The Summer of Suck
Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic we've fared pretty well at our house. Being introverts all around and preferring our own company to others anyway, social distancing was a bonus. We missed out on a graduation celebration for oldest child's Associates Degree, which he greatly preferred anyway. Youngest child's high school graduation was a simplified affair that still let us all at least go through the motions. He too felt in hindsight that was much better than sitting for hours in a hot gym in a cap and gown.
Adam and I were supposed to start our summer vacation on 6/19/2020. Originally, we were taking youngest child and heading to the Azores for a celebratory graduation trip. Then the pandemic happened and we couldn't go even if we wanted to as flights were cancelled. Honestly, cancelling the trip we had been looking forward too since last fall was the first pandemic related disappointment/inconvenience that we experienced.
Ok, time to reset expectations. At least we got our Azores money back. Switch gears for a week at camp? That could be a nice break too. Lakeside for a week, lounging around in our freshly renovated camp with newly installed internet and town water. We were still sad about missing out on the Azores, but we adjusted and started to look forward to a restful full week of "staycation" at camp.
In preparation, this spring we also invested in 2 new twin size sleeper sofas and super soft sherpa blankets to snuggle up with in case one or both kids decided to join us for a night. A small tv with a streaming device was added and we were all set up for a retreat!
Friday, June 5... We went up to camp for an afternoon to have dinner and wait for the guy to come hook up our new internet service. For the first time on 20+ years we walked in to find that mice had come inside to play. We haven't had a problem in all of those years thanks to a snazzy little ultrasonic box that was supposed to keep pests away. It was still plugged in, but apparently had lived its life. Tissue box shredded, toilet paper roll shredded, mouse poop all over the brand new sofas and blankets. I won't pretend that I handled it rationally... In fact, the hissy fit went something like... "ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?!?! NEW FURNITURE, NEW BLANKETS AND NOW WE GET GODDAMNED MICE AFTER 20 YEARS!!!" My parents were on their way and were able to swing by our house to grab the spare mouse traps. I was on Amazon immediately looking for replacement pest deterrents and bought a six pack within minutes.
Thursday June 11...The entire next week I had visions of more mice than the three traps could handle and everything soft that we owned in complete ruin. We headed back to camp for a 2 night stay the next weekend. Things looked good from the start. One dead mouse and no additional signs of damage. I installed the pest deterrents in strategic locations then went about settling in and making dinner.
It was cooling off nicely, as we ate dinner and watched a little TV. I decided to bake a pan of brownies for us to munch on over the weekend and turned the countertop convection over back on. I had just dropped my eggs and liquids into the brownie mix and POP! We lost all power in the building. The building that we literally had completely rewired last spring before insulating and putting up new wall boards.
We immediately knew it wasn't a larger outage because the wifi signal from our adjacent camp was still showing up nice and strong on our devices. Outside we could not see any obvious signs of something gone wrong, but inside we found that the main breaker had tripped. Time to ask Google. We unplugged everything in the camp and tried to reset the breaker. No go. It would push to the on position, but as soon as you let go, spring back to the off (more on that later). Great. The incinerating toilet had just started a new burn cycle, I had a fridge full of food, a sink full of dirty dishes and nothing I could do about any of it. So much for our weekend at camp.
This is a good time to mention what a nice, albeit sometimes annoying, balance Adam and I are for each other. Because as we packed everything up, loaded the car, and headed home for the night, Adam's take was "it's fine, it's probably something simple that we just don't know about. Just email the electrician." After the mouse incident, I was less optimistic. "OH MY GOD! WHAT THE FUCK WE ARE CURSED! IT'S THE MICE. I KNOW IT'S THE MICE! THEY HAVEN'T BEEN HERE FOR YEARS AND NOW THEY ARE IN THE WALLS, AND THEY OBVIOUSLY HAVE CHEWED THROUGH ALL OF THE WIRES AND WE ARE GOING TO HAVE TO RIP EVERYTHING DOWN AND START OVER AGAIN AND OUR WHOLE GODDAMNED VACATION IS GOING TO BE CONSTRUCTION IN FUCKING 96 DEGREE HEAT!!! UNLESS THE CAMP JUST FUCKING BURNS TO THE GROUND BECAUSE THAT IS OUR LUCK RIGHT NOW!!! Once I got that out of my system I sat in silence and just cried all of the way home.
Fortunately the electrician who wired the camp was able to come out the following Thursday, which was also the day our summer vacation began. We spent the entire week contemplating what would happen if it wasn't an easy fix. Could somehow save vacation or were we going to spend it literally sulking on the couch all week.
Thursday June 18... It was a quick fix. It cost us only an $80 service call to learn that it actually takes two hands to push the main breaker switch completely to the off position before you can try resetting it back in the on position. I hadn't pushed it far enough and Adam did not check my work. Lesson learned. Things were looking up!
Friday June 19... And we're back in the weeds. While enjoying oldest child's 20th birthday dinner at our house with his mom and stepfather, our washing machine suddenly began shaking the house and sounding like a freight train was crashing through the room. We jumped up and ran to the machine shutting it off and unplugging it immediately. It was still clearly full of water and the door would not open. We figured it was a safety feature and gave it some time to drain. A while later it did open so that we could get the sopping wet, heavy set of flannel sheets out of it. By then we figured out that we had completely lost the bearings. Off to mom's to spin out the load and then into research mode to find a replacement sooner than later. The only small grace was that the washer died on the last load of the day.
Saturday June 20... After calling around to a few local places, I was able to find a replacement washer available for immediate pick up at a decent price! Woo Hoo! That must be a sign! We muscled to old machine out of the house and into the pickup with a few other bulky items to drop off at the dump on our way to the store and we were off.
Back at the house around noon, it looked like we were going to be able to salvage the day after all. We got the machine in the house and installed. (We hope, we didn't test it, so hopefully everything is fine if one of the kids uses it first.) Then we scrambled to get our gear together and get to camp.
We finally landed at the lake around 3 exhausted from the heat, effort and stress of the last 24 hours. I was excited to see the water pressure coming out of faucet with newly attached town water supply. But then a few minutes later, I turned on the sink again and had next to nothing. Oh no. My foot feels wet... We sprung a leak under the sink. I grabbed towels and sent Adam running to shut off the main supply before we flooded the cabinet and floor. Then I just sat on the floor and cried.
The plastic connector mechanism on the sink sprayer was cracked and the seal broken. Without it capped, we were without a water source. I didn't even have enough fight left in me to swear. I was done. Adam headed to the hardware store for a replacement sprayer with hose while I continued to sob randomly. It only got worse when the replacement did not fit.
I was ready to give up and go home. Then Mom and Dad offered to pick up a new faucet on Sunday. We can get water next door at their camp and manage without water in our own for one night.
Sunday June 21... Mom and Dad didn't get back with the new faucet/potential replacement parts until about 7 pm. Still, we tried the various little caps and parts we collected to see if we could salvage the current faucet and correct the leaking problem. It did not work, but we were smart enough to give up on it before anyone (me) got too pissy. I was tempted to just rip it apart and put in the replacement, but Adam vetoed. He admitted later that this was because while we were trying to problem solve the little parts and pieces, by mother thought that would be a good time to come sit down for a visit peppering up with rapid fire tidbits that were completely unrelated and distracting, intermixed with wholly unhelpful questions and advice about what we were doing. She is notorious for asking questions in rapid succession, without giving you a chance to answer the first on, which would have effectively also answered all of the successive ones. My mother's version of "helping" often feels like a woodpecker hammering at your skull. ("Reading the room" is a skill she does not possess) But good news! Nobody got hurt and nothing else got broken!
Monday June 22... Faucet installation day! What? No! We cannot catch a break here! That's right, the connection hose from the new faucet was about 6 inches short of the water line. Adam and I just stared in silence. This vacation is cursed.
After the swearing was done and we were able to actually think for a few minutes. Adam took a look under the camp and found what appeared to be enough room to spare so that we could push the pipe up through. We just needed to dig out the silicone that we had sealed it with to give a little wiggle room. That sounds like a good job for Mom. If we give her a specific task, then it buys us time to quietly think about a back up plan inside.
Fortunately, plan A worked. The pipe shifted up, we had room to connect and there were no leaks in the water lines... but now there is a small leak in the drain pipe. Sigh. Maybe it just got jostled while we were in there working angry and needs a little snugging up. In the meantime, I put a bucket under it so we could go to town for groceries and some other errands.
Our first mistake was saying that last sentence out loud.
Back at camp we were sticky and warm from the heat of the day. Plenty of time for a refreshing swim before dinner!
NOPE! I was halfway down the dock wheel on then I heard a clatter and Adam yell out. The second step on the rickety-ass-death-trap-ancient-stairs that my parents refuse to replace let go from one side. Luckily Adam was able to catch himself before crashing through completely and into the rocky bank - not before the rusted out nails that gave way slashed his leg though. Awesome.
I hustled him inside and dug out the first aide kit. Thankfully his tetanus shot is up to date and there were gel packs in the freezer. The rest of our evening was spent trying to keep him comfortable and coming up with creative ways to keep a damed bandage on his knee. If he was still it was ok, but as soon as he moved much everything ended up around his ankle. It was still a little oozy at bedtime, so we sacrificed an old sweatshirt and crafted a "tubular bandage" to keep things in place overnight. Friday, June 26... Three days incident free. We even managed to build a set of shelves using power tools and no injuries were sustained. We got cocky, let our guard down and last night I slept great. So great in fact, that I was completely unaware of the days early arrival of my period during the night. That certainly made for an unpleasant and messy morning requiring A LOT of stain stick. There was crying (again... Hey, maybe that's why I was so completely fraught by disaster after disaster earlier this week.) Adam jumped into his amazing husband mode to try to mitigate fall out with snuggles and a nice breakfast. It worked. I didn't yell "FUCK IT" and immediately pack up for home.
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