Water is the nemesis, for real this time
I am so so so fucking tired. I have to make myself dinner! I'm blank on ideas and lack the energy to think about it. Maybe I need to rehydrate.
--- 8:47 PM
I LOST MY FUCKING PIERCING. I FUCKING HATE MY PIECE OF SHIT BODY AND HOW IT IN EVERY WAY GOES AGAINST WHAT I WANT OF IT. I TAKE THIS PIECE OF SURGICAL STEEL OUT AND FOR ANY NORMAL PERSON, THEY'D HAVE AT LEAST HOURS BEFORE THE HOLE CLOSED TOO SMALL FOR THE STUD, BUT NO, I DON'T EVEN HAVE 30 FUCKING SECONDS. AND 10 FUCKING HOURS TIL THE HOLE FUCKING CLOSES. FUCK YOU! THIS IS ABSOLUTE BULLSHIT. I WANTED TO KEEP THAT FUCKING HOLE FOR THE REST OF MY FUCKING LIFE BUT NO. FUCK YOU, BODY, FUCK YOU.
I try desperately to force it through and I know it probably won't go, but I still try. Fuck. Burst into tears and cry for 15 minutes at a time, while some little voice critiques my crying technique and tells me this is a silly reason to cry, that eveidently I'm not that broken up since I feel nothing at all inside and goes off on tangets. And then I have to remind myself to breathe in. As if these last few days haven't been disgusting enough.
So I may as well finally tell you. On Thursday, around noon, it started raining in the Great Hall and modern kitchen. Well, first muddy water came spewing out of some pipes in the kitchen, into a sink (those pipes had never more than dripped clear water before). I think it must have been about this time that one of the contractors ran out of the North Canoe Shed and came into the historic Kitchen and said "I forgot." When I asked, he said, "It's going to start raining in here in a minute" and disappeared upstairs. He came back down, and it didn't start raining, so I thought nothing of it, until I think Emily came running downstairs and said it had starting raining in the Great Hall. So I went to check it out... streams of water coming through the ceiling pannels. People pulling the tables out of the way and rushing to find any containers in the mod kitchen that would hold water to put under the leaks. By the time the "rain" slowed at the end of the day, the guys minding the drip buckets were drenched to the skin, without ever going outside. (Dave Bates came into the lunchroom drenched to the skin, so we assumed he'd been in the Great Hall too, but then found out he'd only been caught in the rain and then related the spectacle of the Great Hall to him.) So it slowed down gradually, and they closed the building, but things were looking up. Until about 4:00, when suddenly it starting raining in the historic Kitchen and pouring in the Bakery and running down the walls. So we collected all the large tinware and cast iron we could find to put under the drips, called maintenance, and left it for the night. By the time we left, it was dripping as opposed to streaming, so things were looking up(ish) again, however, the brick floor in the Bakery, which had just, finally, dried out after the flood (no joke), was completely drenched again. I went upstairs to check out the puddle, and it wasn't too bad, so we hoped it would clear out in the night and it would be all over.
So by the time we came in yesterday, it had slowed to just a few drips in the Kitchen and Bakery and the Great Hall, and nothing at all in the mod kit. Unfortunately, the force of the drops had started to dig away the now mushy mortar int eh brick floors. We dumped out the buckets and decided to make a light day of it. Opened all the windows and lit fires to dry everything out. I went up and checked the puddle again, and it was worse. We talked about getting a shop vac like they'd been using in the Hall, but the water was right under the electrical outlets and electrocution isn't something we like to risk. So we decided to make muffins, pulled leftover stew out of the fridge and put that over the fire, and started interpretting. I could hardly string two thoughts together. The constant drip...drip...drip...drip from the one or two still left threw me off completely... it was wretched, and got worse as the day went on. And then, around 3:00, the deluge restarted in all four places. Worse in the HK+B, not nearly as bad in the MK+GH. Running down the walls in the historic kitchen, too, streaming again in the bakery. So we grabbed even more tinware, the coal boxes, the cake pans, the roasting pans, the cauldrons, rearranging them as best we could, emptying them and watching in dismay. While attempting to rearrange the containers under the running walls in the kitchen, I looked up and realized it was running around or over the electrical outlet. By the end of the day, we just put tin everywhere we could, informed maintenance, and closed up the buildings.
The sound was like a little steel drum band, it was quite neat. I kinda wanted a recorder to capture it. "Tin Orchestra" as Kate put it.
So we came in this morning to find... the 2 L pitcher on the kitchen table had overflowed. The 1 ft tall by 1 ft round tureen in the bakery was full to within 1 cm of the edge, same with the oval bucket, 1 ft by 2 ft round and about 8 inches high. The 1 L pitcher had also overflowed. The rate of drip had again slowed, and the number decreased to those same persistent few from yesterday. The puddle upstairs was no smaller though. We had the Insurance Adjusters Association of Ontario arriving for a conference later this afternoon, so we [I just had deja vu of typing this] needed a large amount of samples for when they arrived, and also an Overnight program of 30 kids or so arriving on Monday which needed cookies made. So Vince and Jeff were starting to bake cookies, I was starting to make Crumbcake and Montrose cake, and beginning to run the tinware that we used to hold the brown "rain" water through the sanitizer, when the power went off. So we turned it back on, and then it went off, and you could smell the burning. So maintenance came in and declared it dangerous to work in. Power back on Monday. So I made a sink of bleach water for sanitizing and spent my morning sanitizing the tinware 9I probably should have been in the Wintering House or making samples somehow, but it's hard to cook when you have nothing to cook in). It didn't rain again today, which is such a relief. But a lot of the Insurance Adjusters were the kind of people who take glee in finding unhistoric things or trying to make you slip up, and they didn't arrive until late, so that was irritating. We had another one of those marathon song and dances while waiting for the heads of the Association to be paddled in. That idea just felt like a big ego trip for them... the whole thing just seems so ego tripping. They had a pipe band to pipe them in, they have entertainment hired for tonight, a comedian, they rented the Fort, for goodness sake. I wonder how much these people are paying to come or if the Association paid for it all. I'm sure they'll have a good time, but I kind of resent the money they're blowing, Maybe because all of my conferences are beyond cash strapped. The arrival was neat though. People were genuinely enthused about it, which is sometimes lacking in ours because the crowds just don't get into it.
And the reason so many issues with water? Well it comes from the flood. When they knew they'd be turning off the power in the buildings during the flood, they hired a contractor to blow the lines. They blew some, but not all. Specifically, not the AC lines. So the coils burst. And, when they turned them on, we got flooded. I'm hoping for some disciplinary action, unless they pay for the replacement coils and cleanup. Fuck. Is that the kind of work you do for government money?
--- 8:47 PM
I LOST MY FUCKING PIERCING. I FUCKING HATE MY PIECE OF SHIT BODY AND HOW IT IN EVERY WAY GOES AGAINST WHAT I WANT OF IT. I TAKE THIS PIECE OF SURGICAL STEEL OUT AND FOR ANY NORMAL PERSON, THEY'D HAVE AT LEAST HOURS BEFORE THE HOLE CLOSED TOO SMALL FOR THE STUD, BUT NO, I DON'T EVEN HAVE 30 FUCKING SECONDS. AND 10 FUCKING HOURS TIL THE HOLE FUCKING CLOSES. FUCK YOU! THIS IS ABSOLUTE BULLSHIT. I WANTED TO KEEP THAT FUCKING HOLE FOR THE REST OF MY FUCKING LIFE BUT NO. FUCK YOU, BODY, FUCK YOU.
I try desperately to force it through and I know it probably won't go, but I still try. Fuck. Burst into tears and cry for 15 minutes at a time, while some little voice critiques my crying technique and tells me this is a silly reason to cry, that eveidently I'm not that broken up since I feel nothing at all inside and goes off on tangets. And then I have to remind myself to breathe in. As if these last few days haven't been disgusting enough.
So I may as well finally tell you. On Thursday, around noon, it started raining in the Great Hall and modern kitchen. Well, first muddy water came spewing out of some pipes in the kitchen, into a sink (those pipes had never more than dripped clear water before). I think it must have been about this time that one of the contractors ran out of the North Canoe Shed and came into the historic Kitchen and said "I forgot." When I asked, he said, "It's going to start raining in here in a minute" and disappeared upstairs. He came back down, and it didn't start raining, so I thought nothing of it, until I think Emily came running downstairs and said it had starting raining in the Great Hall. So I went to check it out... streams of water coming through the ceiling pannels. People pulling the tables out of the way and rushing to find any containers in the mod kitchen that would hold water to put under the leaks. By the time the "rain" slowed at the end of the day, the guys minding the drip buckets were drenched to the skin, without ever going outside. (Dave Bates came into the lunchroom drenched to the skin, so we assumed he'd been in the Great Hall too, but then found out he'd only been caught in the rain and then related the spectacle of the Great Hall to him.) So it slowed down gradually, and they closed the building, but things were looking up. Until about 4:00, when suddenly it starting raining in the historic Kitchen and pouring in the Bakery and running down the walls. So we collected all the large tinware and cast iron we could find to put under the drips, called maintenance, and left it for the night. By the time we left, it was dripping as opposed to streaming, so things were looking up(ish) again, however, the brick floor in the Bakery, which had just, finally, dried out after the flood (no joke), was completely drenched again. I went upstairs to check out the puddle, and it wasn't too bad, so we hoped it would clear out in the night and it would be all over.
So by the time we came in yesterday, it had slowed to just a few drips in the Kitchen and Bakery and the Great Hall, and nothing at all in the mod kit. Unfortunately, the force of the drops had started to dig away the now mushy mortar int eh brick floors. We dumped out the buckets and decided to make a light day of it. Opened all the windows and lit fires to dry everything out. I went up and checked the puddle again, and it was worse. We talked about getting a shop vac like they'd been using in the Hall, but the water was right under the electrical outlets and electrocution isn't something we like to risk. So we decided to make muffins, pulled leftover stew out of the fridge and put that over the fire, and started interpretting. I could hardly string two thoughts together. The constant drip...drip...drip...drip from the one or two still left threw me off completely... it was wretched, and got worse as the day went on. And then, around 3:00, the deluge restarted in all four places. Worse in the HK+B, not nearly as bad in the MK+GH. Running down the walls in the historic kitchen, too, streaming again in the bakery. So we grabbed even more tinware, the coal boxes, the cake pans, the roasting pans, the cauldrons, rearranging them as best we could, emptying them and watching in dismay. While attempting to rearrange the containers under the running walls in the kitchen, I looked up and realized it was running around or over the electrical outlet. By the end of the day, we just put tin everywhere we could, informed maintenance, and closed up the buildings.
The sound was like a little steel drum band, it was quite neat. I kinda wanted a recorder to capture it. "Tin Orchestra" as Kate put it.
So we came in this morning to find... the 2 L pitcher on the kitchen table had overflowed. The 1 ft tall by 1 ft round tureen in the bakery was full to within 1 cm of the edge, same with the oval bucket, 1 ft by 2 ft round and about 8 inches high. The 1 L pitcher had also overflowed. The rate of drip had again slowed, and the number decreased to those same persistent few from yesterday. The puddle upstairs was no smaller though. We had the Insurance Adjusters Association of Ontario arriving for a conference later this afternoon, so we [I just had deja vu of typing this] needed a large amount of samples for when they arrived, and also an Overnight program of 30 kids or so arriving on Monday which needed cookies made. So Vince and Jeff were starting to bake cookies, I was starting to make Crumbcake and Montrose cake, and beginning to run the tinware that we used to hold the brown "rain" water through the sanitizer, when the power went off. So we turned it back on, and then it went off, and you could smell the burning. So maintenance came in and declared it dangerous to work in. Power back on Monday. So I made a sink of bleach water for sanitizing and spent my morning sanitizing the tinware 9I probably should have been in the Wintering House or making samples somehow, but it's hard to cook when you have nothing to cook in). It didn't rain again today, which is such a relief. But a lot of the Insurance Adjusters were the kind of people who take glee in finding unhistoric things or trying to make you slip up, and they didn't arrive until late, so that was irritating. We had another one of those marathon song and dances while waiting for the heads of the Association to be paddled in. That idea just felt like a big ego trip for them... the whole thing just seems so ego tripping. They had a pipe band to pipe them in, they have entertainment hired for tonight, a comedian, they rented the Fort, for goodness sake. I wonder how much these people are paying to come or if the Association paid for it all. I'm sure they'll have a good time, but I kind of resent the money they're blowing, Maybe because all of my conferences are beyond cash strapped. The arrival was neat though. People were genuinely enthused about it, which is sometimes lacking in ours because the crowds just don't get into it.
And the reason so many issues with water? Well it comes from the flood. When they knew they'd be turning off the power in the buildings during the flood, they hired a contractor to blow the lines. They blew some, but not all. Specifically, not the AC lines. So the coils burst. And, when they turned them on, we got flooded. I'm hoping for some disciplinary action, unless they pay for the replacement coils and cleanup. Fuck. Is that the kind of work you do for government money?