Dear diary: I have dragged you out from an old trunk in the basement because I had you stored away there since acquiring my first computer (1991) until just now. But between my first computer and my last, a lot has happened, and at the moment I don’t have either one—and I’m gonna tell you why.

It’s been cold here in the Catskills, dear diary, very, very cold. I’ve lived here a long time and so I know the ins and outs of winter life in the mountains, and what that means as far as being prepared… and I’m usually pretty prepared. Usually. 

Therefore, when it was recently predicted that an arctic blast of temps well below zero would hit the Upper Delaware River region, I not only knew that I needed milk/bread/toilet paper, but that I also needed to make sure that my water pipes were safe from freezing. 

So I set my kitchen sink faucet to drip slowly, since those pipes are connected to an outside wall. 

As a general rule, that small precaution keeps pipes from freezing, and keeps me from having any kind of “disturbance in the force,” as it were. 

Imagine my dismay then, dear diary, when I woke up last Wednesday morning and found that my hot water pipe had indeed frozen, and that no water was flowing through the faucet.

Again, I’m not a newbie. I didn’t just move here and I have had the misfortune of frozen pipes in the past. So I did what I always do, and put some low, gentle heat in front of the pipe in order to slowly and methodically “massage” the water into thawing and flowing (Attorneys at Law), understanding that it’s a slow process. It generally works—but one has to be patient, which is not (IMHO) my strong suit. 

I had an appointment that afternoon, so I interrupted the warming process and turned off the heat source so that I could leave the house unattended, planning to return to my project when I got back from lunch, with a few errands thrown in for good measure. 

All told, I was gone about three hours, and by the time I got home it was already after 3 p.m. 

Imagine my surprise, dear diary, when I rounded the corner of my walkway only to discover the frozen pipe had thawed while I was out, the pipe had (apparently) burst, and that H2O was flowing out of my house via the front door, as if it were a water feature at a fancy resort. 

Feeling panic rise in my throat like hot lava, I picked up the dog, steeled myself and unlocked the floodgates—I mean, kitchen door. 

I flew into emergency mode. No screaming, no hysteria, no freaking out, just overwhelmed with shock and awe as I suggested that Gidget go (“run girl, run!”) upstairs while I turned off the water valves under the sink and dialed the plumber with one hand, grabbing the snow-shovel from just outside the door with the other. 

As the phone rang and rang, I surveyed the scene. It looked like there was about four inches of water throughout the entire first floor of the house. The kitchen, office, bathroom and pantry were under water, which (unbeknownst to me) was also seeping through the walls into my attached garage. 

To my horror, I saw power strips under water with an assortment of electronics plugged into them and, without thinking, strode over and lifted them up, not taking electrocution into mind.

By then, the hysteria had taken hold, and I raced around in my rubber-soled work boots, frantically dialing the plumber over and over, while Gidget barked and whined from the top of the stairs.

What then transpired was a blur of plumbers, wet/dry vacs, water extruders, plumbers welding, and sweeping a veritable swimming pool’s worth of water out the door and over my walkway. There it instantly froze, forming an incredibly slippery, nightmarish mess.

As the guys worked on the pipes, I tossed shoes and area rugs, along with the flotsam and jetsam (and more than one now-floating mousetrap) of my office/kitchen/bath, outside—where it all instantly froze. 

While my computer was securely plugged into a wall-mounted surge protector, the modem and monitor were not, and so, dear diary… here we are.

I’ve yet to attend to the frozen lake in the not-heated garage, but there’s nothing on the cement floor to get ruined, the truck is fine and I’m still thawing throw rugs and shoes that were scattered in the other rooms. 

It’s days later, and while my floors are dry and my pipes repaired, my frazzled nerves are not, nor are my electronics, my office furniture, my pantry shelves and oh, why bother? The list goes on and on. I know that it’s “just things,” but they’re important things, and some are things I simply can’t live without (like a computer monitor). So wish me luck, dear diary, as I pick up the frozen pieces of my life, après le déluge. Hint: it’s French for “after the flood.” 

Ask the Google: Q: What is a “disturbance in the force”?

A: “In the Star Wars universe, Jedi and other Force-sensitive beings can feel these disturbances, ranging from a subtle ripple to a powerful shock depending on the severity of the event causing it.”