I love that we have friends/relatives we can trust who can house sit and stay with the kitties, so I am not going to bedevil them with what went wrong.

When Ed’s cousin, Dana, house sat, he used our Cuisinart coffeemaker that I had dug out of the cabinet because our Keurig needed a new reservoir that I had ordered (no charge). He dumped the coffee grounds down the sink. I had told him not to use the disposall, and not to dispose of table scraps down the drain, but he either didn’t hear me or didn’t think it was such a big deal or didn’t think that coffee grounds were “table scraps”. The sinks still drained when we got back, though they were a bit sluggish. I can bring the sinks back to normal, I thought, by being consistent with my careful collection of scraps that I throw in the garbage. And when I have a roasting pan full of greasy residue, I pour it on to paper towels that I throw away.

We got home last night, and Solveiga left to go home to her apartment in Naples, over an hour away. Originally she had planned to go back today, but the hospital called and said she’d have to work today. When I started cleaning up after dinner, both sinks stopped up and were half filled with water (and crud). They’ll drain, overnight I thought. I’ll leave them be. But this morning they had not drained. So I am guessing Solveiga also put stuff down the drain that contributed to the problem. The plumbers, God bless Sal, our plumbing guru, are here now. He and an apprentice have been working over an hour and now they are on the roof (don’t ask). Apparently this is not a quick fix. I am beyond grateful that Sal is working for us on Labor Day.

I’ll ask Solveiga to house sit again, if we ever need her and she can do it, but I’ll just have to be very specific about the plumbing. A while back we had a special plumber’s crew, on a referral from Sal, who said we needed “a plumber’s plumber”. That crew used a camera system that was able to identify the problem all the way to the street and they cleared it out. That was a big deal too. This is an old house. Short of a total remodel and replacement of pipes, I don’t know what a permanent solution is. Right now, what they are doing is very noisy indeed. It is not a sound I have ever known to come from a plumbing job.

Meanwhile, I left my iPod nano at the Inn in Hudson. Robert, the owner, is mailing it back to me. I just use it to go to sleep with because it has a meditation tape that interferes with brain patterns that cause nocturnal panic attacks. I have learned to deal with these, and sometimes, despite the meditation tape, I still get them. Last night I was okay, possibly because I tried a little self hypnosis. Basically, I talk to my unconscious mind and tell it to shape up. I say, “If I go, you do too, so get with the program.”

Maybe I should ask my doctor if an anti-depressant would help. I am not eager to take one because, once on it, you stay on it. Also, self help web sites concentrate on your not escalating the onset of a panic attack by becoming hysterical. That isn’t my problem. I haven’t had a waking attack since 1990 and I dealt with that (in the middle of a crowded subway car) by deep breathing. Hysteria is not me and when my heart awakens me at 3 a.m. by pounding, deep breathing immediately kicks in. When these first took place, I’d call out to Ed to say “goodbye” because, as far as I could tell, I was dying. And he’d say, “you’re hallucinating again, go back to sleep.”
Despite all this, we are not divorcing. Color me saint like.

P.S. The plumbers couldn't fix the problem and again have referred us to The Plumbers Plumber and I have left a message for them. Oh, sigh.

xx, Teal