A bad week from end to end

The bad week started last Monday evening with water spreading across the basement, under the Pergo floor. I dislike Pergo because it's noisy and slippery but flooding it isn't my idea of preparing for a remodel.  As my son and I mopped and sponged up water with every towel in the house, we squooshed around the room rescuing file boxes and packing up books to carry upstairs. Many houses were flooding that week after days of hard rain.

Then I found the dubiously good news. Water was entering the basement through a pipe that a plumbing company had rerouted and left uncapped last summer. Somebody else would have to pay.The next morning, after recovering from their surprise that I was correct about the source of the water all over my basement, workmen from the plumbing company capped the pipe and set in motion a series of visits of people to rip out the wet floor, install massive blowers to dry the area for three days (think sky-high electric bill coming) and send the odor of mildew and wet cement throughout the house.

Meanwhile, Alanis spent Tuesday at the veterinary hospital having some mammary tumors removed and Miro spent the duration of every workman's visit locked in my bedroom barking his--and my--head off. When she got home with stitches in four areas of her tummy, Alanis was not happy to be confined in a corner of the living room fenced in with convenient boxes of books and an x-pen. I had to make sure Miro wouldn't bounce at her, though. Not until Saturday did I get the news that none of the tumors was cancerous, a relief and a surprise considering she's almost 12 and wasn't spayed until age 8. She'll need a monthly breast check, though, just like humans are supposed to do.

Alanis isn't happy about her post-op tee. She knows she looks better in red.

Along with the floor problems and the heaving around of 30-lb boxes, which I can't do any more without repercussions in my back and legs the next day, I had network connection problems. Over and over. I'd get online and lose the connection a minute later while trying to grade papers for an online class. The Comcast  people have been here twice, replacing equipment. It's a race now whenever the connection works--can I check my email or do some work or write on the blog before the connection ends again? I had thoughts of throwing my computer through the window. In fact, the connection stopped in the middle of my writing this, which is why I cleverly copied and saved to Word before running around the house screaming.

Alanis' stitches are healing and come out Friday. A guy came and measured the basement for new flooring. I expect it'll take a while, since a lot of people experienced real flood damage during the pre-Thanksgiving heavy rains. That's OK; I can live with a dining room filled with boxes of books, though I do have to get some of those files off the kitchen counters. But I'm happy--the flooding was not due to a problem with the house and the foundation, now visible, is intact. So what's to complain?

Well, there's the neighbor dog outside barking at 5 in the morning but I'll save that for another day.