Heart Squeeze ...

Somebody does love him ...

Why Do I Do This?

So I never went to bed Sunday night. 

DaBear was sick, and slept most of Sunday away.  I got up Sunday with my own health issues ... I had a sore throat and stiff neck, both of the right side.  The sore throat expressed itself especially when I coughed.  Sunday afternoon I developed throbbing pains on the left side of my face, in the teeth and the cheek.  The pains lasted two hours or so, and only then did that side get stopped up a little; once I was able to sniffle, the pains ceased.

I just never went to bed.  DaBear felt ill Sunday night, and even he was up till almost 2 (reading Dresden books).  I just stayed up, for no good reason --- I wasn't getting anything done in particular, other than the wash.

DaBear got up at 7:30 or so and emailed his boss that he wouldn't be in, then went back to bed.  And still I stayed up.  I was making phone calls, but still ----!

I showered, but instead of going to bed I started fiddling with the computer.

He got back up around 11 and made himself something to eat.  Then I made myself something to eat.

Sometime just before 2pm, I was sleeping in my chair, leaning over in the most awkward positions, and DaBear persuaded me to go lay down.   He woke me up around 6:40pm to eat. 

Now it'a almost 2am.  I finished the wash, filled the dishwasher, made a sh!tload of blog entries, and had a snack ... all since he went to bed at midnight.

I'm taking the car tomorrow, and I have a raft of errands to run.  And, yet, I may not get into bed before 3 --- I have to shower, I think.

<sigh>

This has to change.

This Is One Of Those Pictures ...

that you keep staring at, trying to figure out:

1. How could the pictured event possibly occur; and
2. How did the photographer just happen to have a camera on hand to record the pictured event?
   

That's just ... freaky, you know?

Goodness Gracious: Mad Magazine Hits The Nail On The Head ...!

Goodness Gracious: I Am Rose's Enlarged Thyroid, Part 2

So, today I went to get my blood drawn. 

I swear, that blood tech drilled a hole in my arm with a dull needle to get the blood out.  It seems that my arm has been sore, right there in the bed of the elbow, since my last blood draw.

I wonder when I did have my blood drawn last?  I need to ask Dr. Glaze and Dr. Dorsett.

First they took the blood, and then I got to pee in the cup.  The peeing was successful this time, as I managed to hold onto the cup as I filled it.  (Last time I gave a urine sample, for the GREX drug test, I dropped the cup in the toilet, and tehn couldn't pee for another 90 minutes.)

So ... now I wait until tomorrow (Friday).  If they don't call tomorrow by noon, I'm calling them.  I know, I know, I'm supposed to wait ... but I can't.

Thank God, we're going to see the Watchmen movie tomorrow.  I'm going to order big food at Alamo Draft House, and indulge myself in Italian sodas.

Goodness Gracious: I Am Rose's Enlarged Thyroid, Part 1

Tuesday, I went to have a venous Doppler test done on my left arm.  Now, I've had a venous Doppler done before, on my legs, to make sure that I didn't have some circulatory side-effect of diabetes.  That test, as I recall, took about thirty minutes.

But the test on my arm took nearly an hour.  I had to strip to the waist and put on a hospital gown (ick).  The radiology tech spent what seemed to be a long time on my neck and the juncture of my shoulder, and then took readings all the way down to my hand.  She left the room briefly, just long enough for me to wipe off the goop (ick) and get back into my bra before she came back in and took more readings, all around the base of my throat, with two scanners of different lengths.

This morning, I got a call from the doctor's office.  The venal flow in my arm is just fine, no bloodclots or anything that would cause pain and/or swelling.

HOWEVER ...

I have an enlarged thyroid.  There is a heterogenous nodule on the left side.

Of course, it's on the left side.  My left leg is the one that's swollen; my left arm is also swollen; something on the left side of my face was swollen a few months ago, the sinus polyp was on the left side.  The filling that fell out of my tooth years ago is on the left side of my mouth.

I freely admit to having a raging case of hypochondria.  I was going to wait until next week to get my lab work done --- the liver panel I requested, a A1C to check the state of my diabetes, a urine test to make sure my bladder infection of a few months ago is truly gone --- but, after the doctor's office called, I decided to beat it in there ASAP, which would be tomorrow (Thursday).

My Daddy had a thyroid condition.  I don't know now what it was ... as I recall, he had to take a pill every day.  Thyroid conditions seem very amenable to treatment.  I am willing this to being an infection, and trying not to obsess ...

Goodness Gracious: Gotta Keep Politics Away From The Beauty Shop ...

I kinda got into it with my beautician --- and friend --- and one of the customers at the beauty shop today.  I called 0bama the "0bamessiah," reminded them of his drug addiction (they were dissing Bush's addiction), and so on.  We even got into the chimp cartoom thing.

My friend didn't say anything, but after I left, I realized I said things that didn't necessarily need to be said.

From now on, I'll stick with Michelle's clothes ...

Free-Floating Anger

A few years ago, the movie The Core showed static electricity building up and discharging, suddenly, unpredictably, and with horrific consequences, at in electrical superstorms at random sites all over the world. These devastating electrical storms destroyed the Roman Colosseum and San Francisco.

I feel the static emotional electricity building as I type.

It's not a good or a comfortable feeling.

People are mad as hell about the actions of government in the last month, and all that anger is floating above our heads, a malevolent cloud seeking a path --- any path --- to ground.

The Octo-Mom is attracting some of the energy --- the violent and sickly imaginative death threats she and everyone around her have received are above and beyond any rational reaction to her admittedly execrable behavior.

With any luck, some of the destructive potential of this anger will be leached off by Tea Parties --- but I think the Tea Parties will just crank up the anger, especially as people realize the drive-by media have no intention of covering these righteous demonstrations, preferring bobbing around in 0bama's tank and hoping, like the faithful puppy under the family dinner table, that a few pieces of Our Dear Leader's wagyu steak will drop on the floor within their reach.

I'm afraid it's going to get very very bad out there, long before it gets better ...

The Acronym FUBO ...

has gone viral in the conservative pathways of the Internet.

Does this make me racist?

Hmmm ...

Speculation: Obama's First Hundred Days

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2191215/posts

The phrase “a hundred days” was coined by the Compte de Chabrol in 1815, referring to the time between Napoleon’s escape from Elba, and his defeat. Later, it was used to describe the 3-month honeymoon FDR enjoyed in 1933 with Congress, essentially dictating legislation from the Oval Office. Now, for better or for worse, we grade all of our Presidents on their First Hundred Days.

A lot can happen in a hundred days. Empires can be made and lost. It’s worth taking an early look at Obama’s first month to see what the first hundred could bring, even if the trends may be skewed by the learning-curve a one-term Senator might inevitably face in his new job:

- Joe Biden told the Russians we want to “hit the reset button” with them – ignoring a number of recent provocations on their part.

- Hillary Clinton tried showing off her intelligence – literally – by using sensitive information about North Korea as talking points during her current “listening tour” overseas.

- Secretary Gates and Ambassador Holbrooke publicly contradicted each other on what a rapprochement with the Taliban might mean for Pakistan and Afghanistan.

- Obama outsourced the rushed creation of a massive bill to his Party apparatchiks, and got handed a partisan and flawed result, whose final outcome depended on preserving the vote of a badly compromised Roland Burris, and hip-checking Judd Gregg with a Mephistophelian offer of a Cabinet position. In the meantime, the President’s campaign has failed to pay its debts.

- The Attorney General called Americans “cowards” for not addressing issues of race.

- The new Secretary of the Treasury got the Stock Market to plunge by revealing a mortgage bailout plan remarkable only for it’s lack of vision, theme, and details – which seems all too much a reflection of his own tax returns.

- The new Secretary of Transportation suggested a tax on the number of miles driven by car-owners, which the White House almost immediately repudiated.

- Numerous Democrat legislators warned darkly of resurrecting the Fairness Doctrine, which the President declined to support.

To any observer trying to decipher where this Administration is attempting to go, there’s no wonder that the only impression is incoherence and contradiction. Biden and Clinton seem intent on proving to our allies and adversaries that President Obama is not President Bush – but neither of them can say what that means. In the meantime, the Iranians are launching space vehicles, and building nukes. The Russians are flexing their muscle everywhere, and the Taliban is emerging from their caves.

At home, the only industry likely to be stimulated by the recent porkfest will be the lawyers who will file countless suits over whether the Federal government can force States to take money they don’t want, or whether a handwritten insert from a staffer or lobbyist truly constitutes “the intent of Congress” in the making of law.

Al Sharpton and North Carolina’s James Clyborn found new ways to feign outrage – Sharpton alleging a racial slur to the President as the writer of a bill with which he had almost nothing to do, and Clyborn alleging that refusing federal money (and the strings attached) was tantamount to racism. No wonder people are afraid to talk about race when even non-racial issues can turn up “the race card.”

Emboldened by the bailout of bad loans made by bad banks to bad credit risks, groups like ACORN are breaking into foreclosed homes and declaring squatter’s rights. The Stock Market continues to fall. What’s a leader to do?

Predictably, the President has embarked on the one thing he does best – hitting the road, shaking hands, and making promises. In short: he’s campaigning again, but this time Americans are asking for something more than vague promises of “change.” Several appearances have been annoyingly marred by dissent.

Karl Rove comments that, for as disciplined as the Obama campaign may have been in the past, his team is “winging it” on most issues now. In fact, nothing has really changed: no amount of discipline can offset the lack of a substantive message.

The time for campaign rhetoric is past, and the consequences of this lack of discipline and substance keep piling up. A lot can happen in a hundred days. Here’s hoping our President can figure out how to avoid marching all of us to Waterloo before the time is up.

Goodness Gracious! The SKANKiness Of It All!

Goodness Gracious! The HORROR!

Where Is The Outrage? Part The First

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5ihA0Z5ybW84SLeY3NQbodRanP0mwD96EH44G3

By BEN EVANS – 23 hours ago

WASHINGTON (AP) — The economic stimulus signed by President Barack Obama will spread billions of dollars across the country to spruce up aging roads and bridges. But there's not a dime specifically dedicated to fixing leftover damage from Hurricane Katrina.

And there's no outrage about it.

Democrats who routinely criticized President George W. Bush for not sending more money to the Gulf Coast appear to be giving Obama the benefit of the doubt in his first major spending initiative. Even the Gulf's fiercest advocates say they're happy with the stimulus package, and their states have enough money for now to address their needs.

"I'm not saying there won't be a need in the future, but right now the focus is not on more money, it's on using what we have," said Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La., who has criticized Democrats and Republicans alike over Katrina funding.

It's a significant change in tone from the Bush years, when any perceived slight of Katrina victims was met with charges that the Republican president who bungled the initial response to the disaster continued to callously ignore the Gulf's needs years later.

Just last summer, Democrats accused Bush of putting Iraq before New Orleans when he sought to block Gulf Coast reconstruction money from a $162 billion war spending bill. Bush was pilloried for not mentioning the disaster in back-to-back State of the Union addresses.

Former Rep. Jim McCrery, R-La., who helped lead the fight for Gulf aid before retiring last year, said he was surprised over the lack of Katrina money in the bill, but figures lawmakers may be granting Obama leniency due to the magnitude of the country's current economic challenges.

"Any new president is going to have a little honeymoon," said McCrery, who is now a lobbyist. "I'd like to think that the tone would have been the same with any new president."

Thomas Langston, a Tulane University political scientist, said Democrats may be "playing nice" to keep in good favor. But dire needs remain, he said.

"Hopefully they've gotten some promises behind the scenes about longer-term commitments," Langston said. "Like most people down here, I would hate for anybody to get the impression that, 'We're good, thank you.'"

The federal government has devoted more than $175 billion to the region since Katrina ripped through New Orleans in 2005, and billions remain unspent. It's unclear how much more money will be needed, but nearly everyone agrees that the federal government should continue investing heavily in the region's levees and other infrastructure to prevent a repeat of Katrina's devastation.

Under the $787 billion stimulus bill, states will share more than $90 billion in infrastructure money. Gulf states such as Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama can use their funds for Katrina-related projects, but they'll get the same formula-based share that other states receive.

There was hardly a complaint as Obama and other Democratic leaders pieced together the package. Members of the all-Democratic Congressional Black Caucus, who have called Bush's Katrina funding a moral failure, said they were thrilled with the stimulus. Landrieu won several provisions that do not allocate new money but are aimed at cutting through red tape to free up existing funds.

"I think people looked at how generous Congress has been in the past," said Rep. Bennie Thompson, a Mississippi Democrat who chairs the House Homeland Security Committee. "(The states) have to demonstrate that they can be good custodians of the money."

Thompson and others say new funding wasn't necessary in the stimulus largely because billions of federal dollars remain bogged down in bureaucracy or tied up in planning. As a result, they said, Katrina funding doesn't fit with the quick-spending purpose of the stimulus bill, which is aimed at kick-starting the economy.

Ironically, Bush made similar arguments in recent years as Gulf advocates latched on to nearly any legislation they could find to pursue reconstruction money. For example, he routinely argued that Katrina funding didn't belong in war spending bills and that new funding wasn't urgent because unspent billions were already in the pipeline.

In part, the lack of criticism this year could reflect a stronger trust by fellow Democrats that Obama will follow through with his campaign pledge to rebuild levees and "keep the broken promises" to the Gulf.

Whether the grace period continues could hinge on how Obama addresses the issue in future spending bills.

Without discussing specific funding plans, White House spokeswoman Gannet Tseggai said Obama is "dedicated to rebuilding New Orleans and the Gulf Coast and looks forward to working with Congress to ensure they get the help they so desperately need."

Donald Trump Is A Fool

One of the many definitions of bad hair ...



It is to laugh ...

Masturbation Fantasy As Journalism

Sometimes a President Is Just a President

The other night I dreamt of Barack Obama. He was taking a shower right whenI needed to get into the bathroom to shave my legs, and then he was being yelled at by my husband, Max, for smoking in the house. It was not clear whether Max was feeling protective of the president’s health or jealous because of the cigarette.

The other day a friend of mine confided that in the weeks leading up to the election, the Obamas’ apparent joy as a couple had made her just miserable. Their marriage looked so much happier than hers. Their life seemed so perfect. “I was at a place where I was tempted daily to throttle my husband,” she said. “This coincided with Michelle saying the most beautiful things about Barack. Each time I heard her speak about him I got tears in my eyes — because I felt so far away from that kind of bliss in my own life and perhaps even more, because I was so moved by her expressions of devotion to him. And unlike previous presidential couples, they are our age, have children the same age and (just imagine the stress of daily life on the campaign) by all accounts should have been fighting even more than we were.”



As we all know, in journalism, two anecdotes are just one short of a national trend. I figured that my friend and I couldn’t possibly be the only ones dreaming, brooding or otherwise obsessing about the Obamas. Were other people, I wondered, being possessed by our new first family?

I launched an e-mail inquiry. And learned that they were. Often, in strikingly similar ways. Many women — not too surprisingly — were dreaming about sex with the president. In these dreams, the women replaced Michelle with greater or lesser guilt or, in the case of a 62-year-old woman in North Florida, whose dream was reported to me by her daughter, found a fully above-board solution: “Michelle had divorced Barack because he had become ‘too much of a star.’ He then married my mother, who was oh so proud to be the first lady,” the daughter wrote me.

There was some daydreaming too, much of it a collective fantasy about the still-hot Obama marriage. “Barack and Michelle Obama look like they have sex. They look like they like having sex,” a Los Angeles woman wrote to me, summing up the comments of many. “Often. With each other. These days when the sexless marriage is such a big celebrity in America (and when first couples are icons of rigid propriety), that’s one interesting mental drama.”

Most dreams, however, were, like mine, more prosaic.

There was a dream, sent from Minneapolis, about buying Barack the perfect sandwich, and a dream from Westport, Conn., about inviting Michelle and the girls over for lunch and a play date: “I told her I’d make tuna fish sandwiches and cupcakes, and told her that she didn’t need to worry about the kids, no need to hire a sitter or extra secret service, that I had a nice basement/playroom for them. I explained how hard it was to move to a new home, and to take her time if she needed to unpack or run to Costco or something. She asked me about other supermarkets, and I told her that Stop & Shop had a sale on tuna fish and paper towels.” And one woman in Wisconsin had frequent daydreams about having the Obamas over for a glass of wine.

One woman wrote that when she couldn’t get to sleep at night, she “lay in bed and thought about the Obama girls in their rooms at the White House. I thought about Marian Robinson up on the third floor. And about Barack and Michelle, a couple who clearly have a ‘thing’ for each other, spooning together in bed. It helped me relax.”

I understood perfectly where these cozy dreams of easy familiarity came from. It was that sense so many people share of having a very immediate connection to Barack Obama, whether they’re black or biracial, or children of single parents or self-made strivers; or they’re lawyers or community organizers or Ivy League graduates or smokers or basketball players or Blackberry users or parents or married or Democrats. A lot of people share the fantasy that having the Obamas over for “dinner and a game of Scrabble,” as one daydreamer put it to me, is something that really could just about happen.

“This is the first president I’ve known who looks, talks and acts like a peer,” is how one Washington man explained it to me. “Notwithstanding his somewhat exotic life story, I feel like I understand what he’s like and where he’s coming from. And despite his incredible achievements, he still seems like a lot of people I know. If you stopped the clock in 2004, in fact, or maybe a couple of years earlier, he’d feel roughly like a peer in terms of accomplishments, too. Of course I know nobody with his political gifts, speaking skills and confidence, and he’s also a gifted writer and thinker. But I feel like one or two different turns for Obama or me and he could have been someone my friends and I wouldn’t think it extraordinary to have in our circle.”

Sometimes this sense of close identification turns a bit dark. There’s a subcategory of people who feel that they really should have true intimacy with the Obamas. Because they went to school with them. Because they used to dream like them. Because, with one or two “different turns,” they maybe could have been them.

These are not the people made most happy by thinking about the Obamas.

“They do seem to have it all together — a great marriage, beautiful children, a modern day Norman Rockwell family,” said a divorced Harvard grad with children in a top D.C. private school. “Why them, not me?”

These are people for whom the Obamas are not just a beacon of hope, inspiration and “demigodlikeness,” as a New York lawyer put it, but also a kind of mirror. And the refracted image of self they see is not one they much admire.

“I keep thinking about how I squandered my education and youth,” the New York lawyer wrote to me. “I went off to college from high school being completely community-minded, doing a lot of volunteer work for the homeless and for hunger and tutoring poor kids. Then I got to college and forgot my ideals. Barack was my year at Columbia. Why wasn’t I hanging out with him and being serious and following my ideals instead of hanging out in clubs? Same with law school. I partied my way through instead of taking advantage of all that I could have. Both Obamas were there when I was. I feel like if I’d been a better person I would have gotten to know them.”

A Washington lawyer expressed similar sentiments: “I feel like I know Barack, that I have worked grassroots and have created change in the way that he has. I [also] have feelings of a mom who had possibility but ended up running school auctions and mediating family business matters rather than having the opportunity to be out there on a national level creating change. So when I watch Barack I feel like: I can do that … and what am I doing with my life? Even though he is way smarter and more articulate than me.”

Another Washington woman, a global health care consultant, expressed her sense of Obama-inadequacy in a dream: “I dreamed I was an Obama girl. I had a chance to be in the same room with him for the first time. There were dark velvet chairs and he was standing there with all this dark and mist around him. His lips so purple and sensuous as if to be otherworldly,” she wrote to me. “I moved gently toward him and then I said the wrong thing. Obama tamped it down like some vapor that didn’t register. He wasn’t even flattered.”

(“Like a lot of folks, I have anxiety about being outside of the Obama administration universe right now,” she then explained to me. “Even though I was at the ‘it’ ball of inauguration balls, I still felt like other balls were greener, or more purple, or with credentials completely out of my control — more young. I really feel like I’m scrambling internally … to deserve Obama cred and all I’ve got is this over-my-head wonder for the man that amounts to being an Obama girl.”)

For some, not knowing the Obamas has almost turned into a feeling of being snubbed or excluded. Like in middle school. It’s funny. Almost.

“Why won’t my kids be sleeping over at the White House? And as my daughter noted, why couldn’t she get to sit front and center and see the Jonas Brothers and Miley perform at the kids’ inaugural concert? If she went to Sidwell, then she might have these chances, she said …” wrote a mother whose kids are not at Sidwell Friends school with Sasha
and Malia.“Will Michelle stay down to earth? She could prove it by joining our book club,” wrote a Sidwell mom.

This is, perhaps, the price of faux-familiarity. If I were Barack Obama (or Michelle, for that matter), I’d be a little scared. After all, when people are wearing their egos on their sleeves, it’s so easy to bruise their feelings. What will happen if fantasy turns to contempt?

Shooting Report

Today I took --- and passed! --- a Basic Pistol I class given by a local training outfit. Now, I grew up in a gun owner's home, but that gun was strictly for home defense --- Daddy fired it twice a year (yes, he fired it into the air --- as far as I know, no one was ever hit), and the rest of the time it lived on the top shelf of the closet in my parents' bedroom.

For various reasons, both cultural and personal, my Daddy never went to a gun range. I have never before been to an outdoor range.

Well, that changed today.

Before going, I had to stop and buy a baseball cap --- it's the first one I've ever owned or worn. I have a big head, and the kind of caps that have the adjustable strap don't work for me --- I have to have the elastic sort.

Maybe a boonie cap would work better? ...

The course was held at an extremely rural location --- an hour's drive east of Austin, on roads that went from eight-lane blacktop to four-lane blacktop to two-lane paved to two-lane gravel to one-lane rutted dirt --- good thing we're currently suffering from "exceptional" drought conditions!

Two dozen head of Longhorns grazed in a pen next to the parking area. The lecture part of the class was held in a nice shack, complete with indoor plumbing <smirk> and a nice kitchen. A gregarious old Lab mix wandered
through the classroom, or sat listening to her Daddy, the lead instructor, talk. She even came outside, and stood well away from the tables but close to the people.

Business is very, very good for this training outfit; in late November, when I first contacted them, they didn't plan to hold a Basic Pistol I class until March 2009; they had two classes today, and apparently have scheduled two for next
Saturday. Both classes were full, and the lead instructor told me he'd had to bring in all his part-time instructors to help. There were six other instructors there, two of them women.

The women in the class got a special sheaf of information intended to allay any case of female jits. I didn't read it closely ... I was there because I wanted to be.

There were about a dozen students in my class, half men and half women. All the women, save one, was there with her husband. Most of the couples were gray-haired, but there was a pair in their mid-twenties, and a male friend of theirs who was about the same age. You could easily tell which woman was genuinely interested, and which was a martyr to the cause.

We had been asked not to bring our gun, if we owned one; in this class no one owned a gun, or, if they did, they didn't admit to it. Apparently, several in the morning class brought their guns, and got them critiqued.

The course lasted a little over three hours, and roughly half of that was spent at a primitive outdoor range consisting of six long wooden tables, firing various types of pistols at metal targets ten to fifteen yards away. I hit some, and missed some. I fired:

• A Springfield XD 9mm (first one I handled);
• A S&W (I think) 1911-style .22 with an electronic sight (which I liked very much!);
• A S&W .38 revolver (which I kinda liked);
• A S&W 9mm (solid kick!);
• and a Glock 17 (which I also liked).

I fired a full magazine (or cylinder) with each pistol --- just enough to whet my appetite! Sadly, I didn't get to fire all the guns that were there.

Durnit!

Not every one there was having a good time. While waiting to fire the .38, I sat next to a lady who had shot two pistols and was done with the whole concept. She and I talked about New Balance athletic shoes (I just bought a new pair, to replace the pair that was destroyed in the Great Apartment Flood Of 2008) for a few minutes, until the instructor with the .38 was free.

I learned:

• No guns, watches, bracelets, or rings at the range (and you know I love my bling);
• The 1911 frame fits my hand;
• Iron sights are difficult to line up;
• Brass is rude;
• This sport is stinky and dirty;
• I can be vain about my hands;
• It's hard to shoot with long nails;
• I could have passed the shooting portion of the CHL today;
• I need to practice lots before I get good at this;
• I have every intention of getting good at this.

I made an acquaintance today at the class; one of the instructors, a woman, was intrigued by my presence and started chatting with me to see where I stood on The Second and guns and the concept of gun ownership as a civil right. In my wonderfully subtle manner, I let it be known that I was not in agreement with the imminent Administration. This instructor's husband --- another instructor, who had the 9mm I fired --- has written a book about the fallacies of the gun control movement.

She has invited me to a women-only firearms class in a different rural location, which I will attend.

I will also be taking Basic Pistol II, if not in early February, then as soon as possible thereafter. I think I can make it to a nearby indoor range week after next ... I now have a ball cap, a rocker patch that says "Basic Practical," and a yen to become a better shooter.

I am Dangerous ...

The Great Flood of 2008

I just realized, I never told this blog the story of The Great Flood of 2008.

December 12, 2008, which was a Friday, was a pretty typical day all day.  I was sitting at my computer, at a desk which was covered with Post-It notes, pens, and manila file folders, when, at a little after 5pm, I called Fuzz at work to discuss dinner.

We had barely exchanged greetings when a strange noise, like heavy rainfall, began in the wall behind me.  That wall is an interior wall, and no rain was forecast nor visible outside the window.  I turned around ...

And water began cascading from the ceiling fan over my head.  And I do mean "cascade."  It was as if I'd turned a faucet full on, except the water was falling from my ceiling and onto my desk, my monitor, and me.

My immediate thought was to blame the doofuses upstairs --- loud college students who tended to come home drunk at 3am and mistake my second-floor door for their third-story one, who were dumb enough to kick and pound on my door until I threatened them with a gun and the police.  I thought they had left the water on and I was receiving the overflow.  I ran out the front door of my apartment and went up the stairs in my slow fashion, my cell phone in one hand dialing the apartment main office and screaming at them to come turn the motherfuckin' water off.

The prissy little twit who answered the phone refused to talk to me until I stopped cussing.  AAARGH!

By the time I hit the landing, the fire alarms started going off.  Before I could get up the stairs to the third floor, the upstairs doofus came out of his apartment asking me what was happening.  I screamed, "Is the water in your apartment?"

"No, I'm dry up here," he replied.  "What's happening?"

I don't know how I replied to that; I was headed back downstairs.  I couldn't figure ot what to do, other than call the apartment's main office and get someone up here to turn off the water.

Our apartment complex has two separate campuses, one lower, down by the main office, and the upper campus, where my apartment is located.  It was 5pm on a Friday, and, I suspect, the staff had been in weekend mode when I called.  When I called back, I was assured that the maintenance person was in the golf cart and on their way.

I called Fuzz, who was on his way home.

For what felt like twenty minutes --- but was probably only five --- I alternated between the apartment and the rail outside the apartment, desperately looking for maintenance's golf cart, calling Fuzz, calling the apartment complex's office, and just screaming my fool head off.  Water was now pouring from every light fixture and sprinkler head in the living room ceiling, as well as in both the smaller bedrooms, which were full of books and papers.  People had come out from the apartments on the other end of my building, as well as people from other buildings, drawn by the fire alarms; they were all staring at me as I roared my anger out at no one in particular.

Finally, the golf cart appeared with two maintenance guys in it, one of them a man I recognized from a recent repair.  "Carlos!" I yelled, "Get in here and turn off this damn water!"

The Austin Fire Department responded to the shorted-out fire alarms.  Brian, Jesus, and a fireman whose name I cannot recall came in and immediately scooped up the computers, monitors, and other electronics and took them into the master bedroom, which was not affected.  They turned off the power in the apartment, and kept moving stuff into the master bedroom.

Right here, let me say that AFD rocks.

And the water kept on falling.

Fuzz showed up, his usual calm self, and got to work packing stuff away into the master bedroom.  The firemen found push-broom-like squeegees and started pushing water out.  I was walking around barefoot, since the ballet-slipper-like houseshoes I had been wearing were slippery when wet, and I was splashing arund in water over my feet and up my ankles.

And the water kept pouring down.

The carpet guy, who spoke excellent English, and the drywall/painter guys, who didn't speak much English at all, showed up and started moving stuff.  We had a set of three metal shelves and four plastic shelves.  Fuzz, the carpet guy, the drywall/painter guys, and the firemen moved the shelves into the driest part of the living room, and then started stacking stuff on said shelves.

The prissy little twit from the apartment main office showed up, looked around, and ran for cover, his tail tucked between his legs.  The apartment maintenance supervisor appeared at some point, as well as a plumber.

Finally, after some forty-five minutes, it was determined that the leak wasn't in the main water system, but in the sprinkler system, and then someone had to figure out how to turn that system off.

It seemed to take fifteen minutes more before the water flow slowed to a trickle. 

The ceiling sheetrock was the consistency of tapioca --- the firemen were worried that it would collapse at any moment.  Yes, the firemen were still around --- since the fire alarms in the building were off, as well as the water to the sprinkler system, they had to stick around in case there was a fire.  And they made themselves useful, pushing water from the parts of the apartment that were flooded out the sliding glass doors and off the balcony, packing stuff out onto the balcony and into the dry parts of the apartment, and being generally useful.  I credit them with stopping the water just three feet outside the master bedroom.

By now, it was nearing seven o'clock, and it was dark outside and in the apartment.  The firemen turned the power back on, and  the plumber started looking for the leak by cutting holes in the sheetrock.  It took a while, and required turning the water back on temporarily, but they finally found it.  The pipe didn't spring a leak; instead, a join in the pipe separated.  The plumber fixed the join and left soon after.

The carpet guy, the drywall/painter guys, and Fuzz had moved all the stuff they could.  Furniture and boxes were on the balcony.  To get useless me out of the way, Fuzz sent me in the car to find a place to stay for the night.  He had to tell me twice, and once I understood what he wanted me to do, I felt so damn useless ... 

All of my shoes were wet ... I don't recall what I wore on my feet when I went down to the car to drive around.

I found a Springhill Suites (a flavor of Marriott) down the road, and checked us in for a night.  When I got back, I packed what clothes I could --- it being Friday, most of our clothes were in the dirty clothes hamper --- and we left around nine-thirty.  The carpet guy had set up a set of four fans and a dehumidifier, and they were going ike gangbusters when we locked the door. 

We came back Saturday morning, and tried to sort through wet stuff.  Talk about demoralizing!  Some of the shelving units were wet, and the stuff on those units was valuable --- Fuzz's collection of football cards had been on the top shelf, directly under the sprinkler head that broke, on the other side of the wall from me.  The thick cardboard box, two feet by three feet big, was wet to the touch.  We opened the box ... and out of the thusands of cards in there, only thirty were wet!

Sunday morning I couldn't stand it any longer, and neither could Fuzz ... we went to Circuit City and bought me an HP portable, the same computer I'm using now to post this blog entry.  I was dying not being able to get my hands on a system of my own for nearly thirty-six hours.  This machine is an HP with an AMD Turion chip and the wide screen.  I'm loving it ... my old portable was on the metal shelf, and was standing in a half-inch of water for several hours before I realized what had happened to the shelf.

Sunday, we came back to the apartment and worked a few hours.  Monday through Wednesday, I kept coming in here so I could watch the apartment while the carpet guy, the drywall/painter guys, and the apartment maintenance supervisor; Fuzz went to work.  I got nothing done, and managed to piss off a client thereby. 

The apartment complex ever so generously offered a rent concession of $200 --- after I asked for it --- which does not represent one week of the rent.  Half of the concession was eaten up by the increase in the electric bill because of the four industrial fans and one dehumidifier that were running in here 24/7 from Friday night to Thursday morning.

The carpet guy came in Thursday and replaced the carpet pad and tacked the carpet back down.  It was supposed to happen on Wednesday, but the carpet wasn't dry enough, and neither was the wall.  The drywall/painter guys came in Wednesday, cut out the bottom of the wall in the library, and let it dry until Thursday.

We weren't able to move back into the apartment for a week; we got back in here the Saturday before Christmas.  And even now, weeks later, the apartment is still a mess --- bags everywhere, even in the unused tub in the second bathroom.  Even now, I'll pick up a bag and find a wet and moldy mess inside.



We're still in the process of making claims against our renter's insurance.  We haven't gotten any money yet ... we're waiting.  Fuzz thinks the insurance company is gonna stiff us ... I'm more hopeful.

On a hopeful note: Fuzz got a call from the insurance company asking when we planned to submit a furniture claim.  Maybe they're just waiting for us to submit the big-ticket items before they cut us a check.

I can hope ...!

Oh, Goodness Gracious! (NOT WORK SAFE!)

Somebody took a bad dream and staged it in real life ...!