The Weather Has Broken!

Glory be, glory be, the weather has finally broken!  It was in the (are you ready?) 60s (!!) last night, and it's only 76 in the sun right now!  Humidity is still high, but I'm hoping the lovely breezes will PUSH that out!  Whoo-hooooo!  Please say that was IT for the summer??  I feel almost giddy today, but that may be in part to an old friend who's coming to visit for two nights (and not just the weather)!  I haven't seen her in YEARS - she lives in Portland, OR.  She's going to stay at my little cabin instead of here (puts her in a much more central location to town for visiting), so I'll head in this afternoon to give it some quick spit-and-polish before her arrival.  Then, barring the bugs, we're planning on a wonderful, long, picnic & wine dinner on the cabin's deck tonight catching up!

I think some of what I'm (positively) terming "giddiness" is also anxiety.  I rescheduled my tax appointment for tomorrow, knowing (ha!) I'd have PLENTY of time this week to prep for it . . . and I STILL haven't gotten one lick closer to being ready than I was when I made the date!  Gad, time, time, time!  Where does it go?  I blame it on the washing machine disaster of yesterday.  I was SUPPOSED to have the entire day to prep for taxes, but you know that my plans went array.  Oh, I was SO angry!  I'm glad that the daughter of the repairman who told me how to take things apart is one of "my girls" and that I love her . . . otherwise I'd have an irrational fury towards her father!



So, the long and the short of it is:  I was trying to save money by finding out everything that I could do myself before he'd have to come this long way out (and I'd incur a hefty service fee on top of whatever work / repairs needed to be done).  He was super generous about telling me how to take the front of the machine off, look for the pump and its filter, take the filter out and see if it was clogged.  I'd told him that the machine was full of water and wouldn't empty.  He confirmed that no, it wouldn't, if the pump was clogged.  But, here comes my frustration:  after instructing me about the pump and its filter, shouldn't he have ALSO told me that there's NO CHECK VALVE between the pump and the water in the machine????????????  A) I can't believe that there IS no check/stop valve there:  a huge flaw in design??  B) I can't believe that he forgot to mention that to me!  Or, is it such common knowledge to them that he didn't think of it?

As I started untwisting the pump's filter, water came oozing around the sides.  No problem, I thought, there can only be a cup or two in there (judging by its size), so I grabbed a towel.  But, the water was coming out a little too fast to be sopped up by just the towel, and I noticed that it was dripping down into the thick plastic pull-out storage bin that the machine sits on.  A pain to reallyquickly pull everything out of that, but a perfect place for the water to flow unchecked.  So, once I'd pulled out the contents of the storage drawer, I opened 'er up and let the water flow.  By now, I realized that there WAS no check valve and that ALL the water was draining out of the full washing machine.  But, no worries, that huge plastic-lined bin (Exhibit A) would catch it all.  Matter of fact, it almost looked like it had been designed just for that purpose!

Exhibit A:  Storage drawer now cleaned out, dried out (same for contents) and repacked - AFTER the fact!

So, bombs away!  I stood back and watched the gacky, month-old dirty, stinky water flow out into the storage drawer.  BUT, just as I noticed that the water level in the storage drawer was remaining at one height although the water was still GUSHING out the filter's hole, I simultaneously noticed that the entire floor was beginning to FLOOD!

The freakin' storage drawer had tiny holes in the bottom of it!!!!!!!!!!  And, yes, ALL the (stinky, did I mention that?) contents of the washer were now fully flooding the utility room, into the closet, and under the wall into the bathroom.  As the water from the unit trickled to a stop and the drawer fully emptied, I was already in Full Alert mode.  Have I mentioned?  Un-effing-believable!  Every single rag/towel was thrown onto the floor, and I grabbed the mop.  (Thank GOODNESS P-Diddy had made a second trip back here on Sunday when I was gone JUST to return that and one other tool of mine he'd overlooked the previous day!)  

Anyway, I needn't tell you that the remainder of my day was NOT taken up prepping for taxes.  And, as soon as the water was sopped up, I poured myself a stiff whiskey-sour and went out on the deck to holler a four-letter word or three and simmer down.

Upshot?  The floor of the utility room, closet, and bathroom are now clean and dry.  Rugs and towels adorn the laundry lines outside.  Waterhog mats are drying.  And, my washing machine works better than it has in months.  And, at no cost to me other than time and frustration.  So, it could be worse, right?  Grrrrrrrr.

ON a much lighter note:  it was time to change out my header picture, but the old one of the boats at dock was taken from our table the night I was taken out for my birthday.  Not bad, eh?  The new one was taken on Sunday when Bundle of Joy's family and I went up to the lake 10 miles north of SRR for the afternoon.

Oh, and another 1" of rain fell last night w/in the time constraints of about 60 minutes.  Yet another confirmation of the recurring theme:  WHAT'S WITH this extreme weather??