Last week I had a dream. The Lord came to me and said, "Joy, there are great waters coming. You need to build an ark. Forget about that whole 'two of every kind of animal' business; just build an ark and get ready 'cause i'ts a-gonna rain."
I don't listen to God much, so I ignored his words. And lo, the floods came.
All right, you got me. That first part is all bullshit, except for the part where the water arrived. Boston has been deluged in the past several days. I went down into the basement yesterday at around 10:30 and there was roughly 3 inches of water down there. We have a big platform that covers half of the basement - it's storage space for boxes and Christmas stuff and luggage and whatnot. So we weren't terrible concerned about that stuff to begin with - the platform is, after all, elevated. But the washer and dryer aren't and the hot water heater and boiler and all that were not in good shape, water-wise.
Rod went to Home Depot and Lowe's and Tags Hardware and there were no sump pumps to be found. So we went the manual route and started bailing water into the basement sink, one bucket at a time. Hundreds and hundreds of buckets. And what was three inches to start with seemed to be steadily rising. It was raining harder and faster than we could bail. My last bail of the evening last night was after midnight. My first bail this morning was around six. I'm very tired, very sore, and very tired of water.
Rod stayed home today to bail. My dad had the suggestion to call the fire department - apparently they can put you on a list of people whose basements need flood assistance. They come in and check things out and make sure all the relevant electrical stuff is turned off so that the water doesn't cause death and destruction. Tonight they will be coming back to suck out all the water. I look forward to that not only because the water will be gone, but also because firemen are dreamy.
My back aches. My knees ache. My right ankle, which already has tendinitis, is throbbing. So I'm kinda psyched that the fire patrol is coming to save us. No more crazy bail-fests. There's not much fun involved in picking up bucket after bucket to dump into the sink. The one entertaining part was that every once in a while something would float by that I didn't realize I still had. For example: my friend Jen's eleventh grade Father-Daughter Dance photo. While I am sad that any photographs I have were ruined (and yes, a number of them were), I have to say that I am kind of okay with letting that one go. (No offense meant to Jen or her dad.)