Chasing Down The Muse: Soaking up flood water

Summertime…. And while the living might not be easy for all the business owners in town, our visitors seem to be soaking up the best of times.

The beaches have been packed, the water temperatures have warmed, and after last week’s huge south swell, we’ve settled back into more tourist-friendly surf. I’m sure the lifeguards are happy for a breather.

My son, Cooper, was in town for his 33rd birthday this week (OMG, how did I end up with a child who is 33 years old?) and we spent most of our time together, in or around water. We bodysurfed in front of the Surf & Sand, walked the long stretch of white sand from Pearl Street to Heisler Park, and parked our buns on the steps at Brooks Street to soak up a sunset. He’s been living in with a friend in Northern California while he builds out WiFi on BART — and so the draw back to his homeland and its seaside location is tremendous.

I even persuaded him to take one of Cathy Cox’s yoga classes at YogaWorks, where he surprised my friends and me with his full wheel. I thought he had told me that he’d never taken a yoga class. Guess I forgot that from pre-K through second grade, he had yoga classes every morning at Growing Years School in La Cañada. Who says that the body doesn’t remember the gifts it has been given?

While loving the water made our visit delightfully sweet, we weren’t quite prepared for the last bit of water experience we would share. Cooper was due at my house for some work-related hours. A PowerPoint and executive summary needed to be edited and fleshed out with some graphics. He was behind scheduled, trapped by a conference call that went beyond its scheduled time frame.

When he called for the third time to apologize for being late, it wasn’t the conference call that was the culprit. In fact, the tone of his voice could best be described as one notch short of panic.

“My ceiling is raining into my downstairs,” he cried. “The water is ankle deep, and I don’t know what to do.”

“Where is the water was coming from?”

“A fitting broke on the toilet, and the whole upstairs is soaking wet.” Cooper was not a happy camper, but Mom was ready to roll.

I told him that I’d stop at Home Depot and rent a carpet-water-sucker machine, and some fans.

As I raced out the door, Steve asked, “Do you think I should come?” Was he really asking a question?

Half way out the snarky-canyon-traffic- slowdown, Cooper called to say he’d already been to Home Depot, he had the machinery, and just to get there as soon as we could.

When we walked into his house in Niguel, the water was still at ankle level in the family room and kitchen and continued to drip from the ceiling. He’d turned the water off at the tank, but it had been gushing for at least 30 minutes of his conference call. Now, water sloshed in the downstairs and squished in the upstairs.

Steve and Cooper attacked the bathroom, bedroom and hallway carpet. I grabbed a broom and started pushing water out the door.

Immediately, I remembered the great rains that flooded Laguna Canyon some years ago. During that deluge, my Wendt Terrace house had a river running through it — literally! An old watercourse from the canyon behind the house had found entry through the foundation. Linda Wetzel helped me sweep and sweep and sweep — to no avail — until we finally discovered the hole with the water pouring through it and simply gave it over to flow out the front door.

Cooper’s family room wasn’t quite as severe, with tile floors the damage was limited to the adjacent carpet. I swept until the lake had turned to puddles, the puddles, to spots, and then Katharine, Cooper’s housemate, took towels to dry the rest.

Upstairs, progress wasn’t as terrific. The water seemed nearly as deep as when we had begun — and that, after 30 empties of the water-inhaling machine. A new drip hole in the downstairs ceiling convinced us that too much water was trapped, and we weren’t winning the battle.

The general consensus was that the only option was to take up the carpet to get to the soggy pad. Carpet up, padding vacuumed, industrial weight fans blowing in all directions, anti-mildew substance sprayed on soggy masses, and the tired crew sat down outside to drink a beer.

We talked about how much nicer it was to be surfing on the beach than mopping up wet floors. We knew that when the carpets dried, we’d be back on the sand, between the tourists’ beach chairs and umbrellas, fattening out our own summer of water and laughter.

CATHARINE COOPER loves water – but prefers oceans, rivers and lakes to flooded homes. She can be reached at ccooper@cooperdesign.net