Emergency

Aloha Welcome Friend!

 

 When you live on a boat as we do

there are many Ups

& Downs.

 Sometimes the glass is half full-

Sometimes it is OVERFLOWING!

 

Sometimes, It looks like it's ALL going

down the tubes.

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It was three in the morning.

Laying awake in uncharacteristic fretting,

I heard a strange noise.

Then the unmistakable sound of water;

water rushing.

Rushing IN!

I sprinted to the dock and shut off the water line

coming aboard.

Then I listened.

What I heard chilled my bones;

The sound of 

water!

My problem was my hull, not plumbing.

By this time (blog invisible) husband was plugging in a pump.

I tore a new (emergency backup) pump out of its box.

As the incoming water rushed in triumphantly

the watery tide turned against us.

"This is it. This is it,"  I chanted,

rushing around gathering

everything of value

everything of daily utility:

clothes, grandpa's watch, medication. . .

What would YOU be grabbing?

As I loaded my car, Kitty watched safely from her accustomed place on deck -

no worries a foot from the dock.

Hubby had called HFD

and the giant yellow truck with the matching official surfboard on the side

was tearing up the night and spilling red wails everywhere.

There they were HERE;

Fire Fighters.  Hawaiian Demi-Gods. 

Six feet tall and very calm.

They regularly climb on roofs in high winds

to save people's homes.

You know about the helicopter rescues,

and of course the fire fighting.

They had a pump

a pump that saved us from going down

in an estimated 30 minutes.

So as water rushed and sang triumphantly

through a seam in my hull,

two small, and one BIG pumps tried to over-sing the water.

The two small guys ran non-stop.

Eventually, the big pump could be shut off for 20 minutes at a time.

Without it we would have been homeless.

The Coast Guard was very  nice but mostly interested in ocean hygiene.

They brought no diver, just papers to sign.

I began to calculate the cost of properly disposing of an old 47 foot cement & steel boat.

The pumps and rushing water were like a  never-ending drum roll, teasing me to jump out of my skin.

I haven't been that stressed in some time.

I didn't make it to the inauguration (see post above).

I did watch in (Bizarrely) on TV: using electricity while water sang its

bloodthirsty victory song. 

(without power: NO PUMPS!)

I began to feel guilty

about the confession I MADE in that post just above;

YOU now know that I'm a hateful scoundrel 

(now you GOTTA see that post! :)

and my 'fall from grace' was being extravagantly punished

with a dazzling immediacy!

Or maybe not.

Emergencies can bring out some weird stuff

along with the "best in us," eh?

And there are no atheists on sinking boats.

Hubby's diver who knows our boat eventually showed up.

His mom has cancer and needed something;

Everybody's got a story.  No?

Eventually the river stopped, leaving a lake to dry.

The sea had lost this one. 

For now.

We worked and carried all day.

I cried a little.

I thought of blogger buddy  Travis 

who lost his home in a fire

and blogged about it.

Hubby, Kitty and I

started talking about moving on

after 18 years afloat.

I cried a little more.

But we slept in our own bed,

wearing slippahs (Slippers - the rest of the world calls them: flip flops)

to walk the damp carpet.

My clothes and etc. are in a tangled pile. 

But Hubby made it in to work today.

I even got my modems and internet hooked back up

(look at ME!).

So that's why:

this late post NOT about:

today's Pearl Harbor ceremonies

and the dwindling number of aging veteran/survivors.

That's why no post today about the new Governor's 

surprisingly spiritual speech

about Joy, Gratitude, and Hawaii

that quoted the Dalai Lama and Dietrich Bonhoeffer .

But I gotta blog.

   Gotta touch thoughts and hearts with

YOU.

Emergencies put things in perspective.

I'm grateful for all the little things we take for granted,

like the phone or pen we reach out and grasp 

without having to search for it.

I'm deeply grateful to the Pawaa Station Fire Fighters,

my neighbors,

the voters,

my new Governor

and my old husband.

I'm grateful for new beginnings,

just a BIT more planned

than grabbing and running

into the night. . .

What are YOU Grateful or Fretful about today?

"This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival...
Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond."
~ Rumi