Cosmo and I live with my grandparents, for the sole reason that my grandpa is getting older and weaker, and my grandma doesn�t want to spend her golden years looking after him and her only daughter [my mother], an alcoholic heroin addict. Why doesn�t she just kick her out? Good question, but that story is for another day. So Cosmo and I gave up a flat in Germany, and moved back to San Diego, a mere 2 months after our oh-so-carefully planned, hopefully-permanent move. We made this move at the request of my grandmother, and our lives have slowly deteriorated ever since. Still, I love my grandma with all my heart, and so we�re stuck in her house, where my 80-year-old grandpa insists on being the only one to make any repairs around the place.

So Monday morning, as you may recall me whining about, it is discovered that the sump pump has stopped working. The sump pump is vital to our plumbing because until we had it put in last year, we had a septic tank. What�s a septic tank? It�s a hole in the ground. You take a shower, wash the dishes, flush the toilet; it goes down to the septic tank and sits there. Some of it dissipates, but mostly it sits there until it�s full, then you hire a man with a truck to come pump about a year�s worth of crap out and haul it away. The sump pump eliminates the man in the truck because when the septic tank reaches a certain level, the pump turns on and pumps it out to the main sewer pipes. So if the sump pump quits, the tank fills up and overflows.

Still following me? Good.

Why did a brand new sump pump stop working, you may wonder. We�ve been wondering the same thing. And then we discovered that someone had been mopping our floors with a string mop. And this same someone had been rinsing the mop in the toilet. The strings, as they disintegrated and broke off, were flushed. Down to the septic tank, floating around, waiting to be sucked up into he pump where they wrapped around and burnt the motor out. Who was this person? Why, the only person who was insane enough to buy and use a string mops. My little sister, the vegan animal rights terrorist. *sigh*

So thanks to her, we�re out of a shower and stuck with a porta-potty until the end of the week. Luckily, Cosmo and I stopped at a friend�s house last night, showered, used the bathroom, and repeated the performance this morning. I have very caring, very tolerant friends, don�t I?

And the good news? We�ll not only have a fully functioning bathroom this weekend, but everyone except Cosmo and I are leaving on a 3 week road trip to visit relatives in Alaska.

An open invitation to all of you to come join us in celebration of the gods of the bathroom next week. I can promise food, booze, people, music, and a large, fairly empty house. And of course, I should be in a considerably better mood, seeings as how I can shower to my heart�s content.