When it Rains, it Pours... and Other Stories (Ulog no. 7)
The older I get, the more I become convinced that some days are simply not meant to "go anywhere."
Yesterday seemed to be one of those days.
At the end of the day...
I started the morning by reflecting on it being August 11th, making it my auntie's birthday. Well, she's actually long dead (she would have been 114!), and she was my dad's older sister; I wrote about his birthday a few days back.
View through the window
She helped raise me; I often lived with her when my parents were out pursuing their nomadic life. She seemed like one of the very few kind and "responsible" people in an ocean of what mostly felt like very self-involved adults.
Which got me to thinking about the whole concept of "safety" and "feeling safe."
I often hear people lament the fact that people are cold and unfeeling, and that the world lacks compassion, on a societal level. But if you don't have a safe space within which process your feelings when they arise... how can you be authentically in touch with them?
So I went off to work, pondering this thing.
Those of you who have been regulars on this page might remember that in October of 2017, the small art gallery my wife and I have flooded. There was a (supposedly!) "freak" rain event that caused the city drains to overflow, and a "cascade failure" later, there was 8 inches of water in our lower-level shop.
Good weather for seagulls
The details are irrelevant, but in the ensuing aftermath of denied insurance claims and related; a city manager was quoted as saying "We can't really be held accountable for what was a 500-year weather event."
Now, I don't care about city government and city managers; but it was yet another example of people abdicating accountability. Passing the buck. How hard would it have been to simply say "Yeah, our city drainage infrastructure is old and failing; that's why your place flooded; we're sorry."
Before that flood actually happened, there was already an infrastructure "upgrade" set to start construction on January 5th of this year... it just finished, near the end of July.
So yesterday, it rained again — as in, a severe thunderstorm. And even though it was only half as severe as the October 2017 rain event, we were in danger of flooding again. In SPITE of the new project to improve matters. We were OK, because we have SAND BAGS in front of our back door, not because the new and improved drainage worked...
This was the downtown main streat yesterday... maybe there's a REASON it's called "Water Street?"
Drainage which was — by the way — criticized by many as being inadequate and more "for show" than "for function." And now, tested under fire, failed.
Which brings me back to accountability and how we approach things. And the way of most humans, organizations and society in general to work on treating symptoms, rather than repairing problems.
Flower in the sun
Will the city even comment? The "500-year weather event" excuse is out. So now what?
But getting back to the main topic, yesterday went nowhere near the direction I had hoped for. Instead of feeling like I was having a productive day, I ended up hauling sandbags... and getting soaked.
I also meant to get caught up on Steemit, and to write a couple of posts. Instead I got to about five comments, and NO posts.
And so it goes. Or does it? All this really means is that today I got to start my day at 20 yards behind the starting line...
Hope you're all having an amazing Sunday!
As per usual, comments are invited and welcome! Steemit runs on engagement and interaction, so be part of the conversation!
created by @zord189
(As always, all text and images by the author, unless otherwise credited. This is original content, created expressly for Steemit)
Created at 180812 15:25 PDT
The proverbial hamster on a wheel, running but never making it anywhere. At least when I have days like this I know I am one day closer to collecting my next paycheck. I am assuming you are self-employed and so on a day like that, I imagine there is very little money coming in and no 1/14 progress toward a paycheck to celebrate. That must be pretty rough.
This is only tangentially related, but one of the observations I have made over the years popped into my head while reading this. One day I realized that when you see something in your daily life and think wow, someone should really do something about that, that "someone" is almost always the government.
Sometimes I ponder the possibility that government is both "evil" and "unavoidable." Things like infrastructure in a town... it won't work if we're just a group of individuals with shovels, and then the whole "MY neighborhood, but not THEIRS" sets in, because most humans are inherently self-involved.
Yes, I'm self-employed — my wife is, as well — and it IS in a way a hamster wheel, but at least it is a hamster wheel we've chosen to be on, voluntarily. That said, it does get frustrating when we know that part of the running we do is related to someone else's incompetence...
I guess then that I am not the only one to wonder if it is possible for us (them, government, people in general) to ever get things right. We seem to live in a bubble of no ones cares, its not my problem, and pass the buck. Hope tomorrow is better.
And whenever I look at that, it always seems like that "nobody cares" attitude can be traced back to people only being worried about what happens in the immediate/short term. "I'll work hard to make this seemingly work, but ONLY FOR AS LONG AS I am in the elected office. After that, who cares?" So people do things that provide short term patchwork fixes, after which stuff breaks and we're all worse off.
Really a very wonderful article and very special speech
Well done, my dear
Thank you!
This is lovely, so beautiful...
This comment was made from https://ulogs.org
I spent 5 years living like a gypsy in a plywood box 8ft long and 6ft wide, parked 7 miles away from the closest lightbulb on the beach of Padre Island. One thing I learned there was some days, even weeks can go by and nothing has to happen. The sun will come up, the seagulls will still laugh at you, the sun will set. In solitude and isolation, stuck, in dreams, in contemplation, I could have, I should have ...lived. I look back now after reading your post and ponder still the questions raised then and the answer remains. Some days you simply have one choice and one alone, to live. OK, maybe two, how you are going to live is just as important as choosing to. Followed by what do you do when there is nothing to do? Oops, yet another question. In the end I walked away grateful, thankful, enlightened by the nothingness of it all. Shalom.
As for the insurance and the abject accountability of government in any fashion - good luck. Personally I place my faith in an awesome God that has no bounds to the measure of power and love for us all. And though my life is still wrought will problems of this or that, the spirit of God is with me always, lest I forget. Tomorrow will come indeed and it may, or may not be a brighter day but at least we're not alone.
howdy sir denmarkguy! wow your city sounds exactly like every other city I've ever known in this country! ha! But what really got me was your statement about your parents leaving you so they could pursue a nomadic lifestyle? what was that about? glad you guys had your shop sandbagged.
We use to have that problem here then our city went through many years back and replaced all the drainage pipes. They got tired of getting fined for letting sewage overflow into the river and paying damages for sewage overflows into people's basements. It ended up being all good, it stopped the overflows but when they went through and put in new pipes they put the main pipe down the center of the street, to top if off they placed the pipes going into people's homes on a ninety degree slant. The old rule use to be that a homeowner was responsible from the curb to their house when came to a drain, now that they moved the pipe to the middle of the road they changed to extend to the middle of the road. Now if you are a do it yourselfer who doesn't want to pay three to four hundred dollars to unclog a sewage pipe you not only have to contend with the extra length but a typical hand operated snake stretching over 100 feet won't allow for enough pressure on the line to get past the bend. It wasn't a huge issue before, every once in a while, the clogs usually came undone pretty easily. Then my grandson was born and baby wipes can be quite a challenge of a clog depending how many they flushed, I often would wonder what would come first, my son getting tired of helping me operate the snake (even with proper gloves and bleach it's a dirty job) or my grandson grew out of diapers. I always had to be the one after clearing the clog to clean up the mess and disinfect the floor so he got out of relatively easily just operating the snake though he acted like it was killing him, I use to say to him all the time it's not like this was on my list of plans for the day. I had two girl tenants once who created quite a havoc, always flushing tampons. They clogged the drain on the fourth of July once. They were really mad they couldn't take a shower while I was there. They kept yelling at me how I was ruining the plans they had made for the day making them late, I yelled back that my plans didn't initially involve standing in a pile of shit in the basement trying to unclog a drain. Really whose plans ended up being really shitty that day.