Bucket fixation

This morning the sky is clear blue, but a rare thunderstorm blew through Seattle last night with free water for the flowers and grass.  Great timing, since after five sunny days I was getting ready to hook up the sprinklers.  Dragging around hoses is my least favorite summer task and I always manage to pull down plants or spray myself in the face.

It was a busy weekend in our corner, and it felt like the eye of the hurricane with thousands of people having fun just down the road at Alki Beach and sirens going off (what seemed like) every few minutes.  They say there are 30% more emergency calls in the warm months, but surely it's much more. It is quiet as the tomb around here in the dead of winter.  When the sun finally comes out, people make up for lost time by getting in trouble.

Between chores we anxiously watched the basement bucket for drips and used the process of elimination to narrow down the leak before calling out the experts. We showed impressive teamwork!  After everything was off in the upstairs bath and the bucket was dry, we started the water systematically and then waited.  We ran up and down the stairs many times. The worst possible scenario would be a pipe leak way under the loo-- this happened years ago and it means ripping out a section of drywall ceiling.  I was in denial and afraid to flush the toilet to find out.  Then I did. All was well and by the end of the day we were pretty sure it was only old grout failure on the shower wall. A minor hassle having to use the downstairs shower for the time being, but not a big deal.
 

As Bob Dylan once wrote: I can't help it, if I'm lucky.