Talk about an eventful birthday…

So the past week has been…a little traumatic. I incurred some bad juju or karma somewhere along the way. I’m not sure how, but that has to be it.

A short summary of the past week:

1. I get a hair cut that makes me look like a layered wedding cake. Luckily a different hair dresser was able to fix it and it looks really cute now. However, it went from halfway down my back to just below my jaw line.

2. Skippy got food poisoning and couldn’t come up for my birthday weekend.

3. My car battery died. Luckily BW and Lyss were here to help me push it out of the driveway and jump it.

4. 3 pipes burst in the crawl space above my bedroom because they weren’t properly insulated.

5. I had a waterfall in my bedroom that left most of what I own very soggy. Luckily, it couldn’t have been leaking for more than ten minutes and BW and Lyss were there to help me turn off the water, drag everything out of the room, and place buckets under the leaks. I couldn’t ask for a more level headed duo to get the job done.

6. I go buy a wet/dry vac to suck up the swamp.

7. My landlord hires a charlatan plumber who arrives at 8AM the next day. The first thing he did was pick his nose and flick whatever he found and say, "Well, this is what happens when you leave girls alone in a house. Heh heh heh." I should have kicked his ass out. I suspect he stole a pair of my underwear – the pink polka dotted ones to be exact. (The drawer with my underwear and socks in it was sitting next to the crawl space entrance in the storage room). The plumber fixes the first leak and turns the water back on. The second pipe bursts. He fixes that one and as he is leaving BW sees that he didn’t insulate the pipes…which is why they burst in the first place. When he asked if the guy was going to insulate them, the plumber tells us he doesn’t have any and we can go pick some up at the hardware store really cheap – it isn’t hard to put on. My mouth drops as he leaves.

8. As I am calling my landlord in a furious frenzy, BW sees that there is a steam valve spewing water. This dumps more water in my room.  My landlord gets the plumber to come back six hours later.

9. The plumber comes back and insulates the pipes and fixes the valve. The ceiling cracks under his weight.

10. The majority of the ceiling collapses shortly after he leaves. Luckily…I am now relieved of wet vac duty as the room is now a health hazard.

11. Mr. Fuzzy, my hamster who was lucky not to drown, is very obviously dying.

12. When I call to tell my landlord the ceiling collapsed and that I want the entire ceiling and carpet replaced due to mold and fiberglass, she tells me she is in Florida and that it may take a couple days to get someone out to take a look at it.  Luckily, it is in my lease that if part of the house is unlivable, I get a pre-rata rent. So I am taking 1/8 ($67) off for each week it isn’t fixed.

13. I am leaving for Ghana in 3 weeks. This means that the room might not be fixed until after I leave. So I kinda have to move almost all my stuff out to my mom’s and BWs. First of all, my house mates won’t move it all back in for me. Secondly, I am afraid the entire house is going to collapse and what isn’t too soggy to keep will be lost in the debris. Third, my house mates are pretty irresponsible and I don’t trust them to keep an eye on my room and make sure some shady individual at a party doesn’t steal all my stuff.

Yay….Happy 23rd to me. Honestly though, it all could have been so much worse. I could have been all alone, my house mates could have been home and just gotten in the way, my new laptop could have been ruined, Mr. Fuzzy could have drowned…etc.

In all the hubbub I couldn’t finish the report on ICE detention standards I said I would have done for the coalition meeting tomorrow. Today was also the first day of class, and I always feel unbelievably overwhelmed on the first day of class.

Oy.