Good heavens, I don't want to turn this into a BitchSpot instead of a BlogSpot, but in order to recount what went on Friday, it would have to be that. How very surreal to have a repeat of a horrific plumbing problem overnight which plagued this house over a year ago. Ghost arrived early this morning, just after the plumbing company called to say they were sending someone out. By the way, it is entirely too bizarre that this particular plumber's real name is Mario.

At any rate, I soon had a professional plumber on the roof snaking the air vent to grind through some trapped dead creature. (Same song, second verse, repeat of February 2003). This later turned into his disassembly of the cabinetry and wall of mirror in one of the bathrooms, while the toilet in the other bathroom was set off to one side on the soaked floor. (Two toilets, in back-to-back bathrooms, had become overflow fountains at about 3am.) The plumber's clearing of the air vent problem, being perhaps a bit too aggressive, became broken PVC piping under the fixtures, pouring waste water through new ceiling tiles into the basement.

Meanwhile, I had a crew in another part of the basement working on digging out a sump pump which had foundered in mud due to poor original design and 30 yrs of no maintenance. They had to haul in gravel through a window, one bucket at a time, to set up a filter for ground water in the crawl space, then put in a new sump pump, and route the exit pipe through walls, between floor and ceiling, then out the back of the house through the concrete foundation.

Ghost was here all day, thank the Powers. He was a sometime helper to the professional plumber when needed, and checked on the sump fixers periodically. But, his primary task was to babysit me while I came unglued.

I needed more bullshit with this house. I'm sure I did. Now if the Universe would just tell me why (and throw money), I might be able to recover from it.

Silver linings:
~ The plumbing problem could have been worse. Could have had the fountains overnight Friday night and been paying a plumber Saturday rates.
~ The sump fix was originally scheduled for a couple of weeks from now because the fixers were tied up on another job. But that would have further delayed me getting out of here. Glad to have it done sooner.

Good News elsewhere: Dad was moved out of ICU and may get to go home in a day or so.

I hope it rains this weekend. I hope we get torrential rains that would have ordinarily ended up as a pool on my basement floor. At least then I'll know if the sump fix works. Of course, it might have been nice to have slightly muddy rainwater to wash the toilet water off the concrete, but that's what mops and buckets are for, eh?

Oh, and the mortgage company dude was still calling for information today, even though the closing is scheduled for Wednesday... or was... now maybe Friday. Hope someone tells me when I do and do not need to drive 7 hrs one way to sign papers for an hour then come back to get a household moved, so I can make the drive again to unload, so I can came back again to finish cleaning and get a realtor to sell this house.

I've made a calendar and tentatively marked which state I need to be in on which days.

Now what was I saying about positive thinking? I'm trying, I really am. As noted, sometimes it's a lot of work.

Am I having fun yet?