Woman About Town

Inspirational song: Bastille Day (Rush)

After ten days in self-imposed prison, I have broken free at last! I put on real clothes, shoes (if cheap Wal-Mart sliders count as "real" shoes), and a hat, and I climbed into a very warm car. I rode away from Smith Park West, and had, as the cats always ask for, an "out."

We had brunch at Lucile's, the delightful Creole restaurant that has been my favorite for a quarter century. I may not be able to indulge in beignets anymore, but I can still get most of my go-to dishes there. Just the act of leaving the house and being around people was treat enough, but to do it with eggs Jennifer and spiced tea? Perfection.

From there I got my first chance to inspect the damage at our condo. It's bad. Worse than I imagined. Dehumidifiers have been running for more than a week, but it's still quite damp in there. The Mr emptied the two gallon water reservoir from the dehumidifier and set it to running again. He then resumed peeling up the moldy vapor barrier, trying to figure out how to pop out the wet floor boards in the hall closet. The floor is already up in both of the bedrooms and the hall. We can't find a match for it, and may have to replace the whole thing, living room included. The insurance adjuster has already suggested that may be our only option.

I was most upset by the smell. The whole place smells like stagnant water. When I was a little girl, the cabin in the woods that my grandparents built wasn't hooked up to city water. The water source was a pond on the hill. We weren't allowed to drink from the taps, but we were allowed to shower in that water and flush the toilets with it. When I was a teenager, my grandfather ran a line from the city source to the cabin, but the smell of the pond water never, ever left the bathroom. That smell was in every inch of my condo today. I'm not sure there's a way to get the smell out of there, unless we do go ahead and pull up all the floor and scrub the concrete floor with bleach. Even then, I will have to hope it works. It will be unrentable with that smell in it.