With my bags packed and Yawp freshly tuned, I was ready for an early start Saturday morning. The day dawned clear and warm, with a slight breeze. Birds chirped. After a quick breakfast of donuts and empanadas at my new favorite bakery, Heller’s, I was ready to roll out. As I’m pulling on my socks, I hear V begin to curse in the next room.
She pulls me over to listen at the wall: we hear a cascade of water behind the plaster in a corner of the dining room that had had a suspicious stain in the ceiling for weeks. As we’re standing there trying to figure out what to do, a wrinkle of plaster bursts like a pimple and yellow water streams down the wall. Shit.
We determine that V should call her parents to get the plumber over while I run upstairs and shut off the water to her bathroom (which had just been used.) The dripping immediately stops. At least we’ve narrowed it down to bathroom #1 of 4. Maybe.
V paces the living room, jumping at every noise, expecting the ceiling or walls to collapse. I tell V that old houses are just disasters waiting to happen. I realize that this probably isn’t helping. Suddenly, we hear a metallic crash and the sound of more water dripping. We both dash into the kitchen and drag the fridge out, expecting to see something terrible. Fortunately, it was just water from the countertop trickling onto the floor.
Rob the Plumber calls and gives an ETA of noonish (it’s now past 10am) and I dawdle awkwardly, not wanting to leave until I know the extent of the problem. V has now reduced her nails to stumps and I realize I’m in for a significant delay. I call Indy (who was going to meet me for a few miles on the C&O) and inform him of the problem. He accuses me of purposefully delaying. He is probably right.
Rob the Plumber arrives and dolefully states that he needs to knock out the drippy wall section to get a look inside. V begins chewing on my fingers. An hour and three large holes later, Rob discovers that the culprit is a rusted pipe 
fitting from the 1920s that has rotted through and is funneling gallons of water from the attic bathroom into the walls. We all agree that this is a problem. He promises to return with reinforcements to cut out the offending section and replace it with shiny new PVC.
Since it is now after 2pm and hot, I decide that discretion (and beer) is the better part of valor and retire to get pizza.
So, I made it as far as the living room today. 6am start tomorrow morning. I’ll have a quiet breakfast and sneak out before anything worse can happen.
August 15th, 2009 at 9:09 pm
By the way, my fingers have grown back. Thank you for the “moral support.” I hope that you’ll make it out the door (and even to the street!) tomorrow. I’ll try not to sabotage the wiring tonight - I do like to do that in my sleep.
August 17th, 2009 at 8:26 am
yay for house disasters. not.
best of luck, v- I can sympathize.
as for ms. mclin… happy trails!
August 20th, 2009 at 9:27 am
Francesca, you don’t have enough stuff yet. And did you remember to bring….well, maybe I’d better not say, in case you forgot.