Flooding, dueling and Huey Lewis

When you're getting back on the horse and it's been a few days since your fingers have met keyboard, you need something to bring you back to those familiar and square keys. You need Huey Lewis.



Over the past few days we went through the unfortunate, (though a relatively minor inconvenience compared to Pakistan and to talk about it anymore would not only seem to be, but in reality is, trite. However, we exist on these sorts of exigencies in a global society, and we, ((humanity here)) have always gone about our grubby business of living by ignoring, to our benefit, that which does not concern us directly) business of a flooded basement.

Nothing thrills me more than waking up a few minutes before my alarm is to go off and stumbling down into the basement to find water. This is largely due to the fact that I am the most easy-going and good-natured person in the world. However, even my faculties of easy-goingness were challenged when I had to stand in the pouring rain for a solid twenty minutes whilst trying to discern how water was flowing from behind a brick wall beyond the drain rather than from the top of the steps where gravity and sense would seem to have placed it by rights.

And yes, Lord knows, I do love having a vacant house next to us, so we can have our wild cocaine infused parties until 3 A.M. on weekends. However, my mood is decidedly lowered by seeing our neighbor's roof, clogged with leaves, pouring small streams of water off the top directly onto a thin plastic sheet over my window well. Such water, then traveling down into the well, into my walls, and then into my basement.

Naturally I did what any self-respecting twenty first century man would do.

1) Wrote a letter post-haste using the finest cod liver oil, the only type of material I'll write this type of letter in, challenging my neighbor to a duel on August 27th at sunrise.

2) The duel, dear friends, was moved back a couple of days and a couple of hours because I learned that the sun rises earlier than I'd like.

3) In keeping with my strict Pacifist nature, the duel will be a classic rake to rake combat as popularized during the early nineteenth century garden party riots.

4) I have begun training each evening for my duel by watching a strict regimen of Bravo reality television shows. Thus far, my skills with a rake have not been increased, though I feel imminently more ready to resume my role as a housewife in Washington, D.C.

5) As of yet my neighbor has not responded to my request. I can only assume that he has rarely been in such a state of abject fear that he has been unable to even rouse himself from bed to write a proper response.