Angering the Spider Gods and Basic Assessment

Well, the work room in the basement is almost workable. That coffee table I made a stink about breaking down to make more room? Turns out I'm going to need that flat surface. I figure I shouldn't put the wood sheets on the concrete floor in case it gets damp.

Oops.

The glass is too heavy for me to safely move myself, so I will wait until the husband gets up and make him do it.

I did manage to look closely at the completed part of the shell. Really poor glue joints. Some of the hot glue has already let go, but the stuff that hasn't is being stubborn and I'll need to take a blow drier to it. I took a few pictures and decided to get rid of the spider webs on the ceiling before I got the hair drier and got to work.

So I went into the kitchen and retrieved the swiffer thing. I squirt some lemon scented dust stuff on it (because in my world, lemon scented dust stuff would have ill effects on spiders...if not kill them, at least scare them into submission) and got to work. It was actually kind of scary how strong some of those webs were, in my world spider webs wouldn't be that strong.

And then I saw...him. His body was round, and a little smaller then my pinky finger...dingy brown in color with huge black eyes. His legs were spindly and long, like a cat's whiskers bent at strange angles. He was the Clint Eastwood of spiders, staring at me from the top of my lemon scented swiffer thing, unflinching, unafraid, undeterred.

I stood there wide eyed with my mouth clenched shut...I read that article about how many spiders you eat in your lifetime and Clint Eastwood would not be one of them.

He must have sensed my fear, because he started gliding over my lemon scented saber with disturbing ease. I  would like to tell you I let out a glorious battle cry as I started beating the end of the swiffer thing with a piece of packaging foam I found on the floor...but I'm pretty sure it was a series of terrified EWW EWW EWW EEEEWWWWWWWWWWWWWs then a battle cry.

At any rate, Clint Eastwood is dead and I will start trying to disassemble the shell tomorrow, after the Spider Gods have had time to calm down. After the incident in the shower this morning, destroying lord knows how many webs in the basement, and the slaughter of Clint...I figure I should try to avoid any unnessicary spider contact for the rest of the evening.

Here are the photos I took. Minimal warping of the second and third floors, possibly some in the walls. I think it will straighten out once I get everything apart and flat on the table.

Bad, bad joint. Look at that separation

Random Squishy World Ball Story

Yesterday we had all staff meetings. After every all staff, they let people raid the giant box of crap. The giant box of crap is just that, a giant box of all the free crap people give the home. You know, the swag people give out when they want you to use their service. After nearly 10 years of working for the organization, I have quite a collection of crap on my desk.

Anyway, yesterday there was a squishy world ball.

What is the significance of a squishy world ball? Well, let me tell you. When I was younger I would go to Bible camp every summer. At the end of bible camp there was always a carnival. All the games were free, and they would give you prize tickets. When I was 7 years old I played the fishing game (do you remember those? The ones where you get the weird fishing pole with a giant magnet on it and you have to get it it in the fish's mouth to 'catch' it) like 10 gagillion times because on the prize table was a squishy world ball, and I was determined to get it. It took me all day, but I finally won enough tickets to get the squishy world ball. It became my prized possession.

It was still my favorite toy when school started, and I would play with it during recess since I was SUPER shy and didn't really talk to people. One day, Dan Honeywell took my ball and threw it onto the roof of the school. I started climbing the gutter, trying to get on the roof (I was a champion tree climber back then) but the teacher saw me and made me get down. Everyday at recess I would stare at the roof, plotting ways to get up there. On Saturday my cousin and I went to the school and climbed on the roof to retrieve it...but it was no where to be found. I searched the ball bin for weeks hoping the custodians had put it in there when retrieving the other balls that ended up on the roof, but I never saw it again.

Now, 20 years later I once again have a squishy world ball. It sits next to the Leonidas pig on my desk, and everything has come full circle.

/end random story

Storms Storms STORMS

Well, we weathered the hurricane well. Nothing ruined. We saw a LOT of water in the basement, but we were expecting some water and moved all the important stuff upstairs. We ended up having to bail out water all night because the drain couldn't keep up, but we felt like we had everything under control all night and we never lost power.

My mom did lose power, and at 7am when everyone was finally getting ready for bed...we get a call from her saying she had 18 inches of water in her basement. She had been without power all night so no sump-pump. So off we went to bail over there. I got her on the list to have the fire company pump out the basement, a service which they provided for free, and they came a few hours later and all was well again. Power eventually came back, and by some force of God her heater still works...after the motor had been completely covered with flood water. We figure since the power had been off, it never clicked on...and since it had a long time to dry out, it didn't short. She really dodged a bullet there.

I feel like we all dodged a bullet in this area. There was flooding and power outages, but New England got it so much worse. Those poor people.

Weird Happenings

I was in the bathroom at work, doing my business. When this crazy housekeeper comes in and starts telling me all about this green extension cord. Where it was, how she filled out a work order to pick it up, how she told every one she saw that this green extension cord was in the room...then told me how I could take it if I needed it while I was in the stall.

I'm doing the polite one word answers, I try to flush the toilet, but the flusher is broken. The crazy housekeeper literally throws a plunger over the door at me! I was like WTF?? So I jiggle the handle a little and everything works.

She continues talking at me while I am washing my hands, then opens the door with a paper towel for me because it's dirty.

Yesterday, there were ants all over my desk and chair. I don't know how they got in my office, but they were there. I looked all over the place for a trail of them, but couldn't find anything...so I sprayed ant killer and moved on.

Then today I sent an email to Amazon to say that I think 5 days is a really long time to pull a box off their shelf and send it in the mail when I remember them saying Same Day Shipping! All over the place. Then I said that even with regular USPS, 3 weeks is a really long estimated delivery time (even when the 5 day warehouse search is subtracted). So what happens? They upgrade my shipping, CHARGE me to upgrade my shipping, and now the estimated SHIPPING date is Thursday, the 25th...THREE DAYS AFTER the date I was complaining about?! WTF is going on today??

That is all.

End update.