Δαφνη Ευτυχια Αρθουρος

When I returned from the orthopedist, I opened my front door to the sound of something screaming. When I got over the disorienting startlement, I recognized the sound as the "Help! A cat has fallen asleep on my keyboard!" scream. But from a room where I've never seen Perrine walk on keyboards.

Closer inspection revealed that the name server was complaining about the brown water -- I've been thinking of it as "roof tea" -- dripping into its keyboard. Ah, the infamous IT Water Torture. When I unplugged the keyboard (no more screaming computer) and took it to the kitchen to pour out the keyboard, a disconcerting quantity of roof-tea came out. (I rinsed it with clean water and set it aside, upside-down, to drain and dry. Fortunately I rarely use that keyboard -- only to shut the machine down -- usually accessing it via SSH from elsewhere in the house. It's one of the old, very clicky, IBM keyboards, so it'll probably survive.)

Thing is, the name server is on the ground floor. The leaky roof is over the third floor. Ominous.

I don't see that much water on the second floor, though one mandolin got a little wet ... so I'm thinking it must be running down inside the wall between the bedrooms (that wall is in the same place on the second floor as on the third).

In the meantime, sure enough, buckets had overflowed on the third floor (and one had been knocked over by falling plaster). There's a lot of water collected on the tarp -- a few centimeters where the floor is lowest. (I'm glad that I had stuffed things under the edges to raise them up and make a sort of shallow basin.) This made getting to the buckets that needed dumping somewhat less than pleasant, but oh well.

The ceiling on the third floor is lath and plaster, covered with drywall, and then a layer of stucco. But attached to the ceiling in the living room is a large, ornate piece from which the light fixture depends -- a piece that's worth something due to its age. The wet spot over the name server peeks out from behind that. Losing that piece, or having it significantly damaged, would be a bad thing.

I'll be back in a bit to say more about how the trip to the doctor went. Short version: prognosis is good but it could take a while, I can play without risking permanent damage but I should be really serious about using ice-packs, and the nurse has to forward stuff to the finance department to find out whether I can actually get the treatment the doctor prescribed. If I play the feast tomorrow, then on Monday I'll be able to pay for the anti-inflammatory he prescribed. So, hey, anybody going my way?

And since I've got the camera out (my batterey door iz pasted on yey (actually gaff-taped)) here's a shot of the thing I rigged to keep the fine sprinkles of water off the floor in the front bedroom (having run out of buckets):