Running Free and Clear

To head off anymore water problems in our basement, we were visited by a very friendly sewer cleaning man today. He whistled at the water marks on the walls. He puzzled over the sight of our big drain. He ran loud machines and lots of water. When it all said and done the report was this:


Sewer Guy: You had roots. Big roots. A lot of roots.


Me: Oh yeah?


Sewer Guy: Yeah. When was the last time you had this done?


The answer to this is about six years ago when our neighbors had a new line put in their yard. Their charming contractor, who had spent the majority of the summer using four letter words to critique his crew, had decided that it would be okay to disconnect our line when replacing our neighbors. It was a very bad scene. To make things worse, when we called him about it, he just about accused us of disconnecting it ourselves just so we could blame him. That's so like me though, isn't it? Digging up my neighbor's yard in order to fill my own basement with sewage. That guy saw right through me! But, back to today...

Me: Ummm. It's been awhile.


Sewer Guy: A LONG while! You've got to do this every year, you know!


Me: Yeah. Well, we will. From now on. Promise.


Sewer Guy: 'Cause you had bad roots. They'll be back!


Now isn't that a threat and a half! They'll be back! But for now the line is "running free and clear" in the words of the sewer man. And now the next time it rains, I'll be able to enjoy the sound on the roof instead of worrying myself into a tizzy about the basement. The joys of home owning never cease!

Still Alive

Ack! I'll post it anyway. If there is anything spelled wrong you can just deal with it! I checked the "Blogger Issues" board and everyone is hopping mad, but there are promises that it will be fixed soon. Whatever.

Hello to my three loyal readers! Rest assured I did not perish from my illness. My blogging lapse has simply been an inability to get near the computer for any extended period of time. The Man has been busy, busy, busy writing emails and resumes and just kicking ass. We are still only online with this one computer, so the best I've been able to do is check emails, fire off a few responses and get shooed out again. But this isn't a complaint mind you; I'm proud of the Man. Graduating and not having homework assignments has not slowed him down. He writes as much as he did before, plus doing all this hussle.


But he's out tonight, so I have some time to sneak this in. We've almost fully recovered from our basement catastrophe. That's what the insurance company called it, a catastrophe. It's completely too strong a word for what happened in our opinion. We are actually better off for the following reasons:

We lost the washer and dryer which were both 14 years old. They were living on borrowed time.

We lost a dehumidifier which was not a big deal. A quick trip to Home Depot and the cats now have a new big box to play in.

We got rid of 14 years of crap that should never have been put in the basement to begin with, all in one fell swoop. Our basement has not looked this good since we bought the place. It is empty! We have one small mountain that is waiting for Hazardous Waste Day (It's just paint and stuff like that! Don't freak out!), but other than that, the joint looks great!


We got compensated for all these junky shelves that the previous owners built all over the place down there. That's the part that killed me. These shelves and cupboards were the worst homemade pieces of crap you ever saw, but every one of them was listed on claim, by the insurance man not us. I would have never even of thought of putting them down! Those shelves were a loss the day they were built! Tearing them out is what has really improved the situation down there. It's so open now. And if you don't have shelves, you can't pile stuff on them. Two problems solved! Anyway the insurance man thought they were worth something and that leads us to the last bit of good news.


After we pay for the washer, dryer, dehumidifier, a couple of Nerf guns and my new electronic scale (*GASP* You can imagine how upset I was when I saw that floating!), there's still a little green left over. So we've decided to get WiFi for the house! It's something that we've been wanting, but didn't have the pocket change to hand over for it. Once we get all Wifi-ed, no more excuses about posting blogs or keeping up with reading other peoples blogs, it will be a new day around here! Okay, that might be taking it a bit far, but it will be cool. How's that for taking lemons and making lemonade!

A short week in review

I'm still not in the mood to talk about the basement and I don't think I ever will be. Since a picture is worth a thousand words, here's three thousands words (all bad ones at that), for you to marvel over.

I will say that I love my new washer and dryer. We bought them on Saturday and they were delivered Sunday morning at 8:30 a.m. How unbelievable is that! Also today was garbage day and every single bit of the towering refuse mountain was taken away through a combination of the garbage pickers and the real garbage men. Got to love that!

On a completely different note though, I also have to give props to Sweet P. for saving her own behind last night on Project Runway with her outstanding ready-to-wear dress. I'm SO ready to wear it!

Finally, the man has a fan. One of his pieces was recently published in The Sun. A reader of The Sun and a fellow blogger fell in love with it and wanted to put it on her blog. Her story about getting in touch with the man for permission is - for lack of a better word- adorable. She describes herself as giddy. That works too. Check out her story-- http://dailypiglet.wordpress.com/2008/01/14/i-am-steve-martin-in-the-movie-the-jerk/