In Review, kind of a bad few weeks.

Benny, my very old Grandma's husband, and therefore my step-grandfather, went into the hospital on 6th of November. He had cancer, and the tumour had spread to his liver and he was bleeding internally. They did an endoscopic surgery in the 7th to stop the bleeding, and he died on the 8th of November.

Kelli called to tell me on the 9th of November that my mother had overdosed, either accidentally or purposefully, on prescription painkillers.

On the 10th of November the hospital said that it wasn't an overdose. On the 11th they said it was congestive heart failure. On the 13th she had an angiogram which,while showing normal blockage which was taken care of, was not enough to explain her symptoms. On the 14th she told me that they wouldn't come right out and say it, but that it was a stroke.

On the 16th Stephen's mum called to tell us that his abuela was back in the hospital. Daily updates left us still not sure what was going on, besides age. On the 20th Stephen received a 5 am text message from his mum saying that his abuela had died. He left last night to fly to Spain for an unknown period of time to spend time with his mum and go to the funeral.

I am sad for all the sadness in our families. While I am so glad, I am also just a tad jealous that Stephen is able to go and be with his family during this time. I didn't get to. I am a bit mopey because I do not do as well when he is gone. I don't sleep as well, I remember my disturbing dreams more, and I have a lot more nightmares. And I can't help but wonder if the old adage about death coming in threes will be true this time also. All this is added to by the fact that Stephen and I have no way of keeping in touch besides the telephone (he usually takes his laptop and we chat often, but there is no internet where he is) and we don't know when he will be home. I know he will come home, though.

So this weekend, while I do have a bit of work to do for school, Ashley and I are going to hang out. I stocked up on junk food yesterday, an almost unheard of treat coming from me. We ate pizza and cookies and talked. Tonight I am taking her out for dinner, and tomorrow, as sad as it makes me, I am taking her to get her hair cut. I hope that we get the whole house clean this weekend, a task that I haven't even touched in weeks since things have been so hectic with school and I have hardly been home. I'll feel better when it is all done, and we will benefit from having some intense time together.

These last few weeks I have really wanted to go home. Not to stay, but to visit. To mourn. To spend more time with my Grandma. To see my mother and Kelli and the girls and my daddy. To hold onto Tristan so tight and make him remember how much I love him. To make him feel it. And maybe so I can feel it too.

God said 'Let there be Drama!' and lo and behold...

So let's talk a bit about closets, shall we? Say, specifically, hall closets?

I have one, and after not having one in our last house, I am grateful for the joy that is hall closets. I appreciate a place to put my dry towels and my blankets. And the hall closet that is our current joy shares space with the hot water heater, which means that my linens not only stay nice and neat and dry, but also warm and fresh smelling.

That is, until there was a leak.

We discovered the leak about a month ago now, when we went to put a warmer duvet on the bed. Our very nice down duvet, safely stashed in the hall closet, came out smelling of mildew and mold-stained. The whole house smelled as we pulled out 4 blankets that had been wet for god-only-knows-how-long and set them to dry. Lucky for us there is a cleaner close enough to our house that 1. we could walk our duvet to, and 2. was able to get all of the smell out and most of the stain. And all things considered, they didn't charge us all THAT much.

We informed the landlord of said leak, which wasn't really that bad, put a pan under the drip and waited.

A plumber came, perhaps a week or so later, to 'look'. "Oh, that's easy!" says he. "It's the water softener that needs replacing. It only needs new parts. I can't do it today, but I'll get back to you." He hasn't been back since.

Soon, after 1 instance of forgetting to empty the pan under the leak, there was water covering the carpet on the floor. The next time, it was not having forgotten to empty the pan that led to water on the floor. It was due to the leak getting worse. And since then, it has gotten progressively worse. A week ago, we put a mop bucket under the pan. (Due to some pipes, it can't actually drip directly into the bucket. It has to drip into the pan and then fall into the bucket.) The first night it was fine. When we went to empty it the next day, it was overflowing. The day after that, it was overflowing by the evening. Yesterday, it was overflowing after 8 hours. Last night, it didn't make it 6.

The closet door is propped open and the house smells like wet carpet. I can't get the hall closet dry, and touching it you can feel the water in a layer over the carpet. I've taken to putting towels down under the bucket, and they come out drenched. Obviously, not all the drip is getting into the bucket, but there is nothing else I can do. The two fine small pipes that run a few inches above the floor ensure that nothing can sit on top of them and they are directly under the leak.

I am worried about the flooring under the carpet, not to mention the carpet itself, being ruined, and being blamed and charged for the damage. Being on the third floor, I worry about the water getting into the ceiling of the lower floor and being charged for that damage too. I worry because Stephen's entire family is coming to our very tiny, wet carpet smelling house for his birthday (it was on Tuesday) dinner on Saturday. There will be 10 people in the house, including 3 children. I have to make a good impression. And I can't close the hall closet door. I worry that this all reflects poorly on me somehow. That my fancy-schmancy roast venison dinner with sweet potatoes and butternut squash won't mean anything at all next to our rinky-dink house that smells and leaks.

I really thought we were doing the right thing by leaving the last house, as it was so much bigger than we ever really needed unless there were people staying over. But now that there are people staying over, and we don't even have room to put the table out, or enough chairs to seat everyone...

I think that the facade of my being the perfect hostess in the perfect house with the perfect stuff and the perfect timing is going out the window this weekend. I kind of hope that no one notices, but I know for a fact that they all will.