So my day started off rather uneventful, apart from sibling rivalry. Fed kids breakfast and lunch, then at about 1:30 left to go get some things from the farmer's market, which is about a 10 min. drive. Me and kids leave, go to the market, take another 10-15 min. to get what I need, hop back in the car, drive home. Get home and walked across the street of apartment building to the little store, grabbed a 2.5L of Pepsi, some tomato sauce. As I'm leaving the store, my freaky little neighbor (mighta mentioned him another post, if not I'll extrapolate in another post why he is weird), anyway, freaky neighbor dude says something about my apartment and water. My five year old translates as best she could, but she's not really paying attention. I shuffle the kids across the street, while toting a sack of groceries that weighs about 15 pounds, and up 2 flights of stairs.
There's water on the stairs, and neighbors in front of my door. I get that water is leaking from my apartment, but I was not expecting what I found when I opened my door. There was 3 inches or so of water all in my apartment. It didn't quite make it all the way into the one bedroom or the living room, but it started to. It was all in the bathroom, kitchen and entrance & hall way. They have shut off the water to the building. They turn it back on, and we find that it is coming from under my kitchen sink. I'm standing at my sink, wildly turning the knobs to the pipes to make sure my water in the kitchen is indeed off. I didn't leave water running either, so please save those comments!
So there I am standing at the kitchen sink, and I just loose it. I just broke down crying - not hysterically or even uncontrollably, but just crying. You know, the tears you hold back and bottle up when things go south sometimes?!? Well the flood gates opened. My neighbors are standing in my doorway talking to each other, trying to talk to me. I walk to the door, there's 2 men standing there talking to me, and I finally say, through the tears "Nu intelegti nimic!!!" That translates, I don't understand anything! Then in English I just simply say "I wanna go home, I just wanna go home!" I felt like a 5 year old, who just got their butt whooped by the school bully! I briefly pulled it together, and found my landlord's number in my cell phone, dialed it, handed the phone to one of the men talking at me and said "Proprietor, explicat el" - landlord, explain it to him.
They explain, I understand landlord is on his way. They give me the phone back, I then call my husband, whose working in Italy - cause these neighbors are asking when my husband will be home, I try to explain he's working in Italy - they don't understand me. Hubby answers the phone, I hear loud noises in the background, he's at work, in a shipyard. I have to yell for him to hear and understand me. At this point I'm not crying anymore, but the moment I have to start yelling, I break again. He in turn gets worried, tells me to calm down, asks me why I'm crying, and I let loose on him: "I'm crying because I'm in a place where I don't understand anyone, and they don't understand me, and everything is backwards. Think back to when you first came to the U.S. and no one understood you, and you didn't understand them, and everything worked differently!" But it was different for him, he was with a lot of other Romanians. So he had people to talk to, I have no one, just my kids!
Anyway, landlord arrives, they find the busted pipe/tube, whatever, we start scooping and dumping the water, take all the rugs outside. The neighbors are helping. My kids, especially 3 year old is trying to help, but getting in the way. I've stopped crying, momentarily, and am helping rid the apartment of water. By this time, the neighbors have figured out from my crying rant at my husband that this was the straw that broke the camel's back for me! After several hours, the water is cleaned up, the pipes/tubes are repaired, landlord is not mad at me (thank goodness), and all is right, for now. Called hubby, and had nice, calm conversation, apologized for the tear-fest, but he understood, and is thankful for such a wonderful wife, who left all behind to follow him to keep their family together!
Okay, now I know you are thinking, okay, it was just a busted pipe, and yeah, you're in a different country, but there was no need to cry. But lately, it's been one thing after another. About 2 months ago, my laptop, a big monster of a thing broke, wouldn't turn on. Turned out to be a bad motherboard, which fried one of my hard drives. So I just spent about $4-500 fixing that. Gas in the car, bills left and right. A mother in law who likes to stay in everyone's business and create drama! No friends to talk to, a husband working in another country because this one has no work for him! Hot weather, no air conditioning, washing clothes by hand, and 3 kids who fight with each other, don't listen to me, and keep my house looking like the wreck of the Hesperus. It could have been worse though, this could have happened over the weekend while I was at the beach in Constanta, 2 hours away! So I guess in a way, I was lucky.
Today was just the day that it became too much to deal with anymore! Ever have one of those days, if you say no, then you are either lying to me, or to yourself; take your pick! But what's really bad, is after I've cried at my hubby, gotten all the water scooped up, I'm mopping while the neighbor is fixing the pipes, the tears slowly start falling, not out of frustration, but this time out of anger - anger at my own country for putting me in this situation. Yes, my hubby hand a hand in it too, but we didn't meet the burden of proof for Political Asylum. Yes, I'm angry at the U.S. because it sent 4 of it's own to a foreign country just to make an example out of one person, a person, who if you needed it would give you everything he had, including a kidney or liver! But the U.S. doesn't want people like him, they want gang-banging, drug running thugs from Mexico!
Okay, I'm done, cause now I'm just getting myself really ticked off, and I don't want that, right now, I just want to eat my dinner that should be done in a little while, eat and read the rest of book three of a series of 7, then go to bed!
Odessa, you had every reason in the world for a good cry. I won't go into details, but I've had more days like that than I want to remember. And though I'm sure it's not your first, I'm equally sure it won't be your last. One of my favorite sayings is, "Every silver lining has a cloud." I don't consider it overly pessimistic - just realistic.
ReplyDeleteGorges I love how you put things! Every silver lining has a cloud! I'm filing that away in the memory bank as i type!
ReplyDeleteIt wasn't my first cry like that, and I know it won't be my last. They are few and far between. I usually deal with things very well, yesterday was just too much. If I were back home, it wouldn't have been a big deal. I knew where to go to buy things, I had people to call to help, etc. I woulda been upset, and all, but not standing there blubbering!
Thanks for not calling me a big cry baby!!! *grin*
you sweet thing. Sweet little Odessa... :p
ReplyDeleteI'm sorry you're having such a hard time right now. Quick kprayer for you and lots of love.
In May things were super tight around here and I walked in the kitchen to find water all over the floor. I panicked and started pulling everything out from under the sink (ruined), started throwing towels on the puddles and then came the tears. We couldn't afford a plumber...
Turned out it was the faucet leaking and an easy fix. But sometimes the problems are overwhelming. And I don't find "this too shall pass" particularly comforting...
But it does pass. And what good material for your book! :o) xoxo hang in there~
Someday you`ll thank Lord you came in this country...
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