![\"010914-1\"](\"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/01\/010914-1-388x281.jpg\")
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
I bundled up for the trip down to the lobby at Big Pink, hoping to see Rhonda, the generous den mother to the 700 of us who live in this large dusty mauve building.<\/p>\n
Leo the Engineer was at the desk, and periodically speaking in Spanglish on the walky-talky mode on his phone. I greeted him enthusiastically, first encounter of the New Year and all that, and I value the fact that Leo is a professional who stays on top of the physical plant and has- for the most part- kept the lights on, which his predecessor did not.<\/p>\n
Kelly had inherited the job from his old man, who had been here since Christ was a Corporal and Frances Freed, the owner of all of Buckingham she could survey, was alive and in her second floor office over in the strip mall on North Glebe Road. Kelly\u2019s approach to pro-active maintenance was mostly to sit around and wait for things to break.<\/p>\n
If he had been a ship-driver in the Navy the building would have sunk at the pier.<\/p>\n
Anyway, we high-fived in between squawks from the device in his hand. \u201cWhat\u2019s happenin\u2019, Leo?\u201d I asked, doing a chest bump with the stocky engineer.<\/p>\n
\u201cLife is good, Bubbie. Found a busted pipe this morning. That cold snap is the most amazing thing I have seen in years.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat? Damn, what happened?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cExtremely cold Polar Vortex swept down out of the Arctic\u2026.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNo, not that. What happened here?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHah- got you, Vic! Exposed section froze in the uptakes for the convectors and then burst. I found it about one in the morning. I was able to identify the blockage and route around it and kept the heat on. There was water and ice everywhere.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cJesus, we could have been flooded out!\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYeah, it could have flooded all the way down from the 8th floor in a frozen messy cascade. And no heat.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHoly smokes,\u201d I said. \u201cI am glad you were on top of that.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI have 700 people to take care of here. That is why I live here too. I only had eight calls on the heat being out, so we got it covered over night and I have a repair crew here this morning.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt would have been colder than crap,\u201d I said, making an imaginary exaggerated shiver. \u201cSome of the older folks could have frozen.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThat is why I live here, Bubbie. Johnnie on the spot, Man.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cLeo, people don\u2019t understand what you do for us. There were people all over the region that had busted pipes and frozen pipes and couldn\u2019t cook or even flush the toilets. And some were trying to unfreeze them with blow-torches and burning down their houses.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cA stitch in time\u2026\u201d said Leo, and then raised the walkie-talky to his mouth. \u201cPepe, decir aquellos contratistas que tener cuidado con las tuber\u00edas.\u201d<\/p>\n
Pepe said something back I didn\u2019t catch, and I gave Leo a bear-hug. \u201cThanks for keeping us safe and warm, Leo. You da Man.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cJust one of them,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd wait. The cold is going to be back. Anything new with you?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cBrrr.\u201d I replied. \u201cNew Beverage Manager at Willow, and she is cute.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThen life is good, right, Amigo?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cBueno, Leo. La vida es muy buena. Usted es mi h\u00e9roe!\u201d<\/p>\n
Copyright 2014 Vic Socotra
\nwww.vicsocotra.com
\nTwitter: @jayare303<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I bundled up for the trip down to the lobby at Big Pink, hoping to see Rhonda, the generous den mother to the 700 of us who live in this large dusty mauve building. Leo the Engineer was at the desk, and periodically speaking in Spanglish on the walky-talky mode on his phone. I greeted […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7002","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-daily-socotra"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7002","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7002"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7002\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7005,"href":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7002\/revisions\/7005"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7002"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7002"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7002"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}