Thursday, May 21, sometime after 3:30 p.m. We were coasting into the Memorial Day weekend, and my biggest gripe was being stuck on a diet of pureed foods.

I decided to take advantage of the afternoon heat to take a shower. I skipped this ritual yesterday because it is more complicated the it would normally be. I still have a plastic tube in my gut draining small amounts of fluid from the site of my surgery, now 10 days in the past. This complicates things, as I have to be careful not to put pressure on the drain. I managed it so far by wearing a pair of underwear into the shower and clipping the plastic collection bag to it, leaving my hands mostly free.

I quickly realized things were different. Water in the shower/tub was slowly backing up. I tried moving the drain lever to the opposite position. No effect, as far as I could tell. I flipped that switch several times, hoping to hear the sounds of water draining. Nada. So I figured, okay, don’t worry about the backup. We don’t have to take showers tomorrow.

I was just starting a final rinse when the hot water expired. Yikes! If it’s not one thing, it’s another, as Gilda would say. Kids, you’ll just have to look up that reference, I guess.

So my rinse was truncated, and I stepped out. Quickly dried off, then reached down for the pair of shorts I had ready for the occasion. And that’s when I discovered the toilet had overflowed, covering more than half the bathroom floor.

A plumber had apparenty blessed the bathrooms after a recent checkup prior to our arrival. So much for advance preparations.

So there we were, an hour ago. Cursory efforts to mop up the water using bath towels grandly inadequate but the house had been empty for a while and the typical collection of household rags, as well as mops, were no longer available. Meanwhile, Meda was wiping her hands with alcohol wipes and helping replace the bandage at the site of the surgical drain.

A three ring circus.

I thought about just moving to a hotel, but realized that a have delivery of commercial pureed meals arriving tomorrow, exact timing unknown. So we’re kind of stuck.

This one hit us out of left field.

We’re waiting for the plumber to arrive. It’s 82° outside, not quite that in the house. We have two fans that we move around the different rooms as the sun changes position.

And I thought being stuck with pureed food was the biggest problem we faced.