January 1, 2015
An inauspicious start to the new year. It's not bad enough that I caught a bad cold and had to miss out on leading a five-day Nordic Club x-country ski trip to Black Butte Ranch. New Year's is already a bummer. Now I wake up and realize that for the first time in four winters on the houseboat, I forgot to drip water from the faucets last night, and now I have no water. The pipes are frozen.
I send a woeful email to my neighbor Mary and she tells me to get a hair dryer and blow hot air on the water pipe coming from the moorage line into my house. Where's that? I ask. Still in my pjs and bathrobe, I open the door while I'm talking to her, step on the stoop, which happens to be icy and I slide and crash to the walkway, my hand now bleeding and starting to turn black and blue. Mary hears the thud and says she'll come over. She points out the above-pictured pipe, surrounded by icicles, and heads on her way to brunch.
I get dressed, find a hair dryer and am sprawled on the walkway blowing hot air on the soon-melting icicles, thinking the whole while, hair dryer + water = electrocution, so I'm careful not to get it wet while holding it. My next-door neighbor Keith comes out, takes one look at me and says, "Frozen, eh?" I think it's hilarious that the sight of me blow-drying my pipe is obviously the most natural thing in the world -- in the world of houseboat-dwellers, that is. Every few minutes I go back in and check to see if the water is running, and after the third time it gushes out and I remind myself to put up signs by my faucets so I don't forget again.
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