As mentioned yesterday, it's my 20th college reunion this weekend. Some time ago I found out that a good friend of mine from back then would be in town for it, so we met her today and had a good visit on campus and down at the local farmers' market. That place certainly gets more crowded this time of year compared to the two times we visited in the past two Octobers.




Daddy shows off Little Red at reunion.




The past few days have been wickedly humid. My earlier post about the humidity should have been saved for this week. The record temperatures hitting the whole region have made me wish (just a tiny bit) for California.

One bad surprise this weekend: water in the basement. Not leaking from the walls from all the rain, but condensing out of thin air. We opened up the basement garage doors in order to try to help the air circulate, but that seems to have accelerated the problem and we have water quite literally pooling on tops of cardboard boxes and all over the floors.

I took the mop to the floor and removed a gallon or so just by sopping and squeezing. We decided we have/had no option but to buy a large dehumidifier for the basement. On the good side: it worked wonders! Although we've had to empty its bucket many times over a couple days, once it gets control we'll have to empty it just once a day. Unfortunately there's no nearby drain in the floor we can pipe it into.


In the good news department: the sellers have finally left!!! They apparently abandoned a small trailer, which we've moved into the garage, and left us with a mess of a huge burn area eyesore not far from the house. We spent a couple evenings scooping the remains of furniture and other trash into some 20 heavy-duty garbage bags that we're going to have to take to the dump and pay to get rid of when we can find time to make the long drive to meet very limited hours.


And for some reason: TOADS!

We had at least four of these guys hopping around out back tonight, with none seen before or since.