Week 26 - Such an Idiot!

Have you heard about the weather here? The week started out beautiful, nice enough that we knitted outside at Heidi’s on Monday, but by the end of the week it was blazing humidity and storm after storm. Between Wednesday night and Friday morning, we had nearly 2.5” of rain. Of course this meant water in my basement, which completely killed my weekend. Summer in Nebraska!

More about the rain later but now to talk about some fun, yarny moments. I was having a frustrating afternoon on Monday. My co-worker was peppering me with questions and I could not take it another minute so left work ten minutes early for some retail yarn therapy at Yarn Charm. Boy was I ready to buy! I got another $32 skein of Zen Yarn Garden sock yarn plus 2 more skeins. Then on Wednesday I stopped at the loathsome Yarn Shop in south Lincoln after picking my car up at Honda (door lock fixed – yay!) just to see if there’d been any change. There is usually a clique of retired woman at the front table who comment on everything and the clerks often follow you around as if you’re going to steal something but the table was empty and the two clerks were involved in a discussion of their own so it wasn’t unpleasant. Luckily they have a piss poor selection of sock yarn but I still found one that was a good price. All this was a prelude to Friday.

I had sent Anne a craigslist posting for someone who had trash bags of yarn for sale for $20 each. The ad said they had to be gone by Friday so when Anne called, I suggested she offer for $100 for everything – 9 bags. Since I had already planned to take the afternoon off to start dealing with the basement, I agreed to go with her to pick them up. We filled her Honda Pilot and then spent an hour going through all the bags. Check it out! In all those bags there were only 3 skeins of sock yarn so I took those and some wool for felting. Most of it was acrylic for Anne and her mom to knit mittens with, which worked for me. It was fun sorting though – like a yarn treasure hunt.

Then it was home to deal with the basement. I had already stopped at Menard’s for supplies so was ready to rock and roll. The first stop was to check the downspouts, which I hadn’t thought to do when it flooded last time, chalking it up to the 5” of rain in 2 hours. Well, I’m an idiot! The corner that floods is right by the downspout that’s under my huge yew. Yup, the extender to move the water 4 feet out from the downspout wasn’t attached. Damn! That fixed, I headed downstairs.

The top two shelves of the linen shelf had come down sometime before the last flood so I’d moved those back then. What I didn’t realize was some linens had fallen down behind the shelves and were in contact with the floor so were wicking the moisture up into the linens. They’d been wet for months, which I only discovered when I moved everything. Lots of vintage linens went right into the trash. Most of the rest needed washing. I didn’t stop until all the linens were sorted and all the shelves were down. Step 1. I went upstairs intending to sit but it was pretty cool outside so I decided to mow myself, which I haven’t done in a couple of years. The grass was tall where Devin (the kid next door who does a marginal job) hadn’t mown and wet in places but my yard got the best mow it’s had in years. Only then did I shower and sit. What a long day!

Saturday morning was dark and rainy again so I started laundry (I had baskets of wet linens everywhere before the weather broke) and slogged through tons of paper, including opening the mail that came when I was in France. By the time I was done, the desk was a good as it gets (need to work on that) and the bar was clear. The rest of the house seemed to have laundry everywhere. I started hanging as soon as the weather cleared and was still hanging laundry on the line at 11:30 p.m. in hopes that some would dry overnight.

I slept late on Sunday (I wonder why!) but stripped the bed and had the sheets in the washer before I sat down for breakfast. I had been watching the weather and was hoping for some clearing. I pulled in 4 lines of sheets just before another downpour but then it did clear and I spent the afternoon finishing hanging the laundry. Some linen disintegrated in the wash so more hit the trash. Bummer.

I was down to the last loads by mid-afternoon and since I’d been dripping with sweat for most of the day, hot tea wasn’t going to cut it so I decided to go to the gas station for a fountain diet coke. I went to open the car door and it was slightly ajar and the battery was dead. Seriously, I didn’t need this! I called AAA and did go out after they left, driving 6 miles west to that gas station to help charge the battery. That diet coke was heavenly!

So, I never got any cooking done but by the end of the day Sunday, the corner was dry. Did I mention that my dehumidifier crapped out last week? Squeegeeing and fans did the trick. My fear is that there’s water under the totes on the other wall. It shouldn’t have affected the linens inside but it’ll still need drying. Oh well, next weekend after the cookout. I still have that to prep for too. It’s always something.