Distraction

So, Robin says she’s missed my posts. Me, too. We flipped through my sketchbook and realized that I’m really behind posting sketches, for sure. There have been distractions, some good, some not so good.

Right now, I’m dealing with this:

A few weeks ago, I got home from school, late, late at night to a high-pitched screeching water pipe sound. My kitchen was under an inch of water (“Oh, this is great”), water had flowed through half the living room and had made its way to the front door.

All I could think was, “Gee, good thing it wasn’t the toilet that backed up”.

And then, “Oh, whew. My portfolio wasn’t on the floor (like it normally is)”

At 1:30 in the morning, the emergency water guys finally showed up, pulled up the carpet, removed the sopping wet padding, cut holes along the bottom of the walls to remove the wet drywall and open up walls, set up huge industrial blowers and humidifiers. And put up this lovely caution tape, like anyone would want to wander through. Um, I’m thinking that’s a “no”. And they turned the blowers on and left my place to dry. For a couple of days. My place was hot (90 degrees), windy and very dry for about three or four days. Yeah, I hear you, you’re thinking, “At least it’s a dry heat”.

Fehhh.

I had to rescue my stuff from the water, or had to move away all the stuff in the living room bookshelves in order to allow the guys access to the walls while they were cutting holes. All that, plus stuff from the computer room closet and some of the kitchen stuff - - it’s all in my bedroom, transported one harried armful at a time. The emergency water repair guys said they could bring boxes for me to pack my stuff and bring along extra help, but when it came time to having to give them access to cut holes in walls, did they deliver these boxes and help? Uh, no.

So, after all these contractors that my landlord is having check out the scope of work, I’m wondering, wearily - How long will it take for the construction to start? Patching up drywall, sanding (egh), painting, putting a new cabinet under the kitchen sink, putting back the carpet pad? I’m thinking of completely repacking my books and art stuff and all the other stuff… until this is all over. You know how much I hate to pack. Shucks, and unpacking was even harder to get to. The place was just starting to feel settled-in. It makes me sad and sick to have to think about packing everything up again, take that step backward. It’s making me cranky to have all this stuff piled randomly in my bedroom.

Did I mention? I had to pull a bunch'a stuff down from the (real) fridge door, too, to save them from a watery or windy death. And you know how strongly I feel about being able to have all these comforting snippets posted up on my fridge door..

Sigh.

So, yeah, I need to scan sketches and post them, along with a few photographs from the past month. But, I need to get to de-cluttering the place more than anything else. Stay tuned.

update, June 8:
My landlord has had his own contractors come in and they say they'll have to replace all the lower kitchen cabinets, not just the one under the sink, and I came home to the linoleum floor removed, with more blowers and dehumidifiers running. I thought, "Well!". It's like something new every other day to discover when I get home. Landlord says that the kitchen might be out of commission for a couple weeks, a month? A month? My kitchen, too? So this means that other than most of my computer stuff and my clothes and my bed, really, most of my stuff will be best off packed away?

Oh man. What about the 'Summer of Wendee'?

[big sigh]