bitterly disappointed...) I don't know, but I, truly with all my heart, believed that it would be covered.

The bad news is that I missed the Comets game and spending an evening in the company of good friends and spent 202 unplanned dollars; the good news is that I wrote the proposal and prepared the timeline for my client, while waiting on my "after-hours-plus-holiday" plumber, in time to both fax it and pick up a signed copy, along with the retainer fee, the next morning.

(And no... I didn't increase the fee by $202, a question I've already been asked by a friend... but unthinkable to an honest, hard-working Virgo).