Sears Model 42-2693 I Love You

So many people down this way have been evacuated and are staying at local schools set up as shelters (and their pets are crated and staying at the high school) and roads are washed out everywhere. Thank you to all of you who called and wrote to make sure I was okay!! It is with great gratitude that I announce we have not lost our electricity and that my children and I are safe and warm here at the magic cottage and have only a flooded basement to deal with.

child labor: "it's a good thing"

Which is not to say we are down there with squeegees singing ring-around-the-rosy. It's messy, wet, stinky work. But it is messy, wet, stinky work I'm familiar with (for those of you lucky enough to miss my flood blog from this time last year, allow me to inflict it upon you now…. oh crap. I can't find it. Feh.). It's pretty much all the same stuff only this time I already had all my "stuff" up off the floor onto shelves (or to the dump) and only had to move a few things out of the way. Then I hooked up the hoses, plugged in the sump pump and let 'er rip.

my best friend.

Ideally, basements are fashioned such that the floor slopes at a nearly imperceptible angle and allows the water to run toward the corner where the drain is. My house, unfortunately was built in the '70s and some of these minor engineering niceties were apparently ignored for more interesting stuff, such as doing bong hits and listening to Creedence Clearwater Revival. Thus, when the former homeowners (let's call them Cheech and Chong, shall we?) contemplated the basement design they created a sort of "free range" floor for the flood waters. Then they topped it off with a dividing wall, presumably to separate the basement into rooms; one room for the screen-printed "Make Love Not War" tee-shirt business, and the other for the washer, dryer, and the drain hole. You see the problem. Water can't get to where it needs to go. I literally sawed a hole at the bottom of the wall (picture me with a hacksaw, cutting through 2x4's while ass-deep in smirch-water) to allow gravity to do what it do. And the squeegee-ing and mopping is for the water that's too confused to know where it's going. (2)

Far out. Let's, like, make a house.

At one point (1) I thought my sump pump had died and the kids and I piled into the car and hit up Ace Hardware where they literally laughed in my face when I inquired whether they had any sump pumps. "Doesn't hurt to ask," I ventured but the look on Groucho Ace's face told me that yes, in fact, my question actually pained him. So we came home (after the kids got donuts, for being good sports) and the pump fired back up. I guess it was just overheated and needed a rest. Like me.(2) I will head back down in a moment, to turn the pump back on and squeegee more water to the Cheech and Chong wall hole, but I just thought I'd pop in here to say hello and to let you know I'm thinking about you'all, and hoping wherever you are you are warm. And dry. And that you aren't putting up any walls where you don't need them.

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(1) I realize at this point that this is all just titty-baby whining, what all with the tragedy in Virginia and the other folks here at home who have it tons worse than I do. Blogging at all today seems a little narcissistic but I'm doing it anyway on the off-chance some of you might be homebound and bored and maybe need a break from CNN.

(2) myfooddiary.com does not have a pre-programmed caloric usage for squeegeeing a flooded basement and schlepping a Sears 42-2693 with attached hoses back and forth in a hippie basement. I estimate the calorie use to be on par with carrying wood or using a rowing machine. Hence, i now get to eat a lot of chips.(3)

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(3) tostitos hint o'lime