Another plumbing crisis this morning: water spurting out from under the water softener in the least accessible corner of the basement. The plumber is due sometime this morning, so no pool class for me today. And my next water bill will be a doozy.

This is the third major leak in those aged copper pipes in the four and a half years I’ve lived in this house. They’re original equipment, so they date from 1974, when world copper prices went stratospheric after the Pinochet coup in Chile. I rather think it’s time for a systemic approach to this problem.