This morning Kurt and I got up and worked out together. He did the treadmill and I did my weights and compact strider. I really get up a good sweat with my routine and since my little strider was far less glamorous than it looked in the box, I ended up really pushing through some legwork I don’t normally do.
When I finished I was shaking on jelly legs and I was drenched from working so hard. I couldn’t wait for a good, hot shower. Kurt offered to make breakfast from leftover Thanksgiving fare and I headed to the bathroom.
I turned on the faucet. The water trickled and then stopped completely.
I waited, naked and soaked in sweat while Kurt checked for potential problems in-house. But we both knew what was coming. We live in the woods with spring water, delivered uphill from a pump in the springhouse. We’ve had pressure problems before, and deal with fishing out the occasional family of newts who accidentally get through the grating, but often our pump just needs tweaked…or kicked…or cajoled.
Kurt shifted his priority of projects to working on the pumphouse first, and I meanwhile scrambled for whatever water I could find to at least wash off the sweatiest parts. I didn’t teach the housesitters any of my tricks about winter stock-up, so they hadn’t filled gallons of jugs with water for potential power outages, the way I do at the end of each summer.
The only water to be found was what was remaining in the dogwater bowl, and a liter of expensive Fiji water I had picked up at the convenience store on our drive home.
I decided (oh so magnanimously) that I just couldn’t part Baxter from his water, and grabbed the Fiji. I used it sparingly, gave myself a “whore’s bath,” and thanked my lucky stars we don’t have any place to be today except in our house for our vacation week, working on projects.
Kurt, in the meantime, dried his sweat on his workclothes, chuckled and made a joke about whether I would also like a liter of Pellegrino for my bum. He then gave me a kiss before trudging out into the snowy wind, down the hill to mess around in the icy springwater.
I am one lucky dirty gertie.
Love, Marla
