Truth is stranger than fiction, so the quote goes, and the last few weeks have been a testament to that!
When we last left our struggling author, she was spewing about the many projects taking up her time. (We’ll get to those in a moment.)
But first, the week before Thanksgiving my 9 year old was ill for about a week with what we all thought was a stomach bug. He just had an upset stomach and a low grade fever that would spike then go down. It lasted three days, then went away. He went to school, was fine, then the following day, not well again. We took him to the doc where we found out he had appendicitis. Oh joy. My weekend was spent in the hospital with my son and the removal of said appendix. Good times.
Two weeks at home to recover. (Goodbye writing time.) But, surely things would get better now, right? Wrong!
The next chapter in the insanity that has been the last few weeks, all began on a dark and stormy night (not really, but it’s funner this way). Jen (my roommate) was upstairs draining a bath, while I was in the room I rent in the basement below, watching my kids drift off into Never Neverland. When all of a sudden, there came such a splatter, I sprang to my feet to see what was the matter (see what I did there? huh, huh, did ya?) Opening the door that connects the room that I rent to the laundry room, I saw something no homeowner ever wants to see. Water. Lots of it, bursting from the seams of her pipes.
As urgently, and as quietly (remember, sleeping kids) I flew up the stairs to tell her of the catastrophe happening below. Grabbing towels fresh from the dryer, we started moping up the puddles that were dripping REALLY close to electrical outlets, unplugged what we could, and turned off the water (and of course, woke the kids in the process. Naturally.) We were now left with no water at 9 o’clock at night. Which also meant no toilet. There may, or may not, be a bucket that has since had to be thrown out.
Jen left for work the next day where she called a plummer. I was at home with my son who was happily vegging on the couch) Just as my fingers got on the keyboard, the plummer showed up. After puttering with the pipes for a bit he told us it wasn’t an issue that he could fix. The problem went deeper. Oh yes, my friends, we’re talking Septic Tank deep.
Taking a deep breath, I prepared to call Jen and tell her the joyous news. But first, let’s click that heat on. It’s getting a little chilly in here. Um….wait a minute. Why isn’t the heat coming on?
Back down the stairs I trot into the basement to see what was going on, cause, I’m a mechanic you see. I first checked the emergency switches to make sure those were fine. All good there. That wasn’t the issue. There was, however, a large amount of black soot along one of the pipes and, what’s this… a piece of metal that once used to live on the furnace is now half way across the room. That can’t be good.
Two hours later, the Septic crew AND the heat crew show up…at the same time, naturally. A large hole is craved out of her yard where the guy finds the issue. The pump isn’t working. The circuit tripped. Probably at least three days ago…during that power outage perhaps. Oy. Pump start again once reset, and the water level went back to normal. Phew. Heat guy had to stay the whole day to fix whatever exploded in the furnace.
Today, we have heat and water, and I have BOTH kids home. Boy is still on his mandatory time off, and my daughter has no school because there is no water at her school. The hits just keep on coming.
Needless to say, I did NOT win nanowrimo this year. Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhh. I only got to 21,279. Sigh. I did, however, get my story done for the paranormal anthology, and will let you know when that comes out (it will be FREE by the way) and I have been working with Amy Miles on our book, so all in all not a loss. Amongst the chaos that was November, I still find I have much to be thankful for.
Danielle Bannister, Author
Danielle Bannister, Author 