The Dragon in my Basement

This morning, my wife admitted that she was responsible for the recent flood in our basement.

"I should have known better," She said.

"What?"

"The Dragon. I put him down in the basement on the elfa shelving, near the cat box. I thought it might help prevent, you know, accidents."

Of course, she was referring to the priceless dragon vase that had been handed-down through countless generations of her family.
Perhaps some long-dead forebear had found the treasure during an archaeological dig on a perilous trip to some ancient Chinese city. Then, sometime after the establishment of electrical power, some artless utilitarian had drilled a hole in the bottom and turned it into a lamp, a fact which actually made it just about worthless (another way of saying priceless, n'est ce pas?). Or maybe her mother bought it at Walmart. We'll probably never know.
A few months ago, my wife decided that she preferred it as an ornament as opposed to light source, and so she had restored it to its natural power. To the superstitious, the emblem - a coiled dragon - represents a potent symbol which is capable of warding-off unlucky and evil spirits. In case you have not been paying attention, you should know that your life is ruled by Feng Shui (pronounced fung shway).

If your wife believes in Feng Shui, you might as well believe in it too, because since she rules your life, you are stuck living in a house that is arranged with mirrors facing specific directions and dragons watching over you.

My wife realized the error of placing a dragon in the basement after perusing her dog-eared copy of Feng Shui Room by Room. Not only was the dragon annoyed at being placed on a shelf near the litter box in the cellar, but he was facing outward (to ward-off evil spirits from the street). Two no-no's.

"The dragon must face inward," she said, as if quoting some rule. "But, not to worry. He is now upstairs and facing the right way. Everything will be OK now."

Somehow I was not much comforted, noting that the forecast was for three more days of rain.

She looked at me and smiled.

"It's not raining rain you know, it's raining violets..."

I went down to the cellar to check my pumps. Floor dry. Electricity on. Pumps pumping.

When I came back upstairs she remarked that I appeared to be calmer. My brow, which had become sore from frowning about the water, seemed less tense. I shrugged.

"See, it's working. The curse is lifted."

"Yeah, we'll see" I muttered as I went out to take another load of soggy paper and ruined furniture to the dump. Standing by the van, I had to squint at the abrupt break in the clouds and the bright sun fighting its way through the mist.

Unconsciously, I began looking for a bluebird, and listening for its song.

Apres le Deluge, Moi

After twenty four days, we still have pumps going in our heroic efforts to keep the ground water from flooding the basement again. Frankly, I am getting too old for this shite.

The DPW water guys came out and looked around and confirmed that it was high ground water and not a broken water main. Ergo, not their problem. Then, on Tuesday, after a few more calls to the DPW, two highway engineers pulled up in the big orange truck. After looking at the water flowing out the pump hoses, one of them asked me,
"Did it flood from the 50 year event or the 500 year event?" He was referring to the terms the weather guys are using to describe about the succession of freakish storms that inundated southern New England over the past weeks. March was the all time wettest month since they started keeping records. The engineers felt that this was indeed a freak event, that the water table will eventually recede, and chances are we will probably not see a recurrence in our lifetime.

Not much consolation there. The flood has not been kind to many of my memories. I am still leafing through the damp file folders that got drenched in the March 15th flood to see what I have lost. Admittedly, most of the paper that was being saved was toss-able. I am unlikely to need copies of old performance reviews, project plans, write-ups and miscellaneous business flotsam.
The performance reviews were full of ego bruising bureaucratic negativism anyhow, written by over-controlling micro-managers whose fanatical fixation on trivial issues (on-time, under budget, happy customers) manifest the their collective judgement that my work was merely "satisfactory." The project plans were being saved for reasons unknown. Not one of my projects came in on time or under budget, and more than one of them were simply abandoned after months of management dithering.
Among the write-ups I had been saving was my recommendation NOT to acquire a software product that management wanted. In my cover memo, I listed the reasons why the software in questions was not appropriate for our business needs (Foremost of which was that we would have to customize every line of code in the system to make it work in our application.) Naive me. All the logic in the world could not overcome the fact that our VP and the Software company's founder had been roommates at college. Ergo, I was over-ruled and the ensuing system project cost zillions and took two years to implement.

I should be at the airport about now, but instead, I am still monitoring the pumps. Our Florida getaway was another casualty of the flood and continued infiltration of water. Very, very reluctantly, we decided to cancel our long-planned trip to Ft Myers/Sarasota. A bunch of us who had been buddies through high school and beyond decided to have a reunion with our wives/significant others. We had not gotten together for over twenty years, and it was a much anticipated event. Since majority of them have retired to Florida, we hold-outs from the North agreed to meet in Ft. Myers/Sanibel area. While we were in the vicinity, we also included a two day visit to family in Sarasota. The trip was planned: Airline tickets, hotel reservations, rental car.
However, the 500 year event seems to have trumped our twenty year event. The friends and family were understanding and we promised to re-schedule the trip. The car and hotel are easily cancelled with no penalty, but the Airline policy on non-refundable tickets is pretty draconian. There is a cancellation charge of $100 per ticket, and voucher credit on the remainder. Fortunately, Jet Blue was very understanding of the flood situation and they agreed to waive the cancellation charge. So, that was one bright ray of sunshine in an otherwise cloudy sky.

Speaking of which, it is starting to rain outside. Thunderstorms are forecast. (He slumps to the floor, groaning, and curls up into a fetal position)