Δαφνη Ευτυχια Αρθουρος

Well, I can see that this is going to be an unfun day ...

Last night I flushed the toilet and it overflowed, which I thought rather odd since I'd only peed in it ... And when it's gotten stopped up in the past, the water level just got kind of high but it didn't actually overflow, but this time I wound up with pretty much an entire tankful of water on the floor. Attacking it with the plunger was not terribly effective, but I did eventually get water moving in the right direction. Unfortunately, I also got some water coming out of the ceiling downstairs, so I've got some cleaning to do there. At one point some water backed up into the bathtub, which seemed like a sign of blockage between my house and the sewer line under the street, but then everything moved and seemed to be working correctly, so I figured that couldn't have been the problem. I even checked in the basement to make sure I wasn't just pushing stuff out of the toilet there. Everything seemed fine except for needing to do some cleanup.

This afternoon I got up, peed again -- the toilet worked fine, fed the cat, and went to the basement to move the towels I'd used to contain the lake last night from the washer to the dryer ... and found an impressive quantity of water in a puddle running from the toilet to the furnace. So I guess there's a problem between house and street after all, but it mysteriously decided not to back up in the basement until this morning? I'm confused. And annoyed. And depressed. And I really wanted to take a shower before running out the MVA this afternoon to deal with car stuff. (Maybe I'll get away with just swiping my pits with rubbing alcohol.)

Any recommendations for favourite plumbers in Baltimore before I hit the Yellow Pages? (Gotta bug Mom for money to pay for this, too.)

In brighter news, john_tangent dropped by with cookies (and to offer a warmer place to spend the night, but last night was far warmer than the night before and I was already tired), and I got him to help me move the piano from the landing where it's been since I moved in here a few years ago, to the third floor where I can actually play it. I didn't play it much last night after I lugged the amplifier up, because I didn't want to disturb the neighbours, but if I have any time today after dealing with the car and the plumbing and a new project and bills, I'll wander back up there and see what comes out.

I don't actually play piano, but I find it useful when transcribing/composing/arranging. And I must admit that the motion of the keys feels seductive to my fingers. (This is a Fender-Rhodes. For anyone here too young for that to be familiar from the 1960s and 1970s, it's an electric piano, not an electronic instrument; in every mechanical sense it's a Real Piano; instead of long strings and a sounding board, it has metal tines and coil pickups, but it's got the hammers and the dampers and produces its sound as a piano does. The electronics merely amplify, not generate, the sound. This also means it's heavy.)

That landing looks a lot larger now.