Lord, have mercy...

My friend Caryl wrote about Spring on her blog.  An artist, that means another spring, summer, and fall of beautiful photographs.  Also it means many tales from her garden.  Spring means getting another chapter in her book ... or a sequel to a really great story.

So, in honor of her, I went looking for signs of Spring in my yard.

The rock river is "running" again.  In fact, I might actually have all of my yard back before the beginning of April.  Maybe.  Possibly.

The weeping cherry tree, despite being buried in the snow pack has budded.

The daffodils are peeking up through the mulch.

The tulips have a head start.  And, surprisingly to me, the thyme thrived being buried under snow for months on end.  The grass ... well ... no photos of that yet.  It is rather stressed.

The ornamental magnolia tree is also preparing to bloom.  Perhaps ... for once ... the Indiana Spring rains will not prematurely rip the blossoms from the branches.

But chasing down photos for Caryl was not really enough to distract me from the lingering thoughts and feelings from the sonogram.  So, given that the back door wouldn't close on Thursday night, I decided to tackle the problem.

I sanded down the edge of the door back to the original wood.  Tackling the top third of the door took three times as long as the other two thirds.  It had layers and layers and layers of paint.  But, when I was finished, the door closed easily.

That top little deadbolt is the one I like to use ... the one Becky figured out for me:  left-to-lock.  Next, I primed it.

And I painted it.

I know, the primed version and the painted version do not really look different.  I only painted a single coat because I wanted to see how the door closes during the wet weather coming our way.  Eventually.  If you look at the door today, you will see one small spot of rubbing.  I might sand that down more, if it becomes bothersome.  For now, I no longer need to slam the door to get it to close.  This is a task I have put off since I bought the house.

So, last evening, I was bloody exhausted.
Only the thoughts and feelings still plagued me.
I decided to cook.

The problem was that my meat for the two dishes (curry and pulled pork) that I wanted to make was frozen.  First, I had the brilliant idea built a fire to thaw the meat.  Whilst I have clearly mastered building a green wood fire, the outer part of the chicken started cooking, even though most of it was still frozen rock hard.  I fail at trying to defrost meat in the microwave or using hot water.  But my friend Celia said that cold water could work.  Desperate to have something to distract myself, I put the chicken in the sink and turned on the cold water.  Since the ground water is extremely cold, I turned on some hot water, thinking to create a tepid mixture.

Only running water engenders the urge to tend to my own personal business.
I did.
Then I went to rest in the GREEN chair for a while, watching an episode of a BBC show.

I forgot.  I forgot that I had turned on the water.  I forgot that I was letting the sink fill.  When the episode was over, though I was still chatting online with Celia, I went to get a drink.  And found a river cascading across the counter, filling the lower cabinet, running across the floor, and falling down into the basement, via both the steps and the wall.  Yes, I flooded my own house.  SIGH.

I remain truly despondent over the flood.  I have tried to talk to all three doctors about how little short term memory I have, how much blankness there is in my mind.  I literally had no recollection of turning on the water in the sink.  Actually, even after finding the flood, I still could not remember the moment of starting to fill the sink.

I broke down.
I called Marie, wanting her to race over but refusing to ask.
I practically died of embarrassment when Michelle walked back into the house as I was frantically trying to stop the spread of the water.

Showing great mercy, even though it was late and she had an early service in the morning, Michelle helped me sop up water and she washed all the things on her counter that had gotten soaked with cool soot water.  Yes, the history of this house made the clean-up harder.

I stayed awake all night, working to save the lower cabinet, once a frenetic call to my mother, an interior designer, since both the drawers and the interior base of the cabinet were filled with water.  Everything in them also needed to be cleaned.  And since nearly every towel and a few sheets in the house were sopping with soot water, I had loads and loads and loads of laundry.  Eight of them, if you include my sheets and a few things I threw in to make up the final load.

It's amazing how much fits into those four drawers.  Everything in a box, or rather, every box was ruined, including the boxes beneath the sink itself.  Try figuring out how to store the contents of three sizes of ziploc baggies without a box to hold them.

I was so very worried, in removing the drawers, I would ruin the automatic closure feature, but they still work.  I cannot imagine the mess standing water on the melamine base would have made had I (or rather Michelle) been able to wipe it out and then let the box fan dry out the grout and all the water I couldn't quite see.

You can see that I was, before flooding my own home, in the middle of making naan, which finished rising in the middle of my frenetic mitigation of the flood damage.  Yes, I managed to save the double batch of naan, too.

The old carpet treads on the basement steps are still wet.  I need to replace them (and paint the steps in the process since the steps were painted around the make-shift treads).  One of my biggest fears was that water poured down and around and beneath the new standing freezer.  However, it seems to be fine.  The utility closet is still the wettest, so, after spending the day with the box fan in the laundry area, I have it set up in there.

I was up all night, working on cleaning up.
I should not be on my feet for more than a short while.
I should definitely not be up all night.

After getting a few hours sleep, I had the first meal in 24 hours and set about groaning ... and moaning.  Never—in all my home improvement projects—have I been in as much physical agony as I am in now.  I have been up and down a bit, helping Michelle with her cooking projects, making a fire, and folding the final load of laundry.  My inclination is to not move for weeks on end, but I think moving a bit helped.  Besides, I have to go fetch another bottle of erythromycin on the morrow.

The hardest part, other than toting up the costs for this fiasco (including all the extra utilities expended in the past 24 hours), is knowing this is yet another example of how my brain is changing.  And it is utterly discouraging.

My mother actually had a good suggestion, even though I did not take it very well.  She said that I should get a mechanical egg timer and set it for a short amount of time any time that I am doing something in the kitchen and plan on leaving it, such as to go to the bathroom.  That way, if I forget that I was working in the kitchen, I would be reminded when the timer went off.

But I don't want to need a mechanical timer.
I want to be able to remember.
I cannot.

The good thing is that, if I cannot get the dividing wall between the utility closet and the laundry room dry, I believe Firewood Man can replace it rather easily.  After all, it is a faux wall, a wall of old, thin, plywood.  Thankfully, Michelle's coffee maker seems to have survived.  So, I was rather fortunate, blessed even.  Yes, I am in a great amount of pain, but I did not manage to ruin my home.  I pray that I do not.  I worry that I will.  Eventually.

Lord, have mercy.
Christ, have mercy.
Lord, have mercy.


I am Yours, Lord.  Save me!