Finally Friday

It's been a long week. A very long week.

Not even an hour after we got back from the surgery center, the water guys came to dry out the basement. There were a couple of boxes in the safe room that they wanted me to go through (otherwise, they just pitch it because of the water) so I did. I was able to rescue a good deal of my old teaching stuff and some random other stuff when I stumbled upon a box of Mike's comic books (the majority were safely in a bookcase in the playroom). They box was still sealed from the move and was completely soaked. Dripping soaked. I didn't hold much hope for saving anything in that box. So, I sighed hard and grabbed my scissors to cut through the tape. I was pleased to see that the first few comics were unharmed. Okay. I pulled them out of the box and put them in another, partially filled, box. As I continued through the box, I realized that I would be able to save about 95% of the comics after all. I called Jacob down to help me bring them up to the dining room as a safe place. He spent a good deal of the afternoon going through the comics. I put the destroyed ones on the kitchen counter so that Mike could see the ones he'd need to replace if he wanted. What's really interesting is that there were no in-between comics. They were all either soaking wet or completely dry. Strange.

At some point, I realized that they were trashing the carpet. I really freaked out and called Mike who talked to one of the guys. They did take me downstairs to show me exactly why they made that decision. It was clear that the backing was peeling away from the actual carpet. Okay.

Even though the carpet was disappointing, there were a few good things that happened. We didn't have insulation in the walls so they didn't have to cut into drywall. When they popped off the baseboards, there was enough space between the floor and the drywall so they didn't have to poke ventilation holes in it. They didn't have to remove any of the doors or door casings. Aside from the carpet, the damage was light.

They had told me about a house they'd been to yesterday morning that had 8 inches of water in the entire basement. They said they'd never seen anything like it. 8 inches is catastrophic. They said the cleanup on that house would take forever. Our dry out should take several days.

Without the carpet and with so many fans and dehumidifiers, the basement looks very industrial. It's funny to see the notes contractors left on the floor. It's also clear that they painted the baseboards down there because there are white stripes all over the floor. It is very sad, though, to see our once beautiful basement looking so unfinished now.

Two of our neighbors also had their basements flood. Amy's house is a split level and her basement is her living room. They had a lot of damage. She said that she's not going to recarpet but is going to put in those spongy block things so that she never has to worry about it again. That's what our floor at TKD is made out of. I'm curious to see if she actually does that.

On another note, Hannah's doing well. Around 4 yesterday afternoon, she was in a lot of pain and was in tears. I called the ENT and he called some Tylenol with codeine in for her. One dose was enough to knock the pain back enough for her to rest. She fell asleep rather early and today she seems to be, pretty much, back to her normal self.

Daniel starts football tonight. This should be interesting.