End of the year stuff
Okay so there was an event or two this year that didn't get documented in my live journal, so here we go. Of course in June of the past several years I've gone camping at smithville lake at an SCA event called the War of the Lilies. This year was no exception. But the day before I was to pack up and leave, I awoke in the middle of the night with that ominous feeling we've all felt: my stomach was upset and only one thing would help. But it felt even worse than that, and it was. After giving my offering to the porcelain god, so to speak, I was not better. I called in sick to work and called my friend Rita I didn't think I was going to make it to smithville on Friday. She said they would set up my tent for me. For two days I couldn't keep any food down. On Saturday I was a bit better, but since my friend from NY was in town and I had the Psychedelic Furs concert, I stayed home to recuperate. It stormed that night. Hard. I went down to my notoriously leaky basement to check on things when I found to my horror that the drain was clogged and so much water was streaming in that a large pond had formed. I frantically tried plunging it, but to no avail. I grabbed a five gallon bucket and a plastic cup and started bailing.Then I would haul the bucket out the garage door and start again. It was midnight and I was still not completely well. The storm raged on like none I'd seen before. When I'd take the bucket out to dump, the clouds were raining lightning bolts. I called Mother Nature every name that I could think of, screaming through my tears. A couple of hours later it finally subsided. My dad came out the next day to try to snake the drain. We ran water through it hard and it didn't back up. Dad pulled the stopper out of the cleaning hole and said I could leave it out to make a bigger hole for the water to flow through. This eased my mind enough to not have to worry about it while I was away, but the drain would continue to haunt me later in the year. The next day I met my friend, had a nice lunch, and saw the Furs with She Wants Revenge opening. It was a great show, but now I was healthy and ready to make the camping trip. This story has gone long and there is oh so much more to it. To be continued...