Refugees & Sweet Revenge

So, I don't know if anyone in the greater DC area has noticed, but we've been having a little bit of rain the past few days. It's true. And it has caused a few...situations...in the area. You know...like flooding the IRS building...and closing down the Capitol Beltway with mudslides that spanned all the lanes of traffic. But the rain is effecting people on a more personal level, too.

I'd like to share 2 ways the rain, albeit destructive and dangerous to some, has been a blessing in MY life.

1. Our neighbor is evil. She is. And my roommate Tyler can be as NICE to her as he wants, but she's mean and crazy and I'm pretty sure jealous of how cool we are. Our neighbor has this HUGE deck out back of her house that pretty much takes up her entire backyard. And for the longest time, when it rained, our basement flooded. SERIOUSLY flooded. Like above-the-ankle-and-almost-to-the-calves-deep waters. After further exploration, we find that it's due to a couple of things...one MAJOR one being that Crazy Neighbor's DRAINPIPES came through her fence (which have been hidden by the huge deck) and emptied UNDER our back stairs....thus causing HUGE amounts of water to puddle up and help in the flooding of the T Street Basement. And it was never good.
Well, Tyler bought the house back in the Fall of 2005, and has started doing some renovations - including the backyard area. Part of this work included taking out the back stairs and discovering the sneaky Crazy Neighbor's drain pipes. So Tyler pushed them back through her fence....removed some concrete in the area and the stairs and is working on changing the whole area. And now that the rains have come....CRAZY NEIGHBOR'S basement is flooding. And she is letting us know. 2 letters in the past 2 weeks...one of which was hand-delivered by her crazy daughter...just last night. The letters are entertaining. The first one spoke of raccoon nests and concrete piles that could lead to a rat problem....I guess because rats like to eat concrete? Anyway. Crazy. And then LAST NIGHT'S letter was much shorter and too the point. Basically she's had to remove "gallons of water being pumped into [her] basment due to [Tyler's] lack of planning" when he first undertook this project. Which is silly. It sounds like PERFECT planning to me.

Oh yeah - and she said she reported him to the "proper DC authorities". So....I'm pretty sure the FBI is going to show up any day now. That's the Flooded Basement Investigators. Look out.

2. The rain flooded the first floor of The WSB...which is right where Darci and I sit. So they have had to move all of the people on the first floor around the building to open desks and the desks of people who are out on vacation. Joe, the IT Director here at WSB, is awesome, and he moved Darci and I into the 2nd floor conference room. Basically, picture your standard walk-in closet. When they use it to meet, 4 people can fit in here, and it feels cramped. BUT - it has a door and we can close it and pretty much just talk and laugh and listen to tunes. The best part about it is that they set our computers up so we face each other. All day. And I like to send Darci emails that say, "I'm staring at you over your computer." So then when she gets it, and looks up, I am staring at her. It's a fun little game I like to play.

Here is the view. Notice the top of my computer and how it butts up to Darci's.

Now Darci is staring at ME over her computer. Good times.

But yeah....so far...aside from getting a little wet walking into the building, this rain thing hasn't been too bad for me.