Floods, Fires, and People Who Know Nothing

I realize that I have been radio silent for awhile but the last few days of January and the month of February has been full of mishaps and frustrations. In an effort to keep myself from ranting too badly I decided to wait to post about them until I could laugh about them a little.

Floods

I guess January went out with a bang or should I say a burst. A burst of water that is. Where I live, it seems like we either have no rain or torrential downpours. There doesn't seem to be such a thing as "gentle" or light rain. The rain began a few hours before I went to bed. It was heavy but I wasn't overly concerned because there were no severe weather listings on my go to weather source, weather.com, or on the news.

Apparently that changed in a hurry after I decided to go to bed. I awoke around 2am to the sound of a storm right on top of my house. The thunder boomed so loud that every picture on my wall seemed to rattle and I feared they would fall off and come crashing to the floor. The lightning lit up my room eerily and cast ghostly shadows around my bedroom. I lay awake listening to the storm and found myself unable to go back to sleep. I had a nagging feeling that something was wrong; something other than the possibility of my pictures falling off the wall.

I dragged my butt out of bed and threw on a a pair of sweatpants and a long sleeve T-shirt. Walking around the house, nothing seemed out of place but the nagging feeling remained. I grabbed my Tablet and pulled up weather.com to see what they were saying about the storm.  That's when I noticed a warning about an approaching torrent of golf ball sized hail.

I had left the car parked in the driveway because it was covered in bird poop and I was hoping the rain would wash it off.  Worried about hail damage I decided I had better pull it into the garage.  I grabbed a coat from the closet, pulled up the hood, and grabbed the first pair of shoes that I could see.  I realized my outfit probably looked ridiculous but at at two in the morning I didn't think anyone would notice.  I grabbed the keys and rain out into the pouring rain.

I stepped out of the door, right into a freezing cold puddle.  Ugh... Awesome.  I slogged my way down to the driveway.  It was completely flooded. My driveway points downward on a hill towards my house and at least a foot of water was swirling and gurgling around the garage door.  The grate that is supposed to drain the water just could not keep up with the downpour.  In that instant a sinking feeling told me that there was probably water in the garage... The nagging feeling that something was wrong told me I was right.

I stood there for a minute trying to decide what to do.  I still wanted to pull in the car.  I figured that the water in the garage was probably less than the water on the driveway and I really did not want hail dents in our one year old car.  I also wanted to know if water was in the garage because if so I would need to rescue some boxes we have stored in there because our garage had never flooded while the basement had in the past.

I opened the garage door.  Water had already leaked inside and the boxes and furniture were wet but when I opened the door the problem had become ten times worse.  All of the water that had been pooled on the driveway rushed in with a vengeance.  I quickly pulled in the car and shut the door to prevent any more water from getting in.  The water covered my shoe but at least it wasn't up to my ankle like the driveway water.  I turned on the light and began trying to "rescue" our stuff.  The basement was still dry, go figure, so I moved everything there.  Everything was soaked. Speakers, boxes, a desk, our Christmas tree, and a really nice refrigerator my parents had given us.  CRAP. 

I have no idea how I did it; how I moved everything into the basement myself.  I even managed to move the fridge.  There was no way I could lift it over the step up to my basement doorway.  I pushed it over to the the door and pulled it towards me into the basement onto its side.  Later I would wonder where I found the strength to do this alone.  I am chalking it up to one of those things where you gut a surge of adrenaline under pressure and can do super human feats.

I shut the basement door and decided to hope for the best until morning.  Only problem was when I went to lift the garage door to go back into the house, I realized that when I had closed it, it had somehow become locked.  I have no idea how this happened since you have to physically turn a knob on the outside to make it lock but maybe the pressure of the water coupled with the force of the door closing triggered it?  I have no idea.

So there I was.  Trapped in my garage and I was beginning to panic.  I was soaking wet and I took several deep breaths to try to keep myself from freaking out.  OK, you can figure this out.  I said to myself.  I pulled up as hard as I could...the door barely budged.  Did I really think that was going to work? No, but in my state of panic I was hoping for a miracle. 

I was completely trapped in the garage.  To make matters worse... It was by this time 3 in the morning, still pouring, I was soaking wet, freezing, and I realized that the windows in the basement had been nailed shut.  On top of that, I had pulled the car into the garage so no one would even think to look for me.  They would assume that I wasn't home.  AND, my cell phone was in my bedroom.  I hadn't though to grab it since I was just going to be running out to pull in the car.

Panic rising I prayed out loud again and again, "Dear God, please help me to get out of this garage!"  I didn't know what to do.  I found the directions to the garage door tapped to the door.  Unfortunately they only explained not to let children play with it.  Not how to unlock it from the inside.  Go figure.  They didn't even show to to take it apart.  I briefly considered running the car through it.  I knew it would damage the car but I had to get out of the garage.  I pulled at the door desperately trying to get it to open.  Eventually I figured out that the bar of the locking mechanism could be bent.  I was able to bend it just enough to force it up one notch which allowed the door to to open enough for me to crawl out under it.  Unfortunately this also meant crawling through a foot of water so now I was really really really soaked and freezing cold.

From the outside of the garage I put the door back down all of the way and trudged back inside hoping for the best and deciding to let the rest be until morning.  By this time it was about 3:45 am.  I had a doctor's appointment in just a few hours time.

I stripped off all of my soaked clothes and left the sopping shoes at the door.  I needed a shower.  I was covered with mud thanks for the fact that I have no grass and so the dirt had flooded onto the driveway with the water.  I took a quick shower and crawled into bed for a few last hours of sleep.

The next morning after my appointment (which I had walked to) I opened the garage to discover that the water inside had completely receded.  But it had left a a wet muddy mess in its place.  I pulled the car back onto the now drying driveway.  Thankfully, the rain had stopped. 

I spent the majority of the day dragging wet cardboard to the curb and trying to dry things out and clean up the mud.  My back was not thanking me for my efforts.  It took three days for the garage to dry out completely.  Then came the task of moving everything back into it from the basement.

Thank God for Helpful Neighbors

I began moving things back into the garage but the fridge was blocking the way of moving anything large.  I could not budge it an inch.  I have no idea how I moved it in the first place.  I needed help.  With Hubby gone I wasn't sure who to ask.  I finally opted for my next door neighbor.  The neighbor across the street had essentially shut the door in my face when I had gone to bring over a batch of congo bars to welcome them to the neighborhood but thankful the couple next door is really nice.

I knew the soldier's wife was on a trip away from home and I felt bad asking for his help but I didn't know anyone else who I felt could help me move my ridiculously heavy fridge.  I sheepishly knocked on the door and asked if he would mind giving me a hand.  A bit to my surprise he enthusiastically ran out to help.  He didn't even hesitate.  God bless him.  He helped me move the fridge back, although he admitted it was heavy and even offered to help me with everything else.  I took him up on the offer to move a few of the heavier boxes and thanked him several times.  I brought him a plate of cookies the following day. 

It wasn't until a few weeks later that I felt confident enough to plug the fridge in to see if it still worked.  Thank goodness it does. 

Crisis averted I hoped that would be the worst thing I would have to deal with for awhile.  Unfortunately a week later the garage had water again.  At least this time it only made it a few feet inside so it didn't get anything important wet a second time.

Fire

After the flooding issues I had pretty much had it and wanted to hide out from everyone.  I just didn't feel like being social.  I was relaxing on the couch one night watching TV when all of the sudden, I smelled something burning.  It smelled like burnt pizza.  It was 11:30pm.  I hadn't even used the stove to cook dinner.  I searched the entire house including the basement and garage for the source of what I assumed had to be a fire.  Everything seemed normal.  In an effort not to freak out I called May.  I am so thankful to have her.  Who else could I call at absurd hours of the night?  She told me to call the housing office and have them come out to look at it.  Something  burning it not something to mess around with and I agreed with her.

In an effort NOT to bore you to tears I'll make a long story shorter and tell you that I spent at least an hour on the phone trying to get a hold of somebody and then it took an hour or so for that somebody to come out to my house.  Needless to say it was 2:30 by the time the guy had left my house... He couldn't even find anything wrong.  Fortunately the smell has dissipated and I felt OK knowing that he had checked  everywhere.  At least he had smelled it too when he arrived so I knew I wasn't crazy.  He told me it had probably been cause by the fog.  Fog causes burning smells? 

People Who Know Nothing

A few days later I was trying to gather our tax paperwork.  After going through it with Hubby we figured out that we were just missing two documents and that both happen to be from companies that he used to have student loans with; loans that we had paid off last year and should be getting a tax deduction for.  Hubby had called both of these companies while he was home on leave to request the appropriate forms but I wasn't surprised that they had not followed through.  Feeling bad that Hubby has little time to deal with this stuff and because of the time difference overseas, I offered to call the companies to request the forms again.

One company had an automatic request system. No problem.

The second company however was less than helpful.  The first representative told me that my husband was nowhere to be found in the system and that I must have the wrong number.  Taking a deep breath I told her that this number was on every single statement and letter that we have concerning this particular loan including the letter we received to confirm that the account had been paid off.  She asked me if I was sure.  No, I thought to myself, I'm just looking at it.  I read her what the letterhead said but she still insisted our account did not exist as a past or present customer.  I asked to speak to another representative.  The jerky woman who clearly knew nothing informed me that I could but they all work from the same system.  She then put me on hold... for 20 minutes.

I was getting more than annoyed. I  hung up and called back.  This time I got a different representative.  This woman could not find us in the system either but after putting me on hold twice and having me give her our information time and time again she finally found the records.  I had been on the phone for over 45 minutes.  I then asked her if she could please send us the required tax form.  She informed me that she couldn't because I was not authorized to do anything on the account.  Seriously?  I didn't even ask for any info.  I PROVIDED all of the info.  All I wanted was for a tax form to be sent to the address they already had on file.  She told me that if I faxed a copy of my POA that I could call back in a week or two to request the form again.  It's a good thing that I wasn't taking to her in person.  I might have decked her one. 

Poor hubby had to call because I was to pissed to deal with the situation and did not want to wait two weeks just to "request" the form.  He was told that we have to wait a minimum of 17 days just for the request to be processed. 

So, in conclusion...  it has been a rough month.  Did I mention that the DVD player in my bedroom stopped working and the TV in our living room seems to be on the blink?  Sigh... hurry home Hubby.  I miss you :(

I Should Have Stayed In Bed

Today is one of those days when I would have been better off staying in bed.  I didn't fall asleep until one am last night mostly due to my own fault but I wasn't too worried because I didn't have to be up early today.  The first thing on my schedule was a dentist appointment at noon.  I figured I could sleep in till 9 and then get up and get ready.  Life had other plans.

I was woken up at 8:30 by my phone ringing.  It was the sub line.  I am a substitute teacher so it is not normally unusual for me to get calls in the morning to get called into work.  However it was unexpected today because today was the first day of school.  Who calls in sick on the very first day?!  Obviously due to my dentist appointment I had to decline the job but I could not fall back asleep even though I felt exhausted.

When I finally dragged myself out of bed I found myself running behind.  I hurried to get ready and dashed out the door.  Just my luck the drive to my appointment took considerably longer than I expected due to two accidents and a funeral procession.  Go figure.  When I finally arrived running about ten minutes late I parked the car and hurried into the building only to discover that they were running even further behind than me.  At first I was relieved because it meant that I wasn't really "late" anymore however after sitting in the waiting room for half an hour... nearly 45 minutes after my appointment time I began to get frustrated.  The visit only lasted ten minutes as they were just checking on the work they had done previously and I left the office. 

When I got home I decided to tackle the next task on my to do list for the day. - Call Time Warner Cable-  My Internet has been acting up and has been choosing to disconnect and not allow me to reconnect right when I am in the middle of talking to my husband.  Can you say annoying and frustrating?  I had already spoken to a tech on Friday night and he had told me that someone would need to come out to check my modem but I wasn't ready to schedule the appointment at 10pm so I told him I would call on Monday.  Today I instantly regretted that choice.  It took me 45 minutes of arguing and three supervisors to convince the TWC people that my router is not the problem and that a visit from a tech is indeed required.  When I got off the phone I was more than a little annoyed.

Feeling irritated but trying to turn the day around I decided to do some laundry.  The next hour or so went by smoothly but then dinner hour rolled in and I decided it was time to start cooking.  I wanted to make pasta so I went to the sink and turned on the water to fill up a pot.  Only problem? When I turned on the faucet the only water that came out was in a thin dribble even though I had turned the faucet on full blast.  Seriously? I thought, you have to be kidding.  I called the maintenance line hoping to hear that they were working on the water and that it would be turned back on shortly.  No such luck.  They agreed to send someone out to look at it.  While I waited I decided that it might be a good idea to check out my basement to see if there was any water there.  I was concerned that maybe a pipe had broken.  Sure enough my basement was full of water.  We have boxes down there and all of them are soaked.  This was around 6:40pm.

To make a long story slightly shorter a repair guy did eventually show up and two problems were discovered. 1) A major water main break down the street and 2) The sub pump (sp?) in our basement had been improperly installed and was spewing gallons of water into our basement.  I have one word to describe this.  AWESOME.  NOT. 

It is now 11:22pm.  The basement issue has not been fixed and the repair guys need to come back sometime this week to work on it.  I have not even attempted yet to deal with my soggy boxes.  At this point I decided that is a project for tomorrow.  I also am still without water.  It was supposed to be fixed hours ago but I just called for a status update and was told that it is going to be another 4-6 hours.  It's a good thing I am going to bed soon because I cannot even flush my toilets.  I can only hope that it is fixed by morning.  Ellie called me to offer that I could stay at her place for the night but I figured the water would be on soon.  It was really sweet of her to offer.  She pretty much made my night.  Well she and my husband who patiently listened to me tel him everything that had gone wrong. I am enjoying some brownies that Ellie gave me yesterday and a Mikes hard lemonade though.  Somehow these two small luxuries make all of today's disasters seem not so bad. 

I know that God will never give me more than I can handle but man I was really wishing my husband was here today to help me with everything.  I am not looking forward to cleaning up soggy boxes and dealing with the TWC tech tomorrow but hopefully everything will work out.

Peaches

Today my best friend May invited me to go peach picking with her family.  I was really excited to go with them and was excited by the idea of picking my own peaches.  We were also considering the idea of stopping at a wild flower farm which was close to the peach farm that we had chosen.  The area where the peach farm was located was home to several other peach farms as well and May had called around yesterday to try to find out the best place to go. Her first choice was labeled as "by appointment only" and she tried multiple times to call them but to no avail.  Her second choice had posted on their website that they were low on peaches and advised customers not to come.  So we had picked place three and planned our trip.

We left around 9am to trek out to the peach farm about an hour and a half away.  Two hours later we thought we had found the place where the peach farm should have been but after driving up and down the same stretch of highway at least three times we had to admit that we were completely and utterly lost in the middle of nowhere.  To make matters worse we were all also in desperate need of a bathroom.  Thinking that the wild flower farm was only a little farther down the same road we drove another half hour trying to figure out where in the world we were.  We had not brought my GPS device as May had decided we didn't need it and had said that "getting lost was part of the adventure."  Her poor hubby was driving the car and seemed to be bordering on the edge of losing his patience.  Their five year old wanted to know why we hadn't found peaches yet and their 4 month old baby was starting to get hungry.  We tried to look up directions on May's phone but of course she had no Internet service.

Finally we found a small shop that said Library and Resale and did not look totally sketchy.  We decided that this might be an OK place to use the restroom and feed the baby.  Out of desperation to find out where in the world we were and where we were supposed to be going I decided to call my younger sister for a favor.  I barely had any bars on my phone since we were literally out in the middle of no where but managed to get a call out to her.  When she picked up the phone I asked her if by any chance she was home and near a computer.  We were in luck.  Even though she lives literally several states away she logged onto her computer and called up google maps to find out where we were.  Twenty minutes later she informed us that we had literally driven an hour and half in the wrong direction.  If we had only driven the opposite way we would have found all of the farms and the wildflower farm.  Thank God for little sisters who are willing to help a big sister out!  She gave us directions via text messages so that we could follow them and good naturedly told us to let her know if we needed her to google us home. 

We all used the restroom and May bought a few items in the shop.  By this time we were starving so following my sister's directions we got back on the highway and started back towards the peach farm.  We stopped when we got to the main town for lunch which proved to be interesting since May was allergic to practically everything on the menu.  Poor May. She ended up eating bread and cheese.

After lunch we piled back into the car and continued our trek.  Finally we began to see peach farms.  First we passed May's first choice farm (the one that had not answered the phone to make an appointment) but we continued on.  A short while later we FINALLY arrived at the peach farm that we had originally intended to visit (choice 3).  Only problem was they didn't look like they were letting anyone pick the peaches.  It looked like they were only selling them.  May and I looked at each other and sent her hubby out to check on the situation.  He spent over five minutes talking to the clerk at the stand and May and I could tell that the news was not going to be good.  He finally came back to the car holding a pamphlet about peach farms containing a map.  "You guys are not going to believe this" he said.  "They were letting people pick peaches last week but just this week they bulldozed their peach orchard so that they could plant new trees."  May and I looked at him with disbelief.  "THEY BULLDOZED THEIR ORCHARD?"  What are the odds?  not only that, but the clerk had informed May's hubby that our first choice farm had not been allowing customers to pick their own peaches for several years.  Go figure.  2-2 This was not going well.  

We started the car back up disappointed but not totally crushed because we had been told that choice 2 farm was still allowing pick your own peaches and we had also passed the wildflower farm on the way to farm 3 so we were excited to go there.  While May's hubby drove to the wildflower farm May called peach farm 2 to see if they really were running low on peaches as their website had claimed.    She was told that they did have some peaches but not a ton.  The pamphlet given to us by farm 3 told us that farm 2 was open until 6pm so we decided to stop at the wildflower farm first and then go there on the way home.

bellinis and Alex, May's five year old had some peach ice cream. 

An hour or so later our spirits were renewed and we got back in the car to visit the last peach farm before they closed.  After all we still wanted peaches since that had been our original plan.  Following the map from the pamphlet we made our way.  At 4:50pm we arrived at the peach farm.  But guess what?  The farm was closing... in two minutes.  I couldn't believe our luck.  The farm's owner informed us that they had not been open until 6pm for several years and that the info on the pamphlet was far out of date.  3-3.  I couldn't believe it.

Fully disappointed we piled back into the car for the last time and headed towards home.  The baby seemed to sense our frustration and began to fuss.  Alex fell asleep and May, her husband, and I commiserated on our bad luck.  I mean seriously... what are the odds? We finally arrived home around 6pm.  Although our quest for peaches was a complete and total bust we agreed to consider the day a good one since the wildflower farm had been fun and since we had really enjoyed each other's company.  May's husband wants to retry farm 2 that had been closing when we arrived next weekend but May and I are not yet sure if we are up for Quest for Peaches 2.0.  After all... even though picking your own is fun... the grocery store sells peaches for 88 cents a pound with no long disappointing trek required.