My friend, Megumi, shared a post on Facebook this morning that began〈断水11日目〉which is “11th day without water.” Has it really been that long? I checked the calendar. Yes, it has. That means it’s been 11 days without Internet at home, too. I would have guessed six days. Time is weird when patterns are disrupted.
I start every day with hope for normality. In the early stages of dementia, Mom kept asking to do “something normal.” I think I understand what she meant. I’d love to have stress-free errands without accommodation for the situation. Or to go out to lunch and have a conversation that wasn’t about the incoming typhoon or whether we will have a trickle of water when we get home.
We are not in any danger. Despite that, I am stressed because nothing is settled. We spend our days running around looking for cat parents, helping neighbors, filling our water tanks at the fire station, going to the laundromat, and eating out to avoid doing dishes. I have been cleaning the house with wet wipes.
Oyama Senmaida got tanks set up so that the public toilets have water and our programs can continue. This is a good stopgap until the water is up and running again.
The temporary repairs to the water system are underway and the department makes daily progress updates: they started two days ago and got the connections ready at both ends of the pipe detour but they haven’t share an estimate of that work timeline. Our チョロチョロ trickle of water stopped running yesterday morning. I don’t know why. Did the tankers not refill the supply?
Our phones finally have some bars of 4G indoors, which is helpful, but a phone’s not a keyboard and screen for working. NTT doesn’t seem to even know we have an fiber outage so who knows when that will be back online. Computer time happens down the road at Tod’s office, which is where we get online and also shower.
The Oyama Senmaida Harvest Festival is on Sunday and the forecast has been shifting back and forth. I was planning to do cyanotype and turmeric anthotypes. but the anthotypes require a sunny, high UV day that we probably won’t have. I am adjusting for cyanotypes in lower UV light and I have two fallback ideas for filling the two hour session if there is not a speck of sun. But it took me all week to figure out what to do.
Yesterday, in a moment of afternoon sun, I took a walk and enjoyed the creatures and colors around me. It was relaxing.
