Monday
Jan072008
Happy Mom's New Year 2008!
Monday, January 7, 2008 at 11:16AM
School started back for us today, so it really does feel like the first day of Mom's New Year 2008 -- I should recognize Dad's New Year, too, since my own awesome brother-in-law and several guy-friends are in the Parent In Charge At Home Club as well -- it's not just for women anymore!
I should say it would be Mom's New Year for me, and I would be partying in my pajamas all day today, if not for the two Spanish-speaking men sharing the condo with me for the next couple of days. They are replacing all of the carpeting in our 1750 square foot space, most of which is carpeted, because of water damage from a flood we had back in September. I never mentioned it at the time because we had so much going on, and I was still in the funk from Todd's death. Last summer was almost biblical, in terms of death and destruction around here.
On September 20th, which was a Thursday, I kept 12yo Puberty Angst Boy out of school to go with me to an Undergraduate Orientation and Campus Tour (by bus!) at Georgia State University, where I hope to be attending in the Fall, although I'll be a Graduate Student. There are not many exciting, informational programs for prospective Graduate Students, or "old women returning to school after time away," (although I also had a meeting set up with the Director of Graduate Studies in the English Department), and I had not toured the campus before, so I enlisted my son to go with me, in a reverse-order show of support, for all the campus tours I will have to take with him when the time comes.
Note: 12yo PAB quickly, and repeatedly, pointed out that Georgia Tech ROCKS, and he's not such a fan of Georgia State, which is an older, less tech-financially-endowed and certainly more urban-extreme campus than Georgia Tech. I know this, and I would love to go to Georgia Tech, since hubby's company is affiliated with Tech, and we practically live on-campus; BUT, Tech doesn't have the strongest program in Literature & Creative Writing, for obvious reasons...so, Georgia State it is!
So, anyway, we went to the orientation and took the tour. Everyone thought HE was the prospective student, easier to believe a child prodigy than a 40-year-old woman returning to school, apparently. Until he started up with the Georgia Tech commentary, anyway. I went to my meeting with the graduate professor and we came home.
I was going to drop him off and go pick the younger two up at school, in plenty of time for carpool. I was just taking a bathroom break, when the fire alarm and warning speaker in our condo started going off. I paused, but then resumed what I was doing, fully expecting the Concierge to announce an all-clear over the speaker, as usually happens -- false alarm. My son checked out in the hallway, to see if anything was happening. He came back in and said, "Mom, I think we have to go -- there's water coming down the hallway!"
"What?!"
I looked out into the hallway, and saw a moderate wave of water cascading down the hall from the fire escape stairwell -- the one we were supposed to be using to escape. Thoughts of Hurricane Katrina. New Orleans. Breach in the levee! (We live on the 10th floor, in the middle of Midtown Atlanta.) Not only that, there was rusty water pouring out of the vent directly across the hallway. In two seconds, I was able to register how creepy this was, like in all the horror movies when the blood starts dripping out of the faucets and stuff -- GET OUT!! We grabbed the dog. I grabbed my computer and my kid and we ran for the fire escape stairwell on the other end of the building.
Turns out, we had a geyser. The sprinkler company had been working on the pipes for the sprinkler system. They had shut down the water to repair and seal one of the main pipes, but turned the water back on before the seal had time to cure, and it blew. Before they could shut off the valve, the water had cascaded down the fire escape and down the hallways, from the 11th floor to the 4th floor, soaking under doors and walls into the six condos on each hallway; in at least one case, caving in part of the ceiling in the hallway; waterfalls in the elevator shaft. Never a dull moment, I'm telling you.
We got out, with our dog and my computer, and by the time we got back into our condo, a couple of hours later, we had some water. Not a lot, thank goodness, but the carpets were soaked on the hallway side of our unit -- our entry hall, master closet, kid's room and bathroom. Fortunately, the carpet was the only thing that got wet -- it didn't get to any furniture. Our building manager got a disaster response unit to come in the same day and set up huge, industrial-strength fans, blowers and de-humidifiers to dry everything out as quickly as possible so that mold and mildew would not set in. Crews came in and moved everything away from the walls so they could rip off the baseboards and drill big holes at floor level to help the dry-out. In retrospect, it was a freaking disaster, a mess and one hell of a noisy weekend, with all that equipment going 24 hours a day, in the condos and in the hallways, too. Somehow we survived all that, and it really didn't seem so bad, because, as we all know, it can always be worse.
Just before Thanksgiving (two months after the flood), building management, the sprinkler company and the insurance companies finally reached agreement on repairs and they were ready to get started. The analysis team came in and told us they would be replacing ALL of the carpeting in our condo -- how wonderful...
After the weekend of the flood, after they took all the equipment away, cleaned up and moved everything back into place, it wasn't so bad. We had big stains on the carpet because it had been standing water in the sprinkler pipes, so it didn't look great, but it didn't smell or anything. We took our hallway carpet runners to the dry cleaners, covered up the worst of it, and set in to decorating for Christmas and enjoying the holidays. I was happy to volunteer to wait for our new carpeting until AFTER the holidays. The coordinator was surprised, but happy to comply, since there were roughly three dozen other damaged condos, some in much worse condition, most of whom wanted the work done yesterday. We enjoyed the holidays with our dirty carpet -- spills or accidents? No worries! (Of course, when the dog puked, she threw up on the dry-cleaned hallway runner, carefully avoiding the dirty carpet, wood floor in the kitchen or easy-to-clean tile in the bathrooms.)(I now have a brand-new Bissell Spot-Lifter Carpet Cleaner. It's awesome.)
My day of reckoning came on January 4th: "We're ready to replace your carpets!" Yay. That was Friday. I asked if they could bring us boxes, lots and lots of boxes, and hold off until Monday; the kids would be back in school and over the weekend, we could take down Christmas and box up the hundreds of books and clutter on two sets of floor-to-ceiling, wall-to-wall shelving units, two large walk-in closets (both carpeted!) and everything else so they could get to the carpets...it's like moving, but not. Every 1,750 square foot in our condo is in total upheaval at the moment. And then there's me and Mocha-the-dog, hiding out in the office/master bedroom. They can't come in here until tomorrow. I still have to box the hundreds of books and clutter and everything else in here!
This is not my idea of Mom's New Year.
Check back with me Wednesday or Thursday, maybe not until Friday...
For the rest of you, HAPPY NEW YEAR & ENJOY!!!
I should say it would be Mom's New Year for me, and I would be partying in my pajamas all day today, if not for the two Spanish-speaking men sharing the condo with me for the next couple of days. They are replacing all of the carpeting in our 1750 square foot space, most of which is carpeted, because of water damage from a flood we had back in September. I never mentioned it at the time because we had so much going on, and I was still in the funk from Todd's death. Last summer was almost biblical, in terms of death and destruction around here.
On September 20th, which was a Thursday, I kept 12yo Puberty Angst Boy out of school to go with me to an Undergraduate Orientation and Campus Tour (by bus!) at Georgia State University, where I hope to be attending in the Fall, although I'll be a Graduate Student. There are not many exciting, informational programs for prospective Graduate Students, or "old women returning to school after time away," (although I also had a meeting set up with the Director of Graduate Studies in the English Department), and I had not toured the campus before, so I enlisted my son to go with me, in a reverse-order show of support, for all the campus tours I will have to take with him when the time comes.
Note: 12yo PAB quickly, and repeatedly, pointed out that Georgia Tech ROCKS, and he's not such a fan of Georgia State, which is an older, less tech-financially-endowed and certainly more urban-extreme campus than Georgia Tech. I know this, and I would love to go to Georgia Tech, since hubby's company is affiliated with Tech, and we practically live on-campus; BUT, Tech doesn't have the strongest program in Literature & Creative Writing, for obvious reasons...so, Georgia State it is!
So, anyway, we went to the orientation and took the tour. Everyone thought HE was the prospective student, easier to believe a child prodigy than a 40-year-old woman returning to school, apparently. Until he started up with the Georgia Tech commentary, anyway. I went to my meeting with the graduate professor and we came home.
I was going to drop him off and go pick the younger two up at school, in plenty of time for carpool. I was just taking a bathroom break, when the fire alarm and warning speaker in our condo started going off. I paused, but then resumed what I was doing, fully expecting the Concierge to announce an all-clear over the speaker, as usually happens -- false alarm. My son checked out in the hallway, to see if anything was happening. He came back in and said, "Mom, I think we have to go -- there's water coming down the hallway!"
"What?!"
I looked out into the hallway, and saw a moderate wave of water cascading down the hall from the fire escape stairwell -- the one we were supposed to be using to escape. Thoughts of Hurricane Katrina. New Orleans. Breach in the levee! (We live on the 10th floor, in the middle of Midtown Atlanta.) Not only that, there was rusty water pouring out of the vent directly across the hallway. In two seconds, I was able to register how creepy this was, like in all the horror movies when the blood starts dripping out of the faucets and stuff -- GET OUT!! We grabbed the dog. I grabbed my computer and my kid and we ran for the fire escape stairwell on the other end of the building.
Turns out, we had a geyser. The sprinkler company had been working on the pipes for the sprinkler system. They had shut down the water to repair and seal one of the main pipes, but turned the water back on before the seal had time to cure, and it blew. Before they could shut off the valve, the water had cascaded down the fire escape and down the hallways, from the 11th floor to the 4th floor, soaking under doors and walls into the six condos on each hallway; in at least one case, caving in part of the ceiling in the hallway; waterfalls in the elevator shaft. Never a dull moment, I'm telling you.
We got out, with our dog and my computer, and by the time we got back into our condo, a couple of hours later, we had some water. Not a lot, thank goodness, but the carpets were soaked on the hallway side of our unit -- our entry hall, master closet, kid's room and bathroom. Fortunately, the carpet was the only thing that got wet -- it didn't get to any furniture. Our building manager got a disaster response unit to come in the same day and set up huge, industrial-strength fans, blowers and de-humidifiers to dry everything out as quickly as possible so that mold and mildew would not set in. Crews came in and moved everything away from the walls so they could rip off the baseboards and drill big holes at floor level to help the dry-out. In retrospect, it was a freaking disaster, a mess and one hell of a noisy weekend, with all that equipment going 24 hours a day, in the condos and in the hallways, too. Somehow we survived all that, and it really didn't seem so bad, because, as we all know, it can always be worse.
Just before Thanksgiving (two months after the flood), building management, the sprinkler company and the insurance companies finally reached agreement on repairs and they were ready to get started. The analysis team came in and told us they would be replacing ALL of the carpeting in our condo -- how wonderful...
After the weekend of the flood, after they took all the equipment away, cleaned up and moved everything back into place, it wasn't so bad. We had big stains on the carpet because it had been standing water in the sprinkler pipes, so it didn't look great, but it didn't smell or anything. We took our hallway carpet runners to the dry cleaners, covered up the worst of it, and set in to decorating for Christmas and enjoying the holidays. I was happy to volunteer to wait for our new carpeting until AFTER the holidays. The coordinator was surprised, but happy to comply, since there were roughly three dozen other damaged condos, some in much worse condition, most of whom wanted the work done yesterday. We enjoyed the holidays with our dirty carpet -- spills or accidents? No worries! (Of course, when the dog puked, she threw up on the dry-cleaned hallway runner, carefully avoiding the dirty carpet, wood floor in the kitchen or easy-to-clean tile in the bathrooms.)(I now have a brand-new Bissell Spot-Lifter Carpet Cleaner. It's awesome.)
My day of reckoning came on January 4th: "We're ready to replace your carpets!" Yay. That was Friday. I asked if they could bring us boxes, lots and lots of boxes, and hold off until Monday; the kids would be back in school and over the weekend, we could take down Christmas and box up the hundreds of books and clutter on two sets of floor-to-ceiling, wall-to-wall shelving units, two large walk-in closets (both carpeted!) and everything else so they could get to the carpets...it's like moving, but not. Every 1,750 square foot in our condo is in total upheaval at the moment. And then there's me and Mocha-the-dog, hiding out in the office/master bedroom. They can't come in here until tomorrow. I still have to box the hundreds of books and clutter and everything else in here!
This is not my idea of Mom's New Year.
Check back with me Wednesday or Thursday, maybe not until Friday...
For the rest of you, HAPPY NEW YEAR & ENJOY!!!
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