The one with the poodle urine.

Rainy nights aren't so terrible if you spend them with a couple of good "Friends"..which we did tonight.

 The much-hyped reunion was not over-hyped at all.  It was funny, and touching, and sentimental.  I was a twenty-something brat in the 70's, but I still could relate to these 20-something brats because...because no, I could not. 

 Not really.

The Friend I most identify with  is the Philadelphia-born, feminist, sassy, unapologetically fat Marta Kauffman.  With her unmanagable mane and her gay BBF, I should have--Jim Donio and I should have--been Kauffman/Crane..

Yeah, right..

"Dream On."

(And the fact that I can make an inside joke like that means I SHOULD have pushed myself to be a little less Karen and a little more Marta)

As I watched the reunion, I asked myself which actor has had the most successful career after the series ended.  None have Oscar nominations, but that isn't necessarily the only measuring stick.  Many were in series that were critically touted but ones I never watched (Kudrow and LeBlanc). I absolutely loved Courteney Cox in "Cougar Town" (she deserved an Emmy nomination) but personally, I think the biggest success post-show would be Jennifer Aniston.  She breathed life into "The Morning Show" as Alex Levy--a performance that would have Meryl Street herself turning green with envy.

The reunion show was entertaining on many levels, but for me, it was being  back on the Warner Brothers set, like we were  during out trip to LA in the fall of 2019.  We sat in Central Perk: we laughed in front of the broken elevator from "The Big Bang Theory" and on that same day, I had one of the greatest moments of my life--and a photo op--in the gazebo in the town square of Stars Hollow.  Jim and I stood on that platform, like Luke and Lorelai had just a few years before, and I was overwhelmed by how surreal it all was. 

Seeing this reunion show, and live audiences on chaotic sets, reminded me of being in the studio audience of the short-lived "Broke", starring Pauley Perrette.  It was no "Friends"..but the experience  was both awful(being imprisoned in that seat for nearly seven hours with no phone or food other than miniature kit-kat bars, seething at how forced the writing was, how each awful joke had to be rewritten so many times, knowing that the punchlines I whispered to Jim had more oomph, ) and wonderful..because..we were watching a television show being made.  At CBS, where so many icons walked on the very same lot we had.

I was flooded with so many happy memories.

And speaking of floods, which I'll now do, because I can't blog about only one subject,   we've been having quite a few days of fun here on Noah's Ark.

Evan came over for dinner the other night, and  as soon he as he took off his shoes, his sock immediately became drenched when he walked into our family room..  I walked on the carpet of  a four feet area too, and I felt the squishy wetness immediately.  We all looked at Luke, wondering how a housebroken, nine pound poodle could fill his tiny bladder with enough fluid to fill up an inflatable kiddie pool.  We(well..JIM..got down on his knees, emptied an almost full bottle of Nature's Miracle, and scrubbed it clean.)

Until, ten minutes  six thick  beach towels later, the rug was still sopping wet.

Our plumber came the next day, (and no, it wasn't the plumber I had in my twenties who was named, I shit you not, Bill Flood) told us we definitely had a major leak in our radiant heat pipes.

Let the nightmare begin!

Jackhammers, , ripped up carpet,  upended furniture, that wet dog/body smell that rugs get before they become dangerous with mold, endless calls to insurance companies.

Ugh..I was so not in the mood for this mess.

We called the specialists in our area, who referred us to a plumber that we stopped using because he never returns calls.  We called nonetheless, got a message that said the mailbox was full, and then  called our regular guy, Bill,  who was just here a week ago, BILL-ing us $150.00 to install a new toilet seat because I thought the old one looked like someone permanently stained it with bodily fluids, and I am  planning on hosting pool parties since the pandemic is ending, and now I've gone off topic for the third time.

After calling our home owners insurance and the drying company and the plumber, we started with step one, a call to Dr. Leaky(no, he's not a urologist) a certified Leak Detector.

He arrives at our home nice and early with 100 pounds of gear.  We told him about how we used every towel in the linen closet to sop up the water.  We took photos.  We both cried.

And Bud--his name was actually Bud--spent a good thirty minutes, examining the boiler and making us turn on all the hot water faucets from every sink and shower while trying to find  multiple collection buckets(our housekeeper was here at the same time, wondering how she was going to be able to do her job) and working us into a frenzy.

We flushed toilets and filled sinks.  He looked at us, shaking his head, arms akimbo, as he says, "folks..there is no leak here.  That tsuanmi you claim is in your family room?  It's from the poodle."

"No way!"  Jim screams.  "

I had just taken him out..he only weighs nine pounds.  He is HOUSEBROKEN!"

I add:  A herd of elephants couldn't produce this much urine!"

My housekeeper adds:  "It vas not my Luuu-cas.  My Luu-cas would not do dat" (She's Euro-PEEIN')

But Bud insists:  "100 gallons of foul smelling water was, as he put in in professional plumbing  terms, "poodle piss."

We were NOT going to accept that diagnosis.  That's what bad doctors say, when you go to them with something that could be fatal and they just shrug and tell you to knock off a few pounds.

Jim finally gets Bud to agree to rip up the carpet as he took a screwdriver to a floor tile.

And up through the ground came a bubblin' crude..of PIPE WATER..NOT... poodle piss.

That poor little dog gets blamed for everything!

At Jim's insistence, Bud drained the pipes of all the water.  We have no heat, and Jim is freaking out how we're gonna freeze to death--in these waning days of May.

Smelly rug..smelly rug..why aren't they believing you??  Smelly rug, smelly rug...Luke didn't relieve (himself)on you!

Thanks for flooding me with all these memories.

Next Up:  "The One With the Jackhammer"