One of those days...

I hate it when real life intrudes on my ability to formulate blather, you know? I have no idea how much of a post this is going to be, but I fully intend to fill the space by telling you why.

Oh, and today's pointless photo? Completely pointless. I just didn't want anyone to get confused, seeing as how you had two posts in a row of only SEMIpointless photos.

So, we're back in a hot spell, and will be for a while according to the forecast. Sigh. As is usual this time of year, hot days almost invariably mean severe thunderstorm warnings in the evening.

We had one last night. Both a warning and a thunderstorm, even. It was impressive. A very noisy, very loud light show accompanied by a helluva downpour. I don't think we had any hail, at least, so mostly it was just nature showing off.

Except.

I got in to work this morning (and on weekends I usually get here about an hour before the front desk staff does so that I can have some quiet time to get things done) only to hear the unwelcome but all too familiar buzzing of the septic alarm. We have an aging septic system that's a bit too low-lying, and the rain we had in July saturated things so much that any little bit of water will overwhelm it. Yay. So, off go the pumps. On goes the hope that an hour's worth of sitting will let things clear enough that we'll have bathrooms available by the time the building opens.

Um, nope.

So up go the out-of-order signs, and on goes the process of trying to coax the thing to clear by putting them on manual for a few minutes and then turning them off for a while. Lather, rinse, repeat.

I've got things working now (for the moment), but with a big warning to the girls up front to keep an eye (erm, ear) on that alarm. There's another storm predicted for late this afternoon, but if we can offer plumbing services to the visitors for the majority of the day I'll be happy.

Did I mention that while this was going on our fire alarm control panel started giving off error signals and we've had to call in the control company? Uh huh. I'm waiting for the HVAC system to go on the fritz next.

In the meantime, I'm supposed to be leading a plant walk this afternoon. It'll only be about 30C out there, with a storm looming. Here's hoping that the usual plant people are too busy with long weekend plans to show up. Not that I'd mind doing the walk itself, but keeping visitors' attention when they're hot and worried about being struck by lightning isn't the easiest thing in the world to do.

Ah well. Back to work for me. I wonder how long it'll take for the ceiling to cave in?