Water rushes in

When you turn fifty, you become eligible for all kinds of interesting extracurricular activities, including the first round colonoscopy. This is not a fun procedure, although I hasten to add, it is life-saving, and it is not completely unbearable. The day and night before the procedure are trying enough, thanks to a dose that chemically reverses the normal digestion process. That’s how my nurse described it to me. Instead of taking water out of the colon, water rushes in, washing away everything in its path.

I handled the pre-procedure steps well enough, but apparently I did not handle the procedure itself very well, since they gave me double Demerol. Still, eventually I woke up enough to be driven home to snooze the afternoon away.

But no.

Late afternoon, I received an emergency call from the building where my office is located. The afternoon thunderstorms had overtaxed something—whether roof or drainage system is still unclear—but water was rushing into our offices through light fixtures or any tiny gap in the ceilings. Thanks be to the colleagues next door who pulled our computers out before they were swamped!

Two days later, we are on the streets looking for alternative accommodations, but determined not to return to the still wet, increasingly moldy offices that we once inhabited. There are several alternatives, and we hope to have a new home soon.

In the grand scheme of things, it is not a major crisis, but gratitude springs anew, both for the help we have received this week and for the overwhelming good fortune that we normally enjoy. Water was less than an inch deep in our offices—how much worse was it for this year’s hurricane victims?