a wet end to Mother's Day

We took Mom out to a restaurant near the Tyson's Corner area called 2941 (it's named after the street address number of the building in which it's located). We had fantastically decadent French food served in giant plates and bite-sized portions, but the experience was worth it to see Mom's happy face.

Alas, the night ended on a sour note when we discovered flooding in our basement. Water had been seeping through the walls of my old subterranean bedroom (now a storage area for the past few years); my brother David was the one who discovered the problem. He and Dad set to cleaning the mess up right away; I arrived a bit late on the scene and began helping by taking out cardboard boxes full of old knickknacks and paperwork, and by prepping our old dehumidifier fo the job of its life.

David and Dad used a "shop vac" to suck most of the wetness out of the room's carpet, which had become a marshland. Water extended three feet into the room from the wall opposite the room's entrance. We conjectured that this must have been happening for hours; readers who aren't in the Alexandria area might not be aware that we've had constant rain for a while, and the ground has been thoroughly saturated.

Late last night, probably around 1:00AM, we went outside and got some shovels. David and Dad scraped away at a shallow depression into which water had become trapped; David succeeded in widening the trench and allowing the water to flow out of the pool it had formed. David's theory-- the only theory we had-- was that the lack of water flow had allowed the collected water to begin to soak into the ground near the corner by the parents' bedroom (which sits atop my old basement bedroom), hence the seepage we had seen inside my old room.

As of this morning, there seems to be no new wetness. The dehumidifier has been working madly all night, and the room's carpet is still moist but no longer soaked. All the vacuuming must have paid off. We can only hope the rain will taper off soon and give us time for a breather. Dad tried to drive Mom to work this morning, but both Route 1 and the GW Parkway have been closed off at the usual access points, so they came back home and Mom has called in to the office to tell them she won't be there today.

In the meantime, we eat a quiet breakfast and await better weather.


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