Aitch two ... oh.

So as I continue to convalesce, I am not sure which is worse: having bronchitis, or what you're left with when it's "over."

Because when it's over and you're expected to snap back into full functionality, you're obliged to expend approximately ninety-three percent of your energy coughing.

Two nights ago I sat up most of the night. Yesterday I felt as though I was at the far end of a thirty-mile tunnel, underwater.

Last night I stayed put on my pillow, valiantly fighting the insidious dry throat tickle.

Countless times I groped in the dark for my bedside glass of water.

I have a favorite poem by Anglo-American poet W.H. Auden. Its title is First Things First and the part I love to read most goes like this:

... Likening your poise of being to an upland county,
Here green on purpose, there pure blue for luck.

Loud though it was, alone as it certainly found me,
It reconstructed a day of peculiar silence
When a sneeze could be heard a mile off, and had me walking
On a headland of lava beside you, the occasion as ageless
As the stare of any rose, your presence exactly
So once, so valuable, so very now.

I never get tired of reading that.

So anyway, a week ago Saturday, for some reason, I quoted part of that poem to Erica. I quoted the last line, to be exact. That's not it, in that part you just read.

And that very night, in the middle of the night, I got up and went to the kitchen for a drink of water.

Only, when I turned on the tap, nothing happened. We had no water.

Puzzled, I went to my chair and thought about that for awhile. Why did we have no water? I didn't want to wake TG; as I said, it was well and truly the wee hours. He works hard and he needs his rest.

But I was wide awake, so I waited. It was by now technically Sunday morning; we go to church on Sunday morning. How would we make it to church if we could not take showers, wash our hair, get ready?

For me and my house, going to church without first taking showers is not an option. I know the Lord understands.

I was concerned. At around five o'clock, I tested to see whether we had water. No.

So, tired by that time, I went back to bed. As I lay down I said to TG, who wakes easily: "Sweetie, do you have any idea why we have no water?"

Of course he didn't, but he got up and went outside. Then I heard him talking on the phone. I drifted off but stirred when eventually he came back to bed.

It was still dark outside. "They're coming to check it out," he said. I gathered he meant the water company.

But a few hours later, they still hadn't come to check it out. TG called again.

"We're on the way," he was told.

At this point I should tell you that several months back, we had an issue with something in our yard, near the street, that has something to do with how water gets to our house.

That time we had no interruption in water service, but still, something was wrong and we called the water company.

They sent someone out. Nice guy. He dug for a bit and came to my door.

"It's on your side," he said.

And what that turned out to mean was, there is a street side and a house side to whatever that is that's in our yard, that is vital to the flow of water to our domicile.

If there is a problem with pipage on the street side of that thing (whatever it is), the water company will fix it at no charge to the homeowner.

If there is a problem on the house side of that thing, it is the homeowner's responsibility to have it repaired, and to incur the charge for same.

We called a plumber and in no time the problem was found and fixed. It cost a couple of hundred dollars.

This time the scenario played out in identical fashion to last time.

"It's on your side," the water company guy said to TG, at about the time we would have been taking showers, getting ready for Sunday School.

TG called the plumber. It being Sunday morning, all he was able to do was leave a message.

Erica and I made coffee using ice water from our stash in the fridge. TG went to the store for gallons of distilled water to use for washing our hands and doing dishes.

Thanks to Apple TV AirPlay Mirroring, at Sunday School time I beamed our church services from my computer to our flatscreen.

We watched every minute of Sunday School and the church service. You can do that without water.

Later, Erica and I rustled up Sunday dinner. It was mid-afternoon when the plumber showed up.

TG went outside with him and they poked around the thing in the front yard, near the street.

It wasn't long at all before TG came back into the house. He looked like the Chicago Cubs had just won the National League Pennant.

"You won't believe," he said with the smile of a man who knows that just this once, he does not have to pay the plumber.

Turns out the guy who "fixed" the problem several months ago, made some sort of crucial mistake. 

His blunder was obvious to his colleague, who even as TG told Erica and me about it, was outside making right what the other guy had done wrong.

It wasn't long before we had free-flowing hot and cold water once again, in our house. In our sinks and in our showers.

And believe me, you take that for granted until out of nowhere, it's gone.

Later that night I tweeted the last beautiful line of W.H. Auden's First Things First, the line I had quoted to Erica only the day before:

Thousands have lived without love, not one without water.

I hope today you're not living without either.

Last night TG took Erica and me to downtown Columbia, where we wandered on Main Street long after dark. It was a velvety-soft summer night.

You can hear the cicadas in the trees even on city streets. It's that quiet when you stay away from the Vista.

There's a sculpture fountain in the large courtyard of the Columbia Museum of Art. Its official name is the Keenan Fountain and Apollo's Cascade.

I don't care what it's called. All I know is, it's magical at night what with its three curved bars making a triple curtain of gentle rain, and its steps that the water tumbles and gurgles down, and the brightly-lit pool part where you can put your feet as you sit on the marble ledge.

Not one has lived without water.

Now excuse me while I swim away and cough for awhile.

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Happy Tuesday

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Comments

[Mari]

Aaagh! I'm sorry you're still coughing. I just got off the phone with a friend who has also had bronchitis and is fighting that lingering cough.
I'm so glad your water fix was an easy (and free) one this time!

[Skunkfeathers]

My last bout with bronchitis left me with a three week cough. Which, of course, chose to be worse when trying to sleep. Particularly unfun when the work shift is nights.

I found no magic answer...only time. Though, a couple times sleeping sitting up did seem to help some.

Be glad you don't live the life of a night shift zombie ;-)

[irene]

that cough is what is the most difficult to get rid of. Hope you have better luck losing it than I have had. Glad you are able to take a shower again. Keep well sweetness.

[Donna (Texas)]

I'm sending the hoo-doo woman to ur house ifin' you ain't better SOON girlie!!!

And as I was reading, I thought you were going to say TG saw it was really on the Other side...city...Hahaaaa
hughugs

[Debbie]

Oh my goodness. I'm guessing "that thing" would be your water meter.

Where we live the water line runs down the ditch . Every time the highway department comes along to dig out the ditch, clear away debris, they break the water line. On their side, so doesn't cost us anything. Thank goodness they don't do this often though because trash ends up on the line.

Debbie