Water, Trees & Potatoes

A water main broke across the street from our house on Friday afternoon. When Jamie came flying back into the house and demanded the phone book, I knew something was up. Since the phone book is probably buried somewhere under one of the many piles of crap we have all over our house, we got online and found the number for the City Public Works Department. They said they’d send someone out to check on it. Meanwhile, hundreds of gallons of murky brown water continued to gush in torrents out of the ground, under the sidewalk and into the street. Thank God for the small favor if having a sewer drain RIGHT THERE or we might have been flooded! Less than ten minutes later, a city truck came by, marked the obvious spot with a blue stick, and left again. Because I went to Greenville, SC this past weekend, I was not around to witness the big earth movers and work men who undoubtedly came to stop the flow. It was mostly fixed when I got back on Sunday afternoon. The pipe is sticking up from a very large hole in the ground and there is mud everywhere, not to mention the fact that we’re now missing two (or is it three) square sections of sidewalk. Ok – so I do have a point. So Charlie is remembering this broken pipe on a daily basis and telling anyone who will listen all about it. Yesterday, when he was on the phone with me he asked me if I knew about the pipe. Jamie, in the background says, “Yes, Charlie – she knows about the pipe!” He goes on about this pipe the way he went on about the tree in our backyard that was hit by lightening, exploded, and sent a significant piece of bark and tree through the window of our living room back in April of 2006! “The lightening that blew off the bark!” He’d talk about that to anyone who’d listen. It amazes me how long kids’ memories are. Just when you think they’ve forgotten something, they bring it up again. It also amazes me how much they hear. When you think you’re speaking in code to your husband or a friend on the phone, your little one will say, “You know who knows you know what!” It is also just as surprising when they bring up something random. This morning, my very good friend Aaron was telling me about a conversation she had with her almost five-year-old son, Jacob. They were discussing storms because he doesn't like them and we’re having a doozy here today. She said that out of the blue, in the middle of the conversation, Jacob asks, “Mom, where do potatoes come from?” I told her she should tell him, “Idaho.” TTFN JMS