The unexpected

I've not updated this in quite some time, but no one reads it anyway so it doesn't matter all that much. Let's delve into things.

First, the plumbing in the house has broken several times over the past week or so. I noticed it last Saturday (the 16th) when using the washing machine made the downstairs toilet and bathtub overflow. We had someone come out the following Monday (on which morning I showered at Dragos') and 'fix' it, when in reality he just tore up part of the wall and left. He 'tested' the pipes to make sure we could use everything by running some water a sink. Kent and I figured out that the system was still blocked by flushing a toilet, the same toilet that was half a foot from him while he was working. He got his money and left before anybody could ensure that things were functioning. Tom called and had him come out again the following day, which he did eventually. He spent another couple minutes sitting on his ass and then told us that we'd have to put a camera down the pipes. That is, he told us that he was lazy and didn't feel like fixing our problem. So, I showered at the neighbor's house Wednesday morning. Luckily, Tom called Roto-Rooter and they came out and snaked the pipes out and apparently remedied the problem. That is, until Thursday evening. Tom was already back in Breckingridge so I called him to let him know. I had to use the backyard's bushes that night. My plan was simply to take a shower upstairs and not care about the flooding Friday morning. However, I walked inside around 11 and saw someone moving downstairs; I figured it was Nikki or Jake coming in from the garage. Instead...

It was Sarah. She, Dragos, and Mom & Dad had all colluded to surprise me. She had driven to Indianapolis after her class Thursday night (telling me she was going out with her department for drinks) and flown to Denver, at which point Dragos picked her up and drove her to my place. I was quite confused at seeing her in my basement, to be sure. She had booked a hotel for us to use when I told her about the above plumbing situation. However, she had cancelled the reservation after hearing that Roto-Rooter had solved the problem Wednesday; she was unaware of the problems that had developed Thursday night. Luckily, Dragos let us use his place Friday morning. She dropped me off for Greek then went home and napped (two hour time difference) before picking up lunch for us. We ate the Qdoba quickly since I was at work. Thankfully Roto-Rooter came out early Friday morning and snaked out the plumbing again, also putting a camera down to inspect the pipes. We were admonished to be careful about what we put down the pipes and that they would probably need to come back out in a week or so. (Tom left me a message on my cell phone saying that they had quoted him ~ $9500 to repair all the pipes; he's going to get another estimate this week.) After I got off work, we went down to the Dushanbe Teahouse for a short while and drank some excellent tea, though the service was a bit lacking. That night we went out to eat at Sherpa's with Dragos and Kristin (his girlfriend) before going back to his apartment for a rousing game of Scrabble. Sarah also got to meet Kristin's cattle-dog mix Sedona, who looks much different from Sarah's cattle-dog mix Lucy but who also shares many of the same personality traits. We slept in late on Saturday morning before going down to the farmer's market for lunch. In addition to the usual people, they also have cooked-food vendors at the market. Sarah got a smoothie, vegetable tamale, and pinto beans while I had an awesome Chicago-style hot dog and some Boulder chips. We drove over to Boulder Co-op and had some vegetarian dessert before heading home. I had picked up some athletic tape for my feet (which I'll explain in a bit) so I taped them up, put on my hiking boots, and we went for a walk around the NIST complex. Sarah was excited to see the prairie dogs again, mainly. Saturday night we went out to Pei-Wei in Broomfield for dinner (which was excellent) before going out with Dragos and Kristin. First, we went bowling at the UMC on campus, then we played some pool at The Attic, before heading to Pearl Street Pub for a game of darts (which we gave up on because nobody was able to score three bullseyes). Sunday morning we slept in through my first Ultimate game before rousing ourselves and heading down to Broomfield again for the second one. Apparently we had lost the first game to B-1 (no surprise) but we won our second game. A couple weeks ago I hurt my feet somehow playing Ultimate, and they've yet to heal. I taped them up and managed to play through the second game. I'm pretty sure I've injured (mildly) some of the ligaments along the tops of my feet. But, it was much warmer Sunday than it had been and the game was fun so we had a good time. After the game, we went over to BJ's and had free beer and cheap pizza for lunch. Once that was done, we got our swimsuits and relaxed in Dragos' hot tub for a while; I'm not sure if it was the hot tub or the combination of rest and Advil, but something made my feet feel better. Having dried off and changed, we drove up into the mountains near sunset through Nederland and eventually up to Eldora. Down in Boulder it was about 60 degrees, while up at Eldora (where there was snow on the ground) it was something like 38. We snapped some pictures in Eldora before stopping in Nederland at Kathmandu for some more Nepalese food (twice in three days). Upon arriving back in Boulder, we stopped at Boulder Chill for some 'WOW Cow' ice cream; Sarah can't find any in Bloomington and it's only nine calories an ounce while also being fat free. By the time we got home, it was time to sleep since her flight this morning left at 6:50 MDT. We went to bed but didn't fall asleep for a while because Kent was cleaning his room upstairs and the floor/ceiling is ridiculously creaky. In any case, Sarah got up at 4:00 this morning and got ready while I woke up at 5:00 and drove her to the airport. I went home and slept until it was time for work. I must say that I was completely surprised by her visit, but I enjoyed it immensely. Now I'm melancholy because we're apart again but c'est la vie. Such things must be done for now. But it's time to get back to work and accomplish something.