While the clean-up continues following our little adventures in flooding, at least we've been provided with an easy way to dispose of our water damaged items. The city of Ottawa is picking up all water damaged items at no charge. Free is everybody's favorite price.
I mentioned yesterday that the only real damage was to our remnant carpeting, and the DSL modem. I neglected to mention that our printer also suffered at the hands of the rising waters and will have to be replaced. As we were hauling things to the curb, I realized that I had forgotten about the ottoman, chair, entertainment center, small shelving units, and a few boxes that are beyond saving.
It's been five days since we cleaned up the basement, and some of the carpeting is still wet. In fact, you can see it starting to leak onto the curb in the photos. Ah well, now it's all someone else's problem.
At least this experience gives us the excuse to finally finish remodeling the basement. Ahhhh, the joys of home ownership.
I woke up Friday morning, went downstairs to let the dogs outside, where I saw our our 15 year old neighbor in his backyard. This is not that unusual (he lives there, after all), but he didn't look like he was ready for school. I asked him what was up and he told me that due to rising flood waters (check local listings), school had been cancelled. He then informed me that he was helping his parents get rid of the water that had seeped into their basement from the 3 1/2 inches of rain we had gotten the night before. After making sure there was nothing we could do to help, I went back inside and relayed the story to Jen. She promptly asked me if I had checked out basement. My reaction? "We have a sump pump. I'm sure we don't have water."
Famous last words...
When I went to the basement, sure enough, all the carpeting was soaked. Thankfully, there was no standing water, and nothing of dire importance was ruined, but it really put a crimp in my plans to spend a relaxing day finishing our book for book club that night. I spent the next seven hours cutting up the remnant carpeting in the basement, moving furniture out to the garage, using the shopvac, and moving fans around to help the drying process.
For one heart-stopping moment, we realized the our computer's CPU had been sitting on the floor under Jen's desk, and so had been exposed to the water. Luckily, when I carried the computer upstairs and plugged it in, everything worked. The only causualty was our DSL modem. Hence, the absence of posts on the blog, and the free reign that some people (mrs.) have had while playing our trivia. As you can clearly see, the new DSL modem showed up today, and we're up and running.
In addition to the excitement of my birthday and water in the basement, I was thrilled to have author (and friend of this blog) J.A. Konrath in my store on Saturday. We had a decent turnout for his book signing, selling quite a few copies and making it a good day. J.A. and I then met Jen and Peanut for dinner and beers, and we had a great time at Grotto's. (J.A., if you're reading this, thanks again for dinner and introducing me to Banana99. I think.) I can't stress this enough: if you get a chance to meet J.A. Konrath, take it. It'd be tough to find a nicer, funnier guy. And he's nearly famous, so he's got that going for him.
We wrapped the weekend up by having dinner with my mom and Maria on Sunday evening. It was great to see them and I know they had fun getting to see Peanut in action.
Well, that's it. Relaxation, panic, hard work, laughs, drinking, great food, and great company. What a weekend.
