The Crazy, Insane, Long Weekend

Going through the drowned belongings in our basement took much long than DH and I originally estimated.

Why?

Because DH's dad slipped important documents in between his children's memorabilia.

Very important documents.

Like driver's licenses, tax returns, birth certificates, and social security cards. Some needed to be kept since they were DH's or his sisters'. Others should have been destroyed decades ago such Grandma T's personal info. One of our neighbors teased me about selling the info on the dark web, but after DH and I had our identities stolen once, I didn't find the joke quite as funny.

Anyway, we had to go through things carefully on two fronts. One was the important personal documentation. The other was the mold and mildew growing on things despite the colder than normal temps since the flooding.

(N95 masks are worth their weight in gold, people! Thankfully, I still had some leftover from the pandemic!)

Then we had to document all the losses. Part of what made me sick was losing a good chuck of the in-laws' movie collection. DH and I are both avid movie buffs. His parents were as well, and they had VHS tapes of a lot of classics.

(Don't laugh. I still have all the Star Trek:TOS and NextGen movies on VHS. And yes, we still have a couple of VHS players.)

The also had a bunch of Disney animated movies for when the grandkids visited. Some that are no longer available. I know in the age of streaming people don't like physical copies, but my Gen X heart loves them because I never know when some wet-behind-the-ears exec is going to take one of my favorites of their streaming service.

E.g. I can't find Dharma & Greg, one of my all-time favorite shows, on any streaming service at the moment. I'd barely gotten through the first season when Hulu yanked it last year.

In between the sorting and washing, I managed to get a few thousand words done. Now that the adjuster came to check out everything (no, it wasn't Jake, it was Zach from State Farm), we can move on with life.

That mean getting the damn HVAC motherboard replaced before we hit the 90s in Ohio! 

It's Friday Night

It's been a crazy week. We still need to sort through the last few boxes in the basement. We've got some help in dealing with the flooding issue, so we'll see if it pans out. I've got some words done, but I haven't met my weekly goal.

And it's ten 'til midnight. There's so, SO much to do.

Honestly, I'm just tired of my house being a total mess. Every time I get one thing accomplished, one room cleaned, hell, even one surface cleaned off, I turn around and everything's back to the mess it was. Living in a mess does things to my mind, and I simply cannot concentrate.

Tomorrow. I'm going to hide at Starbucks for a couple of hours until we go back to tackling the basement. I need to locate my N-95 masks (at least I know what room they are located in, if not the actually spot) before I head downstairs. Hopefully, those will lessen the fungi-caused headaches.

Keep your fingers crossed for me. 

Into the Flow

There's a certain magic that happens when I get deep into writing a story. DH calls it getting into the flow. I'm so involved in the the action and drama while I'm writing that nothing else matters. I can only get out if there's a violent bodily need, like eating or using the bathroom.

When I sprint with a friend in the evening, I often don't hear the ding of the timer. The Princess Pup can get on or off my lap without me realizing it. DH can be talking to me, and it doesn't register.

There's an episode of Mike & Molly where the family toys with Molly as she's in the zone while writing her book. While the scene is played for laughs, it perfectly captures the sensation.

I've been in the flow this week with A Cup of Conflict. It's a good thing, too, because I need to finish it. As a writer, I know I've been captured by it.

The problem is I'm going to resent having to sort and inventory everything in the basement from the flood this weekend. I also need to collect information for our insurance company to pursue subrogation rights pursuant to the damage.

With that, I realize I'm on the right track by writing, not practicing law.

Funny what convinces you that you are pursuing your life's path.

Not Another Flood!

Darling Husband (AKA DH) woke up before dawn yesterday because he had to go to the bathroom. (The joys of being middle-aged, right?) He heard the sump pump alarm going off and went to the basement.

Despite all three sump pumps chugging away, one well was full, and the second one was filling rapidly. He ran upstairs and woke me. That was at 5:44 AM.

I threw on a t-shirt, sweats, and my slip-on Skechers. By the time I got down to the basement, the full wells were spilling across the basement floor. We started taking stuff upstairs, but we couldn't outrun the water.

DH was running back and forth in his bare feet. I ordered him to stay out of the water because Goddess only knew what was floating round  in that crap. He stayed above the middle of the stairs and I handed stuff to him.

By 6:04 AM, I gave up. The water was at my ankles. My shoes were full. My feet were itching terribly from whatever was in the flood water. I took off my shoes, left them on the top step, and went to wash the gunk off my feet.

Poor DH had a bunch of his deceased parents' memorabilia and his old toys he wanted to keep in the basement. Stuff that we didn't have room for anywhere else in the house. Plus, all of Genius Kid's (AKA GK) furniture and home stuff were stored down there while he's stationed overseas.

Luckily, it was a weekday, so we had companies there almost as soon as they opened. A HUGE shout-out to the peeps from  EverDry Waterproofing, Bowers Heating and Cooling, and Service Master for responding as fast as they did. We're still waiting for the insurance adjuster from State Farm to come by, which will probably be Monday or Tuesday.

Thankfully, the water didn't go past the second from bottom step this time. But a 1400 sq, ft, open space filled at the rate of one inch every three minutes before the sump pumps could catch up. That's a hell of a lot of water to remove.

Despite all the precautions and upgrades we did after the 2021 basement flood, the pond in the subdivision behind us overflowed. Again. Yes, we're looking into our legal remedies. That's all I can say at this point.

This was not how I wanted my week to end. I was on a good frickin' role with A Cup of Conflict before all the shit happened. Losing two days dealing with the mess was not on my to-do list for this week.

But that's life, right?

It didn't help to learn a good friend's mother is in hospice. It's a matter of days. Which mean another funeral soon. This one I won't resent because this friend has always been there for me.

And life goes on...

Exhaustion

I had to bug out with Princess Bella early this morning because of...wait for it...

JACKHAMMERS!

IN OUR BASEMENT!

A waterproofing crew is doing some work on our basement in an effort to keep it from turning into an indoor swimming pool again.

The princess pup already gets riled up when strange humans enter her yard, much less her home. So when men come in with their strange and loud tools of destruction, she must be taken elsewhere because the noise is simply too painful for delicate canine ears.

Today, we spent our time at the house of DH's baby sister where we did what we usually do--share breakfast and then she naps on my lap while I write.

I hope the rest of you had a peaceful late summer day!

When Your Body Just Says "Nope!"

DH and I have been on a fricking roller coaster for nearly two months now. Our first grandchild was born (YAY!), but we came home to six feet of water in the basement of our new house. We've been dealing with insurance, plumbers, electricians, HVAC people, etc. while working full-time.

And today, my body said, "Fuck this shit!"

I was up at 7:30 am like I have been nearly every day for the past week and a half (any friends reading this will be laughing their asses off because they KNOW I'm NOT a morning person) because the repair/placement folks start early. Today, I didn't have a choice. DH was headed to a medical appointment, and the HVAC folks were finishing the furnace installation.

My sole job was to keep the princess pup out of the way until DH got home. I fell asleep reading, which is something I never do, despite all the banging downstairs and the cherry limeade can of Reign I'd had for breakfast in an effort to stay awake. Luckily, Bella slept with me and didn't try to go downstairs to supervise the crew. The HVAC guys were done by 10 am because the thermostat they'd ordered hadn't arrived, and that's the very last thing they need to do.

Once they left, I was still exhausted. I crawled into bed, thinking I'd nap for an hour or two.

Six hours later, a rather loud crash of thunder woke me. So I got some lunch and started going through e-mails.

And I'm still tired. I don't think I'll have any problems falling asleep tonight.

Moving Forward

We got the check from the insurance company, so now we're lining up folks to work on our basement. Now's when I really wish I could go to a coffee shop to write, but with the Delta variant putting vaccinated folks in the hospital, I need to lock myself in my office and pray the installations of new equipment aren't too noisy.

At the very least, I can go through the Starbucks drive-thru for a trenta iced tea, no water, light ice.

Heat, Reclamation, and Writing

This is a quick note to say I'm still alive. We finally were able to get a service in to clean out the basement and treat it on Friday. The only things left downstairs are the wood framing, the structural supports, and the stairs. The reclamation folks seemed fairly certain they could save the stairs.

One happy note: one of the guys discovered my Jack Skellington inflatable was sealed in plastic within the box, so it hadn't been soaking in sewer water. I need to test it outside to make sure the electronics work.

[P.S. we tested Jack before submitting the final inventory of personal property loss to the insurance adjuster. It's alive!]

The bad part is this week is one of the hottest weeks of the summer, and we have no A/C. I need to get Bella into a groomer and get her shaved down. We've resorted to sticking an ice cube or two in her water dish.

In the meantime, I'm trying to finish A Hand of Father. Between the heat and the noise, I really wish I could go sit inside a Starbucks like I used to do before the pandemic.

So I imagine I'm on this beach and reading. What are y'all doing to cope with insanity?

The Unwanted Swimming Pool

As y'all know, DH and I were in Texas for the birth of our first grandchild Adorable Spawn. We'd worked in a couple of extra days for the trip and a couple of detours to visit friends in Houston and St. Louis we haven't seen in years.

Everything was going fine until we hit Memphis for the second time. We were woken on Saturday morning with texts from one of our neighbors. The home town had two inches of rain in less than an hour. Water surrounded our house and filled the street.

DH checked the security system, and sure enough, there was water in the basement. He called one of his sisters and she went over to check our place. By then, the yard and street were clear. She guessitmated about a foot to eighteen inches of water. It was lapping the second step, but she could hear the sump pump chugging away. However, she was smart enough to NOT walk through water that's obviously at the level of electric outlets. But she couldn't see into the rest of the basement.

We debated for a few minutes before we threw everything in bags and headed home. I called our friends in St. Louis and apologized for blowing them off, but they totally understood. DH and I thought we'd spend Sunday scrubbing everything with bleach. Besides, we didn't have much down there besides the lovely turquoise area rug for the family room. We had unrolled it downstairs and set boxes on the corners so it would lay flat.

We arrived home shortly before midnight on Saturday night. Alarms were ringing in the basement, but the standing water was gone. We crept downstairs.

I wanted to cry. The water line was over my head. The water heater and furnace had been underwater. In addition to losing the beautiful brand new rug, I lost the two brand new Halloween yard inflatables. Stuff I never got to use.

And in the middle of dealing with insurance, restoration firms, and contractors, I need to finish A Hand of Father.

Somehow.

Wish me luck.