It feels so good to be seated at my desk, where my chair has a lumbar support pad as part of it. Yesterday my back was doing fairly well, but today, it took a beating.
I went to meet my friend, Brenda, for our Christmas lunch which is usually something we do before I leave for WI. Since I am staying here, we went today. We had excellent service and she treated me to a milk shake to go. Our time goes by quickly but she needs to get back to work. After lunch I stopped at Winn Dixie to get some vegetables (yes, you read that right!) because Justin and I were having company for dinner and I wanted to impress Jesse. Baby carrots and green beans, each a buck a package is too good to pass up! I also got a strawberry rhubarb pie to serve for dessert, with vanilla ice cream to top it off.
We'd gotten notice that the A/C units had to be shut off due to repairs being made this afternoon. As soon as I got home, Connie called to tell me to send out a notice to the Owners and residents to turn their A/C back on. I did that. Just a few minutes later I got a frantic call from Connie informing me that there was a flood in a 4th floor unit and the water had to be shut off again. Then she called to have me send out notices for help with the clean up. Four floors were affected. Here we go again!!
I sent off the notices and then took off for upstairs with towels in hand. I have no mop, only use a Swiffer, which isn't much good with inch deep standing water. I did my best to help Ellen who was absolutely frantic. Others were there to help with the towels and to try to move stuff out of the way of the water. I took control of the phone calls that needed to be made to the insurance carrier and the water remediation folks. She was in no state and I was glad to be able to help her out this way. Her housemate came home from work and he was a calming influence for her.
The water folks showed up and the A/C repair guy was on site at Ellen's. Justin came home after having been to the movies and immediately got busy helping folks below Ellen. Hauling, moving, securing things, etc. Every one dripping wet from sweat because it was a hot day. My shoes and jeans bottoms were wet from walking in water upstairs. We brought some of our 3rd floor neighbor's special items here for safe keeping, so glad to be able to do that little bit to help, and give them peace of mind. They are renters and their landlord is putting them up at the hotel on the property for the time being.
Once everyone was taken care of, I grabbed my wet towels (quite heavy!) and took them to my unit, leaving them outside my door. Justin later put them over the rail to drip some more. The lady in charge of maintenance said it was okay to leave them out overnight but I am sure by morning we should take them down. Many railings on our building had towels drying over them!!! Bet it looks pretty right now....not!
Justin wondered if we should cancel our dinner plans but after a short rest, I was able to get the scalloped potatoes and ham put together. Justin cut up the onion and ham, while I did the potato slicing. I had the casserole almost entirely put together when I realized I'd forgotten to add the ham! What? Justin's big idea was to transfer the whole works to a lasagna pan and layer it with the ham. That did the trick, and took less time to bake. I'll store that in my mind for next time. We had a salad with our meal plus steamed carrots with a honey glaze sauce. In the midst of our chaos, a wonderful meal was prepared and served. Oh, my aching back!!! Good night!
