After everything being fine for about a week and a half, the latter half of this week (well, really Thursday, Friday, and a bit yesterday/last night) we got a good amount of rain -- almost an inch or so of measurable rainfall. It was also in the 60s and low 70s for the past few days until today, so all of the remaining snow still left over from Q and Rocky melted off. This once more equates to a ton of water in the ground and in the city drainage system, and again equated to my basement flooding this afternoon from the same floor drain under my washer when I did a load of laundry. Again, more mud was involved -- though not as much as before, gladly -- and I know it's not in my own plumbing but in the drainage system outside the house itself (as evidenced by the fact that the occasional leaf, seed/pebble, and/or bird feather (yes, feathers) will come up through the drain. None of that stuff's in my system; that's backing up from the drainage system outside. Sigh.
Once more I broke out all my towels, fan, and dehumidifier to dry up the basement. I really should invest in a good wet/dry shop-vac. The bad thing is now I have a stuffed hamper full of clothing that I'll have to wash very, very slowly over the next few days/weeks, and keep an eye on the drain. It's supposed to be really warm and dry this week -- temperatures could reach 75 or so for the first time this year -- so I'm really hoping that drain field dries up and I can actually, y'know, use my washer like I always have in the past. I'm not completely convinced, however, that there's not some sort of muddy clog at the end of the line somewhere, since it's now backed up twice in the past several weeks. There's suddenly a lot more water in the ground, yes, than there has been in quite some time, but still. I'm considering getting a few bottles of that foaming pipe snake stuff and just pouring it down the drain before I run any more laundry to see if that helps. It's not causing damage or anything, it's just a huge pain in the ass when it backs up and overflows. And it is draining, which means it's not a blocked pipe or anything -- it's just draining so slowly that the washer's drain cycle overflows it when that much water is pumped into it. My washer probably uses about 10-15 gallons of water per load -- it's not a high-efficiency machine or anything; it's probably almost as old as I am. My ex's mother got it off Craigslist four years ago. It also probably didn't help that I ran the dishwasher beforehand, either, even though I'm pretty sure it doesn't drain the same way as the washer does.
It's actually been a day of bad luck for not only me, but Daisy as well. Let me further explain.
On Friday, I told Daisy that it looked like she was going to get some snow in Omaha today, and that said snow may snarl her trip home this afternoon. Mind you, on Friday it was almost sixty degrees here, and snow seemed like a really strange thing to be warning Daisy about at that time, but the weather people in Omaha were calling for it, so I wanted to tell her ahead of time. It didn't look bad -- they were calling for 2-4 inches, which isn't really much at all, and we weren't supposed to get anything here -- it was supposed to rain a bit here in Newton, that was about it. I asked her then if she wanted to go home on Saturday afternoon/night instead of Sunday (read: today) so that she could beat it home, but she refused; she's good at driving in snow, and 2-4 inches is nothing. Unless there's a thick coating of ice under it or something along those lines, even I could get to campus and back in the Monte Carlo with no issue in 2-4 inches of snow. It might take a little longer, yes, but even I have driven in that much snow before. I've driven that thing in eight or nine inches of snow (as you may recall the aftermath of Q, before Rocky hit), and have gone back and forth to campus in about four or five inches before. Daisy's car is much better in snow than mine is, so she wasn't worried about it. By the time we'd gone to bed last night, the weather people were predicting yesterday's occasional rain to have turned over to a light snow for this area, with a trace to an inch accumulation possible. I shrugged that off, as we'd gone out yesterday afternoon for a bit and it was 55 degrees -- I wore shorts, even, for the first time this year. By the evening, the skies were clearing up. We were both tired, however, and decided to stay home and forego my colleague's birthday party (I sent her a message of apologies and told her I'd hoped it was fun). I showed Daisy the rest of the Holy Trilogy (more on that later) and cooked us dinner.
I got up early this morning, around 8:30 -- long before Daisy would rise -- and found that no, it hadn't snowed (or, by the looks of it, had done anything) here. The temperature had dropped by twenty degrees, yes, but it hadn't snowed or rained any more; the ground was dry. I came upstairs and made coffee, checking the weather for Daisy's trip, as that would dictate when I would wake her up and say something along the lines of "hey baby, you'd better get ready if you want to beat the snow."
This was a moot point -- by 9AM, it was already snowing in Omaha, as well as all over the northeastern quadrant of Kansas. I checked her forecast. They'd upped the snow totals to 3-5 inches, but even that wasn't that much of a concern, and since it was already snowing, there wasn't a lot she could do about it -- she had to go home today, as she starts her job tomorrow morning at 8AM sharp. I awakened her a bit later and told her the news.
"Eh, oh well," she said. "It'll be fine. I'll be okay."
We had breakfast and spent some cuddle time together in bed with the cats before I helped her pack everything up and she left for home. She left here around 1:30 or so. I told her to be very careful, as she'd run into the snow about two hours into her drive (and her drive is about six hours long, give or take).
A few minutes after she left, she sent me this message:
Fyi: My gps says it'll take another hour to get home.
Hm. That's interesting. Her GPS is part of her phone; it plots the fastest route, though at this point she pretty much knows how to get here and back -- she simply uses it as a backup guide. I sent her this message for more clarification:
An hour extra or...?
She didn't reply; she was driving, and I didn't expect her to reply until she stopped for gas or for something to eat someplace, so I busied myself with getting something to eat, and taking care of the household chores that I'd been putting off while she was here over the weekend -- the dishes and laundry. You, ahem, already know how that went. When the drain flooded in the basement again, I was down there for a while cleaning up and monitoring the situation. In the meanwhile, I tried to push out of my mind the fact that Daisy was apparently driving into a snowstorm. I didn't know what the "another hour" thing meant, though I would later find out.
I came back upstairs a bit later, after the waters had receded (no kidding) and checked my computer. No new messages, and she hadn't even seen the last one I'd sent yet. Okay. Again, driving. So I opened up a game on my computer, as this weekend is really the last bit of time I'll have to relax for a bit, and played it for a while. I turned it off to see this:
6:10 PM: *sigh* it's going to be more than that. 80 is closed and I'm stuck in York, trying to find another way home.
Followed by this:
7:05 PM: And I'm stranded. Roads are terrible and all the hotels are booked.
...what the hell?
It was 7:12 PM when I read the messages. She'd just sent the last one. I went into crisis mode.
I-80 east is what Daisy takes to get to Omaha. She goes north from here until she hits York, Nebraska -- a decent-sized little town that's about the three-quarter-way point between here and there, and then from York gets on 80 east, which takes her directly to Omaha in about two hours, give or take. It's sort of an upside-down letter L from here to there.
I-80, for those of you unaware, is also a major interstate highway. And, apparently, the snowstorm she was driving through was bad enough to close it. Close it down. Seriously. This was bad news. Mind you, Daisy should've been home already by 7:12, which tells me how slowly she'd been driving through the snow to even get to York.
I asked her if she was okay, with "okay" meaning "not dying, car isn't out of gas, you won't freeze to death," etc. She was fine, of course. She was sitting in the Walmart parking lot in York, a Walmart where -- coming or going -- she always stops at anyhow to get something to eat (they have a Subway inside it, and she loves their veggie subs). However, I-80 had been closed for hours at that point, which tells me how awful the weather was there.
Again, I looked out the window here, and nothing. Sun setting, birds chirping, windy with some clouds. I checked the weather forecast for her again.
"Weather.com says 4-7 inches total for Omaha, with about an inch or so more to fall between now and midnight. The worst is hitting there. It should clear out of York in less than an hour."
I paused for a moment, as she told me how bad it was, before asking:
"So, um, what's the game plan then?"
"One sec," she replied, and then went silent.
Of course, during this time, I'm in full-on panic mode; I'm worried about her, I'm worried that she's going to get stuck two hours from home, and I'm blaming myself for all of it -- if she had left yesterday, if she hadn't made the drive down here because of me, she wouldn't be stuck in this situation. Inadvertently, at least, this is all my fault. Rationally, of course, I know it's not, but there's always a reason to blame myself -- surely it has something to do with my self-esteem and/or self-worth levels, though who really knows.
While waiting for her to respond, I began talking to Parker, filling him in on the details and telling him what was going on.
"My first thought was a road trip in the Jeep, actually. But I'm not sure we could get through if the roads are closed."
"Right," I said. "No use even trying if we couldn't get her home anyhow. If I left the house now, with the weather as it is, I could probably get to York around 3AM. However, it's not like that would matter if I couldn't do anything anyhow. If 80 is shut down, I can drive up there all I want and all that will happen is I'll get stuck there with her."
"If we need to go -- if she's in trouble: call," Parker said. "We'll pack up, hit the road, and pull a Day After Tomorrow."
I told him I'd keep him updated on what was going on and get back to him. A few minutes later, Daisy responded:
You both are adorable. I'm fine. A hotel got a cancellation (my parents kept calling places, I guess, even after they said they were all full.) I'm here. Checked in. And even if I wasn't, I'd be fine.
I love you and appreciate the concern.
I just need to go out to my car and get my stuff.
I'm at the Hampton Inn in York.
And so, that was it. She's checked into the hotel for the night, or at least until around 3:30 AM -- at which time she plans to try to get back on I-80 east to Omaha, if it's reopened.
No comments:
Post a Comment