Too much excitement -- parts 3 and 4

When I last posted, I was recovering from the double whammy of my husband's near-death cardiac event and the mysterious failure of the big mirror in our front hall.  I was hopeful that the worst was behind us. 

Of course, the worst was behind us -- it's hard to top a near-death event when it comes to comparing hardships.  But the hits just keep on coming.  Later that day we had a terrible storm come through, with wind gusts of almost 80 mph.  Our neighborhood was hard hit, with trees down all over the place, including on the power lines.  

We were without power for 76 hours, during which it was dark and cold much of the time, dark and somewhat warmer the rest of the time.  Outside of one afternoon when we camped out at a son's house, we stayed home and contemplated how boring it is to have no music, no internet, no sewing machine, no fridge, no TV.  We slept a lot, because it was nice and warm in bed even when the temperature in the house got pretty low.  Two afternoons I sat in the car in the driveway, which was nice and warm in the sun, and took naps.  

two blocks from our house

The power returned and to our delight, we didn't even lose the contents of the freezer, which were still covered in ice crystals and thus savable.  We had a couple of days of happiness just to be back in our home with everything working.

But little did we know.

Yesterday morning, prior to a grocery run, we went downstairs to see if we needed toilet paper in the seldom-used guest bathroom.  Well, needing toilet paper was an understatement, because it turns out that sewage was backing up into the toilet, the bathtub, the shower.  Apparently the entire sewer line leading out of our house has clogged up.  Every drop of water that goes down a drain will only raise the water table (or should we say the sewage table) so the house is effectively unlivable.

The plumber said he couldn't do anything without a helper, and that couldn't occur till Monday morning.  He also called the sewer district, just in case the clog is in the area of their responsibility.  They have been out twice and haven't been able to get their sewer-cam in position to inspect.  They're also coming back Monday morning.

So we're holed up in a nice cozy motel for at least another night, feeling sorry for ourselves.  My daily stitching has turned very dark.