CuppaGemma

It’s been quite a week.

We’ve both been hit with bad colds and the kind of coughing the results in trips to the doctor, prescriptions, more prescriptions, long periods of rest and plenty of pasta e fagioli. But those things seem to be on the upswing now and we have other things needing our attention.

We’ve gotten our marriage license too.

We weren’t the only ones in the clerk’s office who brought along divorce decrees that day. Mine says the union was dissolved years ago. His is an absolute statement of divorce. Cash is not accepted, so we actually charged the fee. The prenup will be signed this week. Such is the way of modern marriages, we define yours, mine and ours to protect the interests of ourselves and our children. Due diligence and irrevocable beneficiaries.

But romance is not all but forgotten.

There is the matter of the red hat and yellow bow tie. And with any luck fine weather and a ride to the ferry boat in the rumble-seat of my father’s Model A Roadster. He and mom will see the elopees off to their boat. We plan to make an afternoon of drinks and laughter at the Waldorf then onto a few days alone to celebrate one another and forget the names of the basilica again.

And life interrupts.

A year ago we had dinner after work at California Pizza Kitchen. What started as a conversation on how to solve content problems meandered into shared beliefs on how to manage life in general. We stayed late talking. Now we find ourselves long since sharing the same address and helping to make supper together. Funny how things change and the amount of life lived in that one year seems to count for at least ten.

Then the flood happened. The night of smiles got interrupted by the more urgent need for pumping and getting water out of the house while the wind pounded. We make a good team.

As my friends will tell you, this ranch house with the wooden split rail fence has been prone to more then one leak in the basement. Four years of corrections and improvements have brought this place a long way. The cracks in the foundation have been sealed and the whole lower level finished and furnished. But I’ve had enough experience not to hope for good weather. The roof has been changed and a master shut off value installed by the trap downstairs. We actually had to close it down last night when water started coming up through the shower base downstairs.

Last time this resulted in a few inches of water all downstairs as the city shut off the pumping station and the overflow backed up drains for low lying houses. We were lucky in that what came through our drain was storm runoff rather then sewage. I didn’t want to deal with another potential mess, so the plumber installed the valve and told me I might never actually need to use it, but if the time came when I did- I would be glad. Those once in a hundred year rains seem to happen a little more frequently.

He was right. Chris locked down the valve and we emptied the base of the shower out. Enough had come through that the carpet was soaked, but not anywhere near as much as the first time this happened. Had we had thought to check sooner their might not have been water at all. We were grateful to be home when it happened rather then receiving an urgent call from home letting us know the cats had come up seeking higher ground but the sofa and television did not fare as well. Other neighbors are pumping out and have had much more damage. We all have damp socks and cold toes.

This morning the cleaning company came again, and has taken up the entire carpet, extracted all the water from the padding beneath and will come back to shampoo and clean the carpet later in the week.

Once that was settled we wrote and ordered our wedding invitations.

Our tastes are the same- heavy ecru paper with blue letters. We’ll post them right after we get home and hope our friends will join us for dinner and dancing. We’ll have to practice to 50’s songs and maybe the tarantella. But for now it’s a quiet afternoon looking at the world that is grey and being content with one another.