I may still be a finalist...

...but it's now certain I'm not going to win the "It sucks to be me" sweepstakes after all.

Why? Because even though Saturday brought Basement Flood #2 (this time thanks to the melting lake o'ice underneath the back deck), it also brought the following wonderful news in the mail:

"Your biopsy results were negative."

And the bonus sentence: "No further tests are required at this time."

( A bit of the backstory; nothing particularly graphic )

I'm glad the biopsy followed the expected script without any unwelcome plot twists right at that point. The rest of my life has more than enough plot twists these days, thank you very much.

Speaking of those, yes, I'm on Basement Flood #2. The warm weather is a mixed blessing. Yes, I hope it's thawing my frozen pipe. That'd be good. The not-so-good is that all of that drip-drip-dripping of melting snow and ice means there's a lot of water sitting on top of frozen ground and still-frozen ice underneath my back deck, and the flood plain includes the basement door. Water is seeping in under the edge of the door. ( More soggy details )

The Magic 8 Ball sez: "Answer wet; ask again later."

Or maybe that should be "Answer wet; mop again later."

Anyway, well...anyway. That's where things s/o/a/k/ stand.

"I found the Golden Ticket!"

I woke after 3.5 hours, the latter part of which was filled with a long, coherent dream that culminated in finding a ruby engagement ring and a ruby pinky ring -- the "Golden Ticket" in some SF Fandom / Convention / Hugo / Movie promotion. Finding the rings meant I won a $10,000 prize, in addition to getting to keep the rings, both of which fit! The dream had many other vivid details, most of which were greatly enjoying and none of which were uncomfortable or worrisome. Both I and the people around me were singing, "I found the Golden Ticket!" and "You found the Golden Ticket!" as I awoke.

Yep, that negative biopsy certainly relieved my mind.

The first thing I noticed was silence. There was NO drip-drip-drip of water falling from the back roof! I looked at the clock. Long enough that I'd really best check the basement. All the way downstairs, I was aware of just how quiet it wa.Still no drip-drip-drips. Silent and sunny. Huzzah!

No standing water under the door. Whatever seeped in after my final cleanup seeped back out on its own. "Flood 2 Lake" is all but dry and nothing is dripping from above! I took the dry towels into the fan room and sopped up water through the carpet. The towels didn't even have to go through the spin cycle. They're wet, but no more so than they usually are at the end of a wash cycle. Which says a lot about how little new water seeped through to the fan room last night.

I declare Flood 2 officially over. Thank Ghu!

I'm going back to sleep for what I hope is another 3.5 hours. Many thanks to all for their good wishes this morning. cakmpls gave me a real Duh! moment when she mentioned the imminent use of the dreaded shop vac in her basement. I should have tried using the shop vac to empty my lake last night! It probably would have been a lot easier than using shovels, rakes, and implements of destruction. I thought of trying to siphon the water, but the lake was too shallow to maintain a siphon even if I managed to get one going. But I just didn't think of trying the power tool I was already using for flood control in the carpeted areas. I should have been using it to soak up water from the bare concrete floor, too. I bet it would have been a lot faster than my mop.

Instead of trying to think of what various friends might suggest if they were there, I should have been wondering, "What would NESFA do?!"

Wishing you all a dry, sunny day....