I Could Be Everywhere at Once

...if only I had the time! Time, space, motion, memory. I spent about thirty minutes searching for this picture, taken in 2001, yesterday. I am putting in my blog because it feels so valuable now that I searched and searched for it. (Remember how I said yesterday that my pictures never get properly labeled? This one was called 104-0454_IMG.JPG.) I gave it a better name but now it's in my blog, too, so I can refer to it. Now that we have our water main problem fixed, we have a leak in our own service. Since we have a cutoff in the house we have determined that it is between the meter and the house. The sprinkler guy asserts that he has fixed all his bits and stuff in the area, checked other stations and he has uncovered all his lines near the service. We have this suspicious wet area between two driveway surfaces, too.

So what is the significance of this picture? Well, when we built our pervious Eco-Crete driveway (which we were doing when this picture was shot) they broke a line in the water service to the house. We remembered it being in a certain place (see pink paint) but we couldn't for the life of us think why the pipe was there. To get to the garage and enter the house where the service enters the house it would have to make a hard turn to the north. Why would anyone do that? This is the original house on the lot.

Later in the evening I had a water detective Eureka moment. I remembered that there was a closet that used to house the hot water heater before it was moved to the garage. So, of course, the original angle of the line went under the house to that closet! Now, of course, another question is where does the thing turn? But I feel much better than I have any right to feel just because I figured that out. Hey, this house was built in 1951. We've lived here 30 years. There were things the people we bought it from didn't tell us. We have made all these discoveries and repaired things. We are trying to simplify our lives by selling this sprawling complicated property. But I'm going to tell the new owners everything I can think of about the place. With pictures. Seriously, you are supposed to do that according to some real estate things or the other. But after 30 years I'm still making discoveries. Or rediscoveries. Like the fact that the outlets in one room that is the original living room have one plug that is switched (by three different switches) and one that isn't.

So how have I simplified my life in this sprawling entry? Well, I've saved the picture, for what it's worth on the Internet so I can find it again. And, I might add, labeled it properly on my computer. And the seemingly slightly off topic title and subtitle record a phrase I wrote on a piece of scrap paper that I could otherwise discard as it has notes from me taking care of budget and financial stuff. But I didn't want to lose track of that phrase. It is so twisted. Because you can only be one place at a time no matter how long you have. There is a enormous missed opportunity if you are mortal.

All these little pieces of paper are chaos. They help me remember stuff and yet I have to carefully review them before I can stick them in recycling. I really need to keep all my 'to do' stuff in an electronic file. But I've given up on using a PDA. And my phone is old school and just phones. So when I'm not at the computer, I use scraps of paper.