The worth of water

chocolatesheep

Oct 29

Tucked away somewhere in my house is a powder blue t-shirt that was screen-printed in the middlish 1980s with a sketch of the Oxford, Ohio, water tower and the text "ANNUAL WATER EMERGENCY." The combination of an aging water tower and the arrival of thousands of students to the Miami University campus had precipitated (sorry) a crisis that eventually resulted in timed showers and the distribution of one gallon of water per student for other personal use. (I know that George Z. and Stephanie T. remember this; does Mary W.?) I seem to recall that the Ohio National Guard was called up to organize the water distribution. Time passed, we managed our water use the best we could, and eventually Oxford updated its water processing facilities and — sadly — tore down the uptown water tower that had become a symbol of the town.

In the scrapbook I kept of these years, back when scrapbooks were made from three-ring binders and plastic-covered adhesive cardboard sheets, which is just about as awful an environment as you could possibly think of for photos, ticket stubs, and newspaper clippings, there is a tag from a teabag that reads "When the well is dry, we know the worth of water." I preserved it because I made that cup of tea during the Water Emergency we were enduring at the time.

Fast forward to last week, when I found myself in a different water emergency at my house. All seemed well on Thursday morning, but when I turned the handle of the kitchen sink faucet that evening there was almost no water pressure. I called the landlord to investigate, and the news wasn't good — the water pump was failing. I filled some containers with water we could use for personal hygiene until the situation was remedied.

After some work on Friday, I thought that the problem had been solved. After using one stock-pot of water to make penne for dinner, we poured out the rest of the saved water. As it happens, that wasn't really the best idea.

On Saturday morning I dropped off Youngest at the mall and went to watch Austin Kleba, the son of my high school (and Miami!) classmate Stephanie, skate in the National Speedskating Championships at the Pettit Center in Milwaukee (okay, actually West Allis). He eventually qualified for the World Cup Team for the 500m.

After those heats were done, and while the Zamboni freshened up the ice for the next event, I picked up Youngest and did some more shopping before returning home. There was my landlord in my front yard, sealing a concrete piece that I had never realized was the cap for our well. (I have lived here since 2007? 2008?) It turns out that the pump wasn't the only problem: the well was running dry. (That explained why the water had slowed to a trickle during my morning shower; unfortunately, that was after I had thoroughly wetted my hair.)

It probably looked a little something like this.

We don't know who might be able to drill a new well, or when that might happen. This morning I packed up my laundry and went to my friend Carol's house to wash and dry it. I picked up some jugs of spring water on the way home. I'm not sure how we will do what needs to be done until we have dependable running water again, but we will do our best. We definitely appreciate the things that we took for granted last week.

Last week I did not buy another typewriter, though I did read a few more pages in a maintenance-and-repair manual for Smith-Coronas. You never know when that kind of information will come in handy.

In horticultural news, Princess is now almost two inches tall. I'm so proud!

I also received a Level 1 accordion instruction book in the mail and downloaded an accordion app to my iPad. Look out, world!

Knitwise, I made progress on all three of my active projects. I have been pushing myself to knit in situations where I would otherwise be sitting and staring at a screen, so a certain amount of forward progress seemed inevitable.

Stripe Scarf is now several stripes long. Interestingly, the black sections take 9 ridges (18 rows) and the grey sections take 10 ridges (20 rows) to complete.

The striped scarf made from the thrift store yarns is longer now, too. I still have the work on the huge aluminum needles, so I get a forearm workout whenever I add a few rows.

Finally, I also worked on the Skinny Shawl made from the purple thrift store yarn. It's hard to tell how wide it is, so I'll just keep working on it until it's done. This light is bad and doesn't show the true colors of the yarn.