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What went before:  I will today condense yesterday, rather than simply cut’n pasting from Facebook as the thing unfolded.

Shortest Form:  Yesterday was a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day. (And if you have not read this classic by Judith Viorst, do it now.)

Abridged Form:  The appliance installers arrived around 10:00, much earlier than I had anticipated, but they failed to call in advance, so the cats were still at large.  I managed to get Firefly, Trooper, and Tali into the basement, and closed the door, but Rook had taken shelter � in the laundry room, as I discovered when I escorted the team leader � henceforthly referred to as Installer A � there to show him what he had to work with.

Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to catch Rook, and then � he disappeared, which was Very Worrisome.

More worrisome was the discovery by Installer A that the water cut-off switch only cut off the hot water, and the cold water was free-flowing.  He decided to go forward with the install, after requesting a few towels, to handle the spillage.

SPOILER:  A few towels wasn’t enough.

Installers A and B got the old machine out and the new machine in, and this is where it went bad.  Water began to spurt EVERYwhere.  Flooding ensued, including a vast rainstorm into the basement (yes, where I had cleverly sequestered three out of possible four cats).

Installer A ran downstairs and began flipping cutoffs. I, of course, did not know where the main water cutoff was, because Steve knew, and while he might have told me once, I didn’t remember.

Leaping forward � a plumber was called in.  He replaced the faulty cut-off switch, and then, at my request, took me on a tour of the basement, telling me what the various cut-off switches where, and resetting them as we went, and where the main water cutoff was and which direction to turn it in order to shut everything down.  While he was here, the plumber also repaired the bathtub faucet.  Yes, I expect a bill in excess of what I saved on the appliances on “really good sale.�

So, the laundry room, which includes a closet, with things that sit on the floor of the closet, was flooded; the basement was flooded, the cats were traumatized, and Rook was still missing.

Eventually, everybody left, and I began to clean up the mess.

Whereupon Rook reappeared, and there was much rejoicing.

Everything is dry now, with the exception of an area rug in the basement, which I have the space heater on the case, because the rug is too heavy for me to get outside into the lovely warm sunshine.

And that?  Brings you up-to-date.

Onward.

Thursday. Sunny, warm, bird song coming in the open windows OR!

Suddenly, It’s Summer. Girls in shorts running; motorcycles roaring up and down the road, two-by-two. I turned off the oil heat; we’ll let the heat pumps handle it from here.

I did accomplish two accomplishments yesterday in the Midst of It All. I found the name of the Scout captain and first mate on Chandra Marudas, and! that Bechimo was the first modern smartship to come out of the Carresens Yards, built in response to Trader Jethri Gobelyn’s release of the Envidaria.

Last night after I signed off, found those two pieces of information, and treated a nosebleed, I sat down with a glass of wine and realized that, indeed, I was too tired to think straight, much less read either of my books, so I went to bed, put on my fancy wireless headphones, and listened to All Conditions Red while dozing, and eventually falling asleep.

Breakfast was a toasted English muffin with cream cheese and blueberry/ginger jam. Finishing up my first cup of tea.

Today, I am waiting for the pest control guy to come and put back the things that fell in the process of his inspection.

Speaking of Things That Fell, one of Steve’s brilliant kludges gave up its work yesterday, among All the rest of It All. This means I will need to produce a kludge of mine own. Since I don’t approach Steve’s skills in free-balancing large objects (small-object balancing is my skill-set), I will need to make a web, which means buying some rope and some eyelets. If the pest control tech gets here on the 10:00 side of his window, maybe I’ll do that this morning, as well as swing by the grocery.

For those keeping score at home, the new washer and dryer are doing splendidly, much to be preferred over the old.

Oh. Fans of Rookie the Cookie will be pleased to know that � no, he did not destroy my chair in order to shelter from the Invasion of the Appliance People. The chair in question has a foot-rest that folds into the chair, and there’s a space between where the foot-rest folds under and the underneath of the chair, like a little shelf. And that’s apparently where he was hiding.

Anyhoots. ASL tonight. Cats are around and about. Hoping for an Extremely Low Key Day here.

What’s going on with you?

Many pics below.  Click on the thumbnail for a bigger view.