Dizzy

It's been a wild ride over here the last few days.

Sunday morning, I got an email at 7 a.m. The house we really wanted is not to be ours. Not the end of the world, but disappointing.

Sunday, my ILs came to stay for a night. "High maintenance" doesn't begin to cover it. Within 10 minutes, my house looked like a bomb went off. I cooked dinner for six adults (think anybody would offer to help? God forbid.), cleaned up, read my paper, and slept. On the couch. In my office. Nice.

Monday was Grandparents' Day at DS' school. Sounds nice. But it's a nightmare. That ended just before lunch, so I made lunch for four people. (Think anybody would offer to help? God forbid.) Cleaned up and DH came home to take MIL and FIL back from whence they came. I spent the rest of the afternoon cleaning up shrapnel. (For the record, my piano is not an appropriate place for the Great Lineup O' Medications and my footboard is not a rack for hanging clothes on hangers.)

About two hours after they left, the phone rang. DH. MIL/FIL's house had no power and a flood in the basement. Which is filled--to capacity--with more shit than you can imagine. Fan-flippin-tastic. He said he was going to bring them back to our house. I burst into tears. Conversations were had. They went to stay with my SIL. I spent the rest of the day renting Dumpsters and finding stores with generators. And cleaning. Unbelievable, I know. But my house was completely trashed by these two little old people. Never seen anything like it in my life.

Yesterday morning, SIL called. Losing her mind. "Five minutes after they got here, it looked like a tornado had gone through," she said. I nodded. I know. (I got an email from her a few hours later. It just said, "I'm going to lock them in my bedroom." *grin*)

I spent the day catching up from the weekend. Wrote two articles, to the tune of 4,800 cumulative words. Conducted three phone interviews for other articles due this week. Took the kids to and from school. Put a ton of laundry away. Walked the dog. Shuttled DD to and from ballet. Took a call from DH, who said SIL was taking his head off. Well duh. Got everyone to agree that MIL and FIL would go to a hotel.

DH got home late last night from their house. They got the water pumped out and started taking all the soggy crap outside. It's going to take the whole weekend to finish that process. Fun times. For the record, I do feel awful that thier house flooded. I wouldn't wish that on anyone. But there is just no reason on this earth to have so much absolute garbage in one's home. None. And everyone is angry about that. This could have been so much easier.

I also got an email from a dear friend, saying that her family had lice. I decided she had it way worse than me. (((Friend)))

Today, I get to return two sets of license plates to the MVA, take the dog to the vet, hit the grocery store, pick up a birthday present for my mom from my MIL (no idea why she can't go to the store herself, but whatever), ship that, try to set up six or seven phone interviews, go to the bank, try to get two more contractors to call me about an addition to this house (recession? what recession?) and take care of all the other daily crap that needs to be done. And finish my bookclub book. Which I hate. Every page is a struggle. Feh.

So that's my rant for the day.

On the flip side...the sun's out after many days of torrential rains. My kids are healthy and happy. I have work, which is more than I can say for a lot of people this year. My house, while small, is nice and on a great street in a good neighborhood. The basement disaster will get resolved. DH is in no rush to have his parents come visit anytime soon. Small favors...