Wednesday, November 26, 2003
 

Update from the floodplains:

Last night, it looked like FEMA was here. Trucks, vans, pickups, mass amounts of esoteric equipment, hoses, people everywhere. They peeled up my carpet, tore out the affected padding (we're down to concrete floors now), and supplied me with two industrial fans and one industrial dehumidifier. As before, it sounds like a factory floor in here. At least now I have an upstairs and can escape to that.

Most recent news is that the carpet is progressing fairly well; they removed one fan. The parquet area inside my door is completely destroyed; it was starting to come up of its own accord. The water-removing people (is there a name for this?) had this truly nifty little device: you run it over the floor, and it beeps and gives readings according to how much moisture there still is. It went psychotic over the parquet, so all of that has just been peeled up and disposed of. Leaving yet more exposed concrete, of course.

So that's where it stands now. I've got the machinery until at least tomorrow. I'd suspected that they'd at least leave the dehumidifier; the tubing that runs out of it is clear, and I could see that it was still removing a great deal of water. Alice is extremely annoyed with me because I won't let her downstairs. There's just too much open-door coming and going, too many exposed tacks, too many little pieces of potentially edible stuff (including padding), too many machines. So she must continue to suffer, I fear. She's refusing to acknowledge her toys and won't eat unless I'm in the room with her.

On that note, I'm headed upstairs to work in the room where she is. 'Cuz momma don't want to neglect her baby.

Elvisette philosophized at 2:09 PM