Remember the strange odor in my house, that turned out to be coming from the water heater, which is in a closet off my bedroom? The problem that the plumber will be here tomorrow afternoon to fix? Welllllll, I slept in the living room last night, so as not to have to smell the strange smell in my nose all night. This morning, we turned the water heater on long enough to heat water for our showers, then turned it off. Then we left home.
We spent the day in Victoria, came home to find the back of the house flooded because the water heater had exploded (or imploded, or just fallen to pieces. God knows.). We have mopped up what we could with towels, and I've spun the towels dry in the washing machine, but I can't dry them, because the dryer and the water heater are on the same circuit. Oh, and it rained here all day, from the looks of things. (It did not rain in Victoria. That's a bright spot in the story.) There are heaters running, all over the house. It feels like the middle of the night, but it's really just after 7 p.m., so I suppose I may as well try to write. It's not as if I can go have a nice hot bubble bath.
Big sigh.
p.s. It is 11:44 p.m. - I did write, though it was a struggle. One of my characters had a nice, hot, steamy, lavender-scented bubble bath. Today's word count: 2,116. I also added a little information about Albany to a previous day's work, so my total to date is 24,131.
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
Day 10 - I printed it out.
I shouldn't have done that. I think it's against the rules, but I was getting really confused. So I did it. The trouble is, now I want to take out my red pen and start making notes, crossing things out, editing. No, no. I know for a fact that that is against the rules, as well it should be. If I start editing at this point, I will never get to 50,000 words. The thing to do now is take the duo-tang with all the printed pages in it, and put it in a closet until December 1. At least now I know that if my Writing Nook and my e-mail both go belly-up in the next couple of weeks, I will still have a copy of what I've written to date. Maybe once a week I should do this, just to reassure myself.
Meanwhile, Marie (my MC's daughter) has completely hijacked the story and wandered off, meeting interesting people and squirrels and getting herself involved in a bit of a mystery, and I'm left standing here saying "Hey! What happened to my story?" I gather that my experience is not unusual in the world of NaNoWriMo, and I'm not particularly worried about it, but it has required some deep breathing on my part to accept my marginalization. I must trust that at some point Marie will remember that she has a mystery of her own to solve, and she will get back to work at solving it.
Today's word count: 2,155. To date: 21,977.
And meanwhile, we have a bit of a problem here. I woke up this morning to a very strange odor in the house, which turned out to be coming from the water heater. We have arranged to have a plumber come in, but he can't come until Thursday afternoon, so in the meantime, I guess we'll have to turn on the water heater a couple of times a day, just long enough to heat water for showers and dishes, and leave it turned off the rest of the time. If worse comes to worst, we'll go to the Aquatic Centre for our showers. That would give me a chance to try out my new bathing suit (an early Christmas present) at the pool. Tomorrow, we're heading to Victoria for the day, so we'll be eating out. Thank goodness. No dishes.
Oh. And I found some Jergens self-tanning lotion, and I've started using it, so that by the time we fly to Hawaii in mid-January (Did I mention that?) I will have lost my Canadian fish-belly whiteness and everybody will think I'm an island girl. (Well, I am, but this island isn't tropical. Not right now, anyway.)
Monday, November 09, 2009
Day Nine - on which Sandra plays hooky in order to celebrate an historic event -
I may, in fact, get my 2,000 words in, but somehow that doesn't seem as important as coming here. I'll come back later and add a postscript with my word count.
Some of us are old enough to remember the Cold War and the fear that was implanted in us as children. Our bodies remember how to crawl under our school desks to protect ourselves from nuclear attack (Yep). And we remember the symbols of that war. One of the most visible of those symbols was the Berlin Wall, which divided Germany from August 13, 1961 to November 9, 1989.
I also heard that two days after the fall of the Berlin Wall, the cellist Mstislav Rostropovich walked up to Checkpoint Charlie, took out his Stradivarius cello, and played this:
As my own celebration, I'm posting Robert Frost's "Mending Wall." After today, I think I'll move it over to the sidebar for a while. Some things really are worth commemorating.
Mending Wall, by Robert Lee Frost
Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it,
And spills the upper boulders in the sun;
And makes gaps even two can pass abreast.
The work of hunters is another thing:
I have come after them and made repair
Where they have left not one stone on a stone,
But they would have the rabbit out of hiding,
To please the yelping dogs. The gaps I mean,
No one has seen them made or heard them made,
But at spring mending-time we find them there.
I let my neighbour know beyond the hill;
And on a day we meet to walk the line
And set the wall between us once again.
We keep the wall between us as we go.
To each the boulders that have fallen to each.
And some are loaves and some so nearly balls
We have to use a spell to make them balance:
"Stay where you are until our backs are turned!"
We wear our fingers rough with handling them.
Oh, just another kind of out-door game,
One on a side. It comes to little more:
There where it is we do not need the wall:
He is all pine and I am apple orchard.
My apple will never get across
And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him.
He only says, "Good fences make good neighbours."
Spring is the mischief in me, and I wonder
If I could put a notion in his head:
"Why do they make good neighbours? Isn't it
Where there are cows? But here there are no cows.
Before I built a wall I'd ask to know
What I was walling in or walling out,
And to whom I was like to give offence.
Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That wants it down." I could say "Elves" to him,
But it's not elves exactly, and I'd rather
He said it for himself. I see him there
Bringing a stone grasped firmly by the top
In each hand, like an old-stone savage armed.
He moves in darkness as it seems to me,
Not of woods only and the shade of trees.
He will not go behind his father's saying,
And he likes having thought of it so well
He says again, "Good fences make good neighbours."
Something there is that doesn't love a wall, That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it, And spills the upper boulders in the sun; And makes gaps even two can pass abreast. The work of hunters is another thing: I have come after them and made repair Where they have left not one stone on a stone, But they would have the rabbit out of hiding, To please the yelping dogs. The gaps I mean, No one has seen them made or heard them made, But at spring mending-time we find them there. I let my neighbour know beyond the hill; And on a day we meet to walk the line And set the wall between us once again. We keep the wall between us as we go. To each the boulders that have fallen to each. And some are loaves and some so nearly balls We have to use a spell to make them balance: "Stay where you are until our backs are turned!" We wear our fingers rough with handling them. Oh, just another kind of out-door game, One on a side. It comes to little more: There where it is we do not need the wall: He is all pine and I am apple orchard. My apple will never get across And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him. He only says, "Good fences make good neighbours." Spring is the mischief in me, and I wonder If I could put a notion in his head: "Why do they make good neighbours? Isn't it Where there are cows? But here there are no cows. Before I built a wall I'd ask to know What I was walling in or walling out, And to whom I was like to give offence. Something there is that doesn't love a wall, That wants it down." I could say "Elves" to him, But it's not elves exactly, and I'd rather He said it for himself. I see him there Bringing a stone grasped firmly by the top In each hand, like an old-stone savage armed. He moves in darkness as it seems to me, Not of woods only and the shade of trees. He will not go behind his father's saying, And he likes having thought of it so well He says again, "Good fences make good neighbours."
