Where I've Been

The thing about a sewer backup is that it's not exactly the kind of thing you want to write about.

Or talk about.

Or think about.

Especially when it's a bad sewer backup.

One that requires environmental remediation.

To the tune of $3,000.

(We didn't have to pay for it, but still. Three thousand dollars.)

It was not the way I'd hoped to kick things off on this coast.

As a start, it was anything but fresh.

Ugh, ugh, ugh.

Eleven years ago, when we moved to the Bay Area, things didn't begin too well, either.

I was mugged less than two weeks after I arrived.

In broad daylight.

In my driveway.

By a woman wielding the biggest wrench I've ever seen in my life. (And her accomplice, a classy dude who threatened me before speeding the two of them—and my stuff—off in the getaway car he was driving.)

It took me a good long while to get over that experience.

New home + violation = trauma.

So here I am, traumatized all over again.