Queen of Swords

Yesterday morning I went into the kitchen and stepped in a bit of water. It was seeping out from under a couple of boxes of recycling, so I thought it was simply excess moisture from the containers. I put a towel down, took Wolfling off on a jaunt, and forgot about it.

This morning I went into my kitchen and foud a distinct pool of water in the same place.

When the weather got hot, I found out that the ice maker in my freezer didn't work. The head of maintenance came by and discovered that the water source had been turned off at the wall. He turned it on, told me to toss the first few sets of ice that came out -- or to call him if the ice maker still didn't work and he'd get it fixed immediately. No ice was forthcoming. I called and left a message for him, and never heard back.

I'm assuming the water in my kitchen is the result of the faulty ice maker.

Fortunately, my phone call to the office a little while ago resulted in the immediate dispatch of a maintenance guy, and he is now working on the problem.

I really, really did not expect to have to deal with even minor flooding in my third floor apartment!!

ETA:

Maintenance Guy (scratching his head): I've never seen anything like this. We just put in a brand new valve and a brand-new ice maker, and it still doesn't work. The ice maker cycles, but the valve doesn't open. It tries a few times and then just stops. The only thing I can think of is that they sent us bad parts. We're going to go out and get some new parts and see if that works.

Me: Well. . . I have weird karma around water. . .

ETA 2
Maintenance Guy: In 17 years I have never had this much trouble with an ice maker!

*hugs f-list
Thank you, everyone for yet another round of kind and supportive comments.


oakmouse reminded me yesterday that initiations have a tendency to surface what's "not working" in your life and force change. My day job at MyCo is a big improvement over being an admin, but it's still not really what I'm supposed to be doing. So I'm considering this lay-off to be a strong kick in the backside from my goddesses toward something that will be better for me.

Another place that hasn't been working is my living situation. I love my beautiful three-bedroom, two-and-a-half-bath townhouse -- but the fact is that I really can't afford it. This has been getting more and more obvious over the past couple of months. Being laid off has also brought that situation to a crisis. I just talked with my leasing office and there's a two-bedroom, two-bath apartment available in the complex for $1,145 -- an $800 reduction in my monthly rent. I'm going to look at it tomorrow. It will mean no longer having an office or library, and I'd be losing my garage, but that third bedroom is more than I can afford at the moment. Besides, breaking my lease here would involve being charged more than $1,500 in fees. Staying in the complex would mean continuing to enjoy excellent service, proximity to my parents, and Wolfling remaining with her friends. Besides, it's beautiful here.

I'm going to see what's available elsewhere, just to compare, but this is feeling like the right thing in my gut.

I went to the apartment office to raise a bit of heck about the screen issue -- and was told by the young woman who had originally accepted my call that they are going out to buy a screen door for me and install it -- and she will come by tomorrow to measure the door.

I hope that she is able to follow through!!

It turns out that I'm supposed to have a screen door on my bedroom balcony! I'm supposed to be able to have fresh air without risking bugs and other stuff getting in!

After being eaten alive by mosquitos last night -- killing at least eight of them in the act of biting me, and finally being driven from my room by heat and one final mosquito buzzing around my head -- this is just about the best news I could possibly have today.

The bad news: a water pipe broke in our building and our water is shut off.

The good news: none of the flooding occurred in our house!!

More good news: the water will be turned on by 10pm.

My apartment manager just called. I get the 3 bedrooom!

However, I managed to totally misunderstand the rental amount. It is not $800 less, it's only $40 less.

But it's still less money for a third bedrooom (hello, office/client space!) and a balcony off the master bedrooom.

And it's not next to the pool!

I dropped the wolfling off with her dad earlier this evening, and he told me about how thingts had been Sunday/Monday, during the huge rain.

Starting around 6am on Monday, they started having water coming in under the back door of the basement. They started running the pump, but after a little while it gave out. They ran to Home Depot and bought the last pump in stock, which had a smaller capacity than the one I'd used when I was there. They ran that pump for 12 hours straight.

But that's not all. The water was also coming in through the walls. Construction near that property had interfered with some of the drainage things the Ex had done in previous years -- plus one of the new downstairs folks had dug a hole near the foundation with the intention of putting sealant there. But she hadn't put the sealer on, nor had she filled the hole, which had become a pond right next to the bathroom wall.

So Mr. Shop-Vac also got a workout -- as did my Ex, who had to empty the thing time after time after time.

I am so glad I got out when I did!!

It's raining -- again! -- but I no longer need to worry about flooding.

Instead, I can relax and enjoy a dry house and no pool noise.

There are more holes in my walls, but they are small -- at least compared to the holes I've had in the past.
And they are neatly cut, not jagged and broken.

Isn't that an awful sense of scale to have developed: the relative size and neatness of the holes in walls of one's home?

The electrician informed us this morning that the outlet in my living room that I thought was broken/burnt out was actually simply turned off. (Doh!)
There's a light switch behind my living room door that I never use.
Evidently someone used it -- at an inopportune moment -- because that's why the outlet stopped working. I was feeling bad about a_belletrist's P having spent a couple of hours to come over and try to fix it for me -- but as she pointed out, if he had not come over I never would have realized just how badly we needed our whole system upgraded.

The tub plunger that broke a few months ago and which I managed to jiggle back into the open position shut again over the weekend. As with the outlet's switch, I have no idea why. Fortunately, my brother-in-law (who really is a terrific person and a wonderful addition to the family) is going to come over on Wednesday evening to try to get it open and then install a new mechanism. For this gallantry, I will feed him scallops and pasta.

I am not letting myself get upset anything else that happens in my house as long as there is progress being made toward The Commune buying out my share. This may take a few weeks -- or even a couple of months -- to work out. But as long as it is moving forward, I am going to celebrate with Short-Timer's Syndrome. I will still take care of the place, of course. But my emotional investment is going to diminish significantly.


My boss is a geek.
I may have to check to see if he reads PvP, Order of the Stick or Looking for Group, my three online gaming comics.
And he strongly approves of and is going to support the career development activities I'm involved in.
I love it!

This one courtesy of new friend oakmouse

1. What is your favorite beverage, and why?
I hate to say it, but it's Diet Coke.
I really like the sparkly sensation of drinking it, and the way it seems to go with just about everything I eat. That and I'm addicted to the caffeine. It's also zero calories, zero carbs.


2. If you could confer one blessing on your daughter, that you knew would come true and stay with her for her entire life, what would it be?
I had to think about this one for a while. I would bless her with a vital personal connection to the Divine that would always be a source of comfort, courage, and hope for her.

3. Describe your dream spiritual getaway, if you had a month free and no practical constraints to hinder you.
It would be in a setting where I could balance quiet alone time in nature (preferrably with both forest and ocean nearby, and lots of stars at night) with community fellowship over meals and personal sharing -- but always with the option of eating alone. I would want time to be silent, time to write, and time to engage with others to stretch and test my thoughts and reflections.


4. What's something that makes you feel comfortable and secure?
This was harder to answer than I would have expected.
I like comfort, and I try to have lots of comfort in my home, in my clothing, in whatever parts of my environment I can control.
But security is another matter.
My living situation is a thousand times better than that of many people in the world who live in poverty, filth, war zones, disaster areas, abusive situations, and etc. But I don't really feel 'secure' in my house when I get right down to it. My house leaks. I only own half of it. The upstairs is plagued with emotional issues of all kinds, and they leak down into my section. My borders are porous since the washing machine is in my area. Children and pets escape down here. I can not simply close my door and keep it all out. I love my birth family and they are a 'safe place' -- but my parents are starting to become elderly, and the sense of rock-solid security that stabilized me as a child is no longer there.

So where I am I secure these days? With _storyteller_ and uncrowned_king. I feel utterly safe with them. I trust their love, their patience, their strength (on all levels), their integrity. I know that if I stumble, they will catch me. If I -- or my daughter -- are in any way threatened, they will protect us. They will be by my side, whatever happens.


5. What's something that makes you feel challenged in a positive way, that makes you want to rise up and meet the challenge with the best that's in you?

The most consistent area is intellectual writing or debate on a topic that is important to me, especially one with spiritual and/or ethical dimensions. There's a reason my icon is Queen of Swords. I feel very much alive -- and very much using my divine gifts -- when my mind and soul are engaged at the same time.