dimanche, décembre 20, 2009

Rescue me? Not today...

The first day after the East Coast blizzard of Advent, or should I say the Advent of the East Coast blizzard, didn't start out too well.

Knowing I had to do my clergy thing at a service about 15 minutes from where we live, I'd hired my neighbor to plow my driveway. Normally, I get out there and do the bulk of it myself. But everything I was hearing, minus half the hyperbole, said I couldn't keep up with the snow.

Feeling very pleased with my forethought, I happily opened the breezeway door about an hour and a half before I was supposed to leave -- to see that he'd only done part of the driveway, and taken up a lot of my turf with his trusty plow.

But what does THAT matter, given that the septic fellow has ruined my front lawn trying to find my neighbor's drainfield before he found mine?

I went to work with the shovel, feeling very sorry for myself. A pity party that went up a few notches when my car wouldn't start.

My ex has been on me to buy a new car -- and I keep promising I will. But which comes first, a new car, or a new drainfield?

Today eventually straightened itself out. The morning service was redeemed, as it were, by a member of the congregation said he'd drive me to church -- until his horses got out and he had to help his wife of a week get them back into the stalls. So I took his mother's car and navigated the slushy roads to church, where the congregation was waiting.

There were times today when I just felt overwhelmed by the burden of these problems. Having someone to put them into perspective would have been a pleasure.

My new strategy is to establish a tiny green zone in which I can act as though I am in control of these challenges, and move boldly forward in other areas. Hopefully, then, the chunks of turf I found in the plowed snow and the minor nit of a kinda dead battery won't matter so much.

Forgive me, but I've got to write the septic guy and ask him: how do you propose we deal with all of this sewage? Then I'll figure out if that's the way I want to proceed.

Of course there are some things you can control -- and some things you cannot. Learning to leave some of them in the hands of others might be a good, hmmm, exercise.

2 commentaires:

norman pease a dit…

it is amazing that things like a drain field location are not a matter of county record, and that something like this would not come up in a title search. I would suggest that you purchase some of those driveway markers for the next time it snows. I like the idea of a green zone....have to investigate one for myself.

Wallacewriter a dit…

Good idea, Randy. I think I will buy something so the plower can see where he or she is going.