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It is now 3:30 in the afternoon.  My current stress/distress began last midnight.  I assure myself that the troubles I face are fully of my own making.  So what?

I live at around 5,000 feet in the high American southwest desert.  I does get cold here, but last night was one of the worst.  We’ve had this cold spell for days now.  I’ve lived up north all of my life.  I know there are times when inside faucets have to be left running to prevent pipes from freezing.  This is even more true down here where most houses have no insulation, truest when temperatures drop below 15 degrees, which certainly happened last night.

A main line into the house is frozen.  There is no water moving anywhere.  I have no idea where the freezing in the lines is.  The sun is warming the west side of my house right now, but only for a little more time.  Nothing has thawed yet.  I dragged my blue 100′ extension cord out the door (which means I can’t shut my doors, which means I am losing heat in here).  I have my hair dryer running on high aimed at the main water line in the nasty dirty shallow crawl space under the house.  I dragged a fan out there which is also aimed to blow under the house.  Not a drip is stirring.

Of course I can’t control the weather, but I could have done things differently starting with going online last evening to see what temperatures were expected.  Usually I head to bed at 10 p.m. and turn on a kitchen faucet then.  Last night I was so engrossed in my work on the 8th book going into line for publishing I lost track of time.  I came up for air at midnight, was readying for bed, went to turn on the faucet to drip — and not a drop.  Too late.

I spent so many hours last night focusing so hard on my work I did not flush the toilet for hours.  I did not turn on any faucets.  I just worked — and there was a price to pay — a price still be determined.

If nothing thaws today — I hate to think what’s going to happen in the cold of tonight.  I can’t imagine a single water line in this house that isn’t going to freeze solid.  True, this is a rental — but there’s a limit to ‘what Linda can get away with’.  This is all my fault.

Is this an accident?

Is this a mistake?

No, I did not intentionally let my water lines freeze — but so what?  Frozen they most definitely ARE!

Why – last night on a record low temperature night did I HAPPEN to run the course of time the way that I did?  Never do I go that many hours in a row without using some water — somewhere!

Just chalk this up to more of the cost of doing business on these books.  But I cannot blame the weather.  Dare I blame myself?

More importantly, do I dare NOT TO BLAME MYSELF?

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