Friday, April 10, 2020

Washing ... of the feet?

Good Friday morning!

Well, last night we had all planned to celebrate Holy Thursday mass via zoom.  Mike's brother (Father Christopher or Uncle Scott) has been kind enough to let Mike and his siblings celebrate mass with him over these last few weeks.  And I was really looking forward to starting off the Triduum.  and we did, just not as we had planned it!  I figured that there wouldn't be any washing of the feet (no congregation, so no feet to wash). Well, our household had other plans! 

Just as mass was about to start, there was a pop and woosh and it happened.  Our washer overflowed!  Sadly, I have to say, we knew there was a problem with the cold water valve.  We had actually bought a new valve in January, but then the washer seemed to "fix itself."  So that valve got returned.  Fast forward to last week, when we had to turn off the cold water to the washer since the valve wouldn't shut.  Mike was on it though and got a new valve ordered.  And it even arrived a day earlier then expected ... this Tuesday.  That's right.  We had the new valve sitting on top of our washer.  And we continued to use the washer, but with the old valve.  We could always turn off the cold water if there was a problem.  And that had worked fine for several loads over the weekend.  So why not keep going with that? Well, perhaps that wasn't the best plan????

The first half of Holy Thursday mass was spent in a bit of bedlam.  To his credit, JM remained calm and in the playroom, participating in mass.  I ran to the linen closet, shouting to the others to grab the dog towels from the basket in the dining room (pretty sure they were already on that but my Mom bossiness gene wouldn't keep me from trying to direct everyone).  I started flinging beach towels into MK's arms (she thought our evening flood was the best, most exciting thing to happen all day I'm pretty sure).  Mike got out the steam cleaner (smart thinking!) and once Gracie was going on that, got the shop vac to use himself.  Clara and I started removing the soaked towels and tossing them in laundry baskets.  Then I realized we better put those outside before the laundry baskets started filling up and leaking over the place.  So we ended up with our driveway covered in wet towels.  Oh, and it was raining outside too. 

Amazing how much water can come out of a washing machine (it's a front load washer if you haven't deduced that yet)!  It was everywhere.  Luckily, it was contained in the tile area we have (and just think, I have been wanting to get rid of that tile and all of the thresholds separating the different kind of flooring ...). 

Anyhow, we now all had "washed feet."  Finally we had computers moved, bookcase and shoe cubby emptied and the bottoms drying out.  And even a few minutes of mass left to enjoy.  What a crazy start to the Easter weekend!!

Here's a picture of our driveway.  Looks less impressive now - - we wrung out the towels and hung them on any available surface. 

https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1zYx0FCpEsm4ccTvlutm7_Gxt9hMzPVmu

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