ocean city valdes

no, there aren't any bodies under the tank.

unfortunately, there is a god-awful mess. it's not quite a superfund site but the nice man who runs the clean-up company suggested we could apply for a government grant. in my experience, when the government offers a kiss on the booboo, you know whatever you've been through - or are about to go through - is bad.

even Beloved, most stalwart of men, came home yesterday looking gray around the gills. its grim and its expensive, and there's nothing to do about it but pay the bill and get it done.

but even as Beloved and i shook our heads at the injustice of it all (now i see why i never had a grandmother, said Beloved) the relentless optimist who lives inside my soul found three reasons to celebrate.

for one thing, the image of the reeking cesspit of fouled fuel under the ancestral home is just too good not to write about. secondly, if the remediation is painful, at least it doesn't involve injury or illness for anyone i love.

third, two years ago, when i started to write this blog, i mostly wrote about the difficulties of moving my grandmother out of the house she'd lived in over 90 years, how hard it was for me to contemplate the final dissolution of the bulwark of my childhood.

but after two years of frozen pipes and astronomical heating bills, uncooperative tenants, rising taxes and now my very own oil spill... trust me... it's ever so much easier.

the sunlight's shrouded by white fog this morning, that seems to thicken as i watch. the birds are silent, the bullfrogs still. what i don't hear most of all is the sound of running water.

and furthermore, the war will end. blessed be.