Update (or Fifteen)

Since my diatribe of Thursday, there’s more news to tell! When I got home Friday night, there was a voicemail on my cell from the manager of my apartment complex, completely agreeing with me that the situation was unacceptable and that she is absolutely on my side in getting these repairs done correctly this time. (Me: Uh-huh. Sure.) She also mentioned that she had spoken with the district manager about the problem and that that person is on board as well. (Me: It’s getting a little deep…)

Friday night’s towel use: 5. But I did get to go to Panoply and watch children paint a playhouse and watch Cita’s students create new colors for the kids, and wow, had I forgotten how much energy four teenage girls have when they’re all in one group. Cita whips out her Droid (drool…) and notes that it’s going to rain in about fifteen minutes. Panoply is in a completely uncovered outdoor park. The best protection from rain in the park is your car. Four teenage girls can also clean up a giant paint-y mess in about three minutes. By the time the storm broke, we were already halfway back to our cars.

Aside: Cita’s mother is a power walker like me. I love that.

Saturday, Panoply was cancelled because the sky was falling. There really was potential for tornadoes and other nastiness, so it just wasn’t a good day for an outdoors art festival. I had all these great ideas to clean, and around 4pm I finally got around to it. Guess what I found on the floors of the laundry room and kitchen?

One call to maintenance and forty-five minutes later, a very nice man, originally from New Zealand, proclaimed my leak “The worst I’ve ever seen.” Awesome.

Towel use for Saturday: 10. As I pointed out to Lucy’s mom, I have a surprising number of towels for a single woman. I have somewhere between fifteen and twenty. Still, I’m having to wash towels three or four times a week. Imagine what that’s going to do for my water bill?

Sunday arrived without any new watery presents. I don’t think it’s fixed; I think I got a reprieve. I did get to do my volunteer shift at Panoply, where I was forced to sell raffle tickets and get a bit of a sunburn on my right forearm, and only on my right forearm. Re: selling – I am not a saleslady, folks. I hate it, I suck at it, I feel like I’m intruding into people’s lives, and it makes me so very, very uncomfortable. When I was a Girl Scout™, I couldn’t make myself sell Girl Scout Cookies™, and those things sell themselves. Seniors at my high school were supposed to sell magazine subscriptions to cover senior costs. Momma just paid them. I had a temp job some time ago for the Muscular Dystrophy Association, and I could barely talk to people about volunteering their time. I.HATE.SELLING. I sold about fifteen tickets in two hours. Not too shabby.

An hour or so ago I got a call from my landlady saying that she was going to have to call in a contractor to fix the water leakage problem. (Me: You think?) She won’t know what will happen to my apartment or how long it’ll take, or if she’ll be able to give me a head’s up on the repairs before any large upper areas of the place are removed. This worries me because of my pure belief that there’s mold in there, and Biggs is fifteen years old (seventy-six!), and while I’m substantially younger than Biggs in human years, I don’t want either of us to breathe in mold. Landlady said that she would reduce my rent the amount of any hotel bill, but how does that help when I’m at work and spores are flying around everywhere, finding new places to grow? This is Alabama, people, and it’s been stormy and will continue to be stormy for a while. Stormy = humidity. Humidity = mold.