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Mid-January, Rain - January 13, 2012
Almost Midwinter - December 14, 2011
Saturday, Noonish, Sunny - November 05, 2011
October, White - October 31, 2011
October, 2011 - October 04, 2011


July 25, 2009

9:35 p.m.

Long Saturday

I slept at my house, and slept well! This time it wasn't so creepy. I still got up very early, though. 6:30 saw me blinking my sandy eyes and wondering what all the day would bring.

I was in some disarray trying to get organized in the morning; still don't know where everything is, and I didn't have a work surface at all in the kitchen. I brought in a little computer desk on casters, after giving up trying to scrub part of the counter in the pantry. It needs to be steamed. It's so gross it's practically got compost all over it. Anyway I eventually got my tea made and sat with fresh cherries and blueberries in my one comfy chair in the dining room, watching the beautiful morning light stream in the windows and through the cheap sheer curtain I got at WalMart for $6 and hung in the bathroom. How nice to have a toilet I can flush again. In fact the repaired poo pipe is right outside that window, so when I flush I can wait five seconds and hear it rushing down into the septic tank. It still needs cementing in, so the ditch hasn't been filled yet.

Sadly, we had an ocean of rain last night and the basement was in a terrible state. There was water pooled in places where I hadn't seen it before -- never terribly deep, but widespread. It's seeping in all over the foundation, which apparently was never sealed on the outside. Short of digging a three-foot trench all the way around the house and beginning that expensive job, we are going to divert the water away from the house by re-grading the yard a bit and repairing drain pipes that sit just underground. It'll get done. Meanwhile, I will have to wet-vac the basement sometimes.

Fortunately, Marc HAS a wet vac, and we employed it vigorously today. We took gallons and gallons of water out of that huge basement. We cleared out the little room under the back bedroom in the ell, which the old man had used to store wine, old rusty fluorescent lights, and his dead wife's discarded gardening tools. Rose found the flattened skeleton of a squirrel under a bucket that was sitting in an inch of water. We set up some metal racks to hold some of Marc's wood, so it would be off the floor at all times.

This was after taking a load of metal to the dump. The metal consisted of all sorts of things we've found around here, car parts and metal chairs and a bed frame and an old grill grate, plus the poo pipe lengths that came out of the front yard. After the dump we met Rose at their old house, where we continued to clear out the shop. It's almost done. This was a huge woodworking shop that Marc built to his own specifications. He used to make fine furniture (and will again). It really is almost emptied now, but he had to take apart some big objects and there was an endless parade of sheets of wood, tools, small bits, and tons of sawdust on everything. A dizzying undertaking.

That required one more dump run, so Rose and I did that, and picked up Subway sandwiches on the way back. At the shop I somehow bashed my elbow bone against the door of the cooler so hard that I lost the use of my hand for a few minutes, and it made me woozy. I was trying to order a turkey sandwich and remember what fixings I wanted on it, all the while unable to make a fist and wondering if I was going to black out. I had to sit down. Once in the truck, though, and a couple of bites into the sandwich, I was okay.

One more truck load and to my house... and then all the vacuuming began, as we couldn't even walk around down there without sloshing. That took most of the rest of the afternoon. What a good feeling, though, to have another whole section cleared out. Rose and I agreed that, if it keeps raining in and I keep vacuuming it up, sooner or later the basement will be pretty clean.

I really wanted a bath by then... but I sat down to have a snack, and who should come traipsing through my dining room as I came out of the kitchen, but Linus, the Miracle Cat. We've seen him a couple of times in my yard, but as far as I know he hadn't been in the house yet (although I have my wonderings about the time he went missing). He might have jumped in through a slightly open, screenless window, or maybe came in through the bulkhead when we weren't watching. Anyway he was very keen on looking around, very alert, looking over at me a lot, going out through the front door and suddenly zipping back in and then checking on me. I wondered what he felt in the house. Our neighbor had told us a story about trying to walk a dog up this driveway who'd never been here before, and the dog was so spooked he wouldn't go near the house. This was when there was no one living here. Linus didn't seem scared, but just on "all systems alert." He was still hanging around the driveway when I came over for dinner, but finally came back to his real and proper home.

It's so funny, that he knows where I live.

Anyway I assembled one of those shelf consoles that stand up over the toilet tank, as there is no storage at all in the bathroom. Marc came over and built me a kitchen work surface out of Melamine and sawhorses, so I can use my little cooktop. By then we were both just DONE. I came to R&M's, showered and threw in a load of laundry, we ate a spectacular dinner of grilled salmon and squash along with fresh snap peas and broccoli from their garden, and then had ice cream. Life simply could not be better. I'm sleepy and worn out and clean and going back to my House shortly. And I plan to sleep in tomorrow.


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