Water Main Break!

I woke up Tuesday morning this week and went to the bathroom to get ready for the day. I turned on the faucet to brush my teeth, but, alas, the faucet just shuddered and no water was to be had.

Bummer. I usually shower at night, moreso out of morning laziness than anything else, but in the back of my mind I guess there is always the nagging possibility of waking to no water. Of course, the one night that I decided to wait until morning, a water main breaks. I'm pretty sure this would only happen to me! Such is my luck.

So...fantastic! "This will be interesting, but will surely make a great blog post," I thought. I really was more bothered by a lack of working toilets than the lack of a shower or faucets. The break caused a pressure drop in the system, so water was also out at school until about 10:30 am, when some of the city workers engineered a patch to get us through the day. That certainly wasn't the most fun morning, because no water = grumpy kids. Thank goodness water was restored to the school, because it would still be a while before it would return to the teacher housing.

Now, this had happened once last year, but it only lasted about 8 hours. We now live in brand new teacher housing, so I really hadn't thought of this as a likely problem. Turns out there are some structural issues with the new housing; my building is literally floating on the east side. Building on tundra is tricky business, and my whole 4-plex unit needs to be re-leveled, lest the building snap in two (or two hundred) pieces. The water main under the other unit is where it busted, likely due to the sinking and settling of that building.

We got word that at least three days would pass before it could be fixed. My new roommate, Leah, and I had just started the Insanity workout program and were only 3 days into it. This little problem has paused it for us for a while for obvious reasons. (Between you and me? I'm not sad about having to pause that program. It truly is insane.)

Adding to our stress? In another moment of insanity, we decided to take in a little puppy for a while, as its owner informed us that her mother would "rip its head off if she didn't find a home for it." This comment did not sit well with Leah, and so, puppy parents we became! It really is no fun to manage puppy poo without flushing toilets or water to clean up messes.

Here is a shot of the lil lady. We are sending her to Anchorage
as soon as she is big enough. A few of her names include
Pooh Bear, Bessie, and Jackie. About 6 weeks old, we think she's
 part husky, mutt, and possibly wolf. Most village dogs are
mixes. If being a teacher hasn't already inspired me to put
 off having kids, then caring for her may have pushed that
ordeal even further into the future. I just really enjoy sleeping
through the night, and with her, I don't get to do that. 

My biggest fear, however, was none of the above, but the potential of having to go without my morning coffee. That scared me. I just don't have the gusto to face my students without my morning cup o' joe. I didn't know if I would have enough water to get me through Wednesday. Luckily, I wouldn't have to do such a thing.

To deal in the meantime, I showered at the school and we hauled totes of water from the school. Leah kept saying, "This isn't real life. But this is our life right now. It's like we're camping in our houses." I had only one response as I drove the huge school truck over to fill our totes:

"Just think of all the bar stories you can tell already! You've been dumped into the Yukon River while camping with kids, visited three other villages, rescued a puppy, and now we get to haul our own water! And this is only the first month of school!"

Thank goodness we have just a few 18-gal
totes lying around collecting dust! We
filled two and also had a gatorade cooler
to use in the kitchen.

Leah is a trooper. She's from Pittsburgh and does a great job with her students. She reminds me a lot of myself at her age, so we have fun!

Thankfully, the water got turned back on Thursday night. I really was settling in for a longer haul; I've heard that other villages have been without water for as long as three months. YIKES. I don't know how I'd be coping at that point.

Well, we survived and the good news is that the water is on for now. From what I hear, it's a temporary fix, so I expect outages in the future, but hopefully we will be forewarned. If not, oh well...

Here is a shot of the morning sky from my front door. This was a couple weeks ago, and I no longer enjoy such perks, as the sunrise is already pushed back to about 9:10 am. Some of you have wondered about the cold, and it's still in the low 40s, getting to about 35 degrees at night. Last year at this point, I'm pretty sure we had snow, but maybe not. It's set to snow next week. 6-month long winter, here we come!