Putting it all in perspective, or water, water everywhere...

Our house has declared war on us, and our three person army has proven insufficient. So, I've done the drastic...I've called in reinforcements in the form of the first man who answered his phone claiming to be able to fix both an AC and a dishwasher...today.

First, Ed and I dared to go to a party on Saturday night with the little man. When we came home, I had the pleasure of stepping in a puddle of water in the middle of the kitchen floor. Apparently, I am becoming quite expert at this because the last time we had unexpected water in our kitchen (our Crystal City house), I actually slipped and landed on my hind end. This time, I managed to stay upright. I announced the disaster and continued on my mission downstairs to acquire a semi-clean pair of pajamas for Connor. When I arrived downstairs I learned that the water in my house was not confined to the kitchen floor, but instead had freed itself to run through the ceiling downstairs as well. Nice!


As Ed and I were surveying the damage, Connor was chatting on happily about who knows what "da, da, da". We had to laugh as Connor clearly did not understand nor care about the gravity of the situation. Ed misdiagnosed the problem, thought he had it fixed, only to start the dishwasher again and reflood the kitchen and basement - at which point we decided the dishwasher had won. It was getting late and Ed now properly diagnosed the problem, but we declared a professional would need to deal with it.

On Sunday morning, the persistent problem with the AC reappeared. Ed was flushing the outtake line, and Connor and I came up behind him. Connor cheerily greeted Ed, which made Ed laugh and pour part of the pitcher of water he was using to flush the line onto the floor. Connor is nothing, if not helpful.


Then, the torrential rains came, and while I was sad about accidentally deleting some photos from my camera (they were super cute), Ed kept getting anxious about the water attempting to invade our home from the outside. The storms continued, Ed kept using the wet vac, and eventually I put all of our worldly possessions up on blocks in preparation for the flood. The shop vac gave us all it had before finally refusing to suck another drop of water - but miraculously, it was enough. Only a few drops of water made it into the house. It is possible all of the clay (which is the bane of Ed's existence) I stacked outside the door played some role in keeping the floodwaters at bay. And in spite of the fact that Connor will wake up any time the front door is opened, he can sleep soundly through a flash flood, lightening, and thunder. We are very thankful for that.

Naturally, the whole city is flooded which resulted in it taking Ed for freaking-ever to get to work and I decided to work from home to serve as the command post for the magical repairman, who did indeed arrive this morning and as of now, the dishwasher is running (and hopefully planning to stop) and he is busy getting the AC back in shape.

It actually is pretty nice to see that Connor can be so unaffected and keep laughing and chattering throughout the whole mess - unhindered by the knowledge that someday, this whole house will collapse around him.

I guess we should add "repaint basement ceiling" to the list of things we need to do in order to sell the house. I did get two more shelves entirely cleaned off in the process, and at one point Ed and I wondered if our realtor had actually broken the dishwasher as an impetus for us to clean up the area. Hmmm...

It's now pouring again, the magical man just cut the circuit to the AC, he asked if I had a dryer he could use for his clothes. I said yes, on the assumption that by clothes he means "shirt". Eeek! I'm not going anywhere near the basement.

Elaine