I'm really hoping

That by the end of today, I will have water again.

I did contemplate the truck stop route...except the nearest one is farther from me than the friend who offered her shower (if I don't get water by tonight, I will be calling her). And I don't know how the campus gyms are set up but that is another option. (I suppose I could ask the campus nurse; she's also involved with intramural sports here).

I also wondered briefly if "broken pipe due to soil shifting in drought" was a covered thing under my policy...but given what my deductible is, what I'd get back (if it costs what the plumber estimated) would be small enough to not make it worth filing...and I never know if that sort of thing contributes to one's rates going up in the next year.

I don't know. I'm really hoping hard that they will get it done today.

I did manage to clean up some better last night. I had the bright idea of going out and getting some baby wipes...I remembered when my dad used to lead weeklong plus raft trips down the Grand Canyon*, baby wipes were one thing they recommended taking - because there are no showers in the Grand Canyon, and even though swimming can get you wet, it doesn't necessarily get you clean. (They also suggested Dr. Bronner's soap - because it's biodegradable and safe to use in a river)

(*A trip that everyone else in my family has gone on, except for me. Yes, I know I was probably missing out on the experience of a lifetime. But I also know I fare badly enough in extreme camping situations that I would have a hard time enjoying myself by the third or fourth day - I don't sleep well outdoors, I don't sleep well if I'm not in a bed (and by 'don't sleep well,' I really mean 'mostly don't sleep at all') and the whole bathroom situation...in the canyon, it was an old artillery canister from the Army-Navy store with a toilet seat on it. I am told they tried to situate it behind a clump of tamarisk if there was any at the campsite...But at any rate: I don't camp. I don't like camping. Having to camp makes me both sad and cranky. Yes, I am full aware of the irony of an ecologist hating to camp, but if we were all simple caricatures we'd all be cartoon characters. Though then again perhaps that would not be so bad.)

So I went and got them. It did help; I washed off with several of those and then stepped into the tub and poured part of a gallon of spring water over myself as a rinse. (A cold, unpleasant rinse: the water was at room temperature, which was about 75 degrees)

I will say, driving home, I had an unpleasant experience. Two young boys, perhaps 8 or 9 years old, playing near one of the houses in my neighborhood. As I approached in my car, they looked at each other in a certain way and I thought, "They're going to try running out into the street to force me to stop my car." Yup, one did - or rather, he STARTED to run into the street, and then ran off cackling when I slammed on the brakes. (I suppose there's some benefit to being a people-watcher and being sensitive to things like looks and body language - being able to detect that these kids were thinking, "Hey, let's scare that woman by pretending to run out in front of her car" allowed me to be more prepared)

They weren't neighborhood kids I knew, or else I would have been knocking on their parents' door to tell them what their sons were up to. That's a dangerous and potentially deadly game - if my brakes had failed, if I hadn't been so fast on the draw, if he had tripped and fallen - his life would have been ruined, his family's life would have been ruined, and so would mine. (Both from the guilt of feeling I had injured a kid, and also how the local news would portray me, I'm sure.)

That kind of thing makes me crazy - unsupervised kids behaving badly. You hear SO MUCH about how dangerous the world is for kids, and some parents won't even let their kids do the usual fun (and comparatively safe) kid-things I did - and yet, there are kids that just run around wild with no supervision and get into all kinds of trouble.

If I had even THOUGHT about running out in front of a car as a kid, I would have been so grounded. For so long.

Soooooo....I don't know. My little store of coping ability for the week is 100% exhausted. It's like a video game where the player's life-force runs down and they get weak until they find the magic coin or whatever it is that restores it.