flooding in Houston, D.C. and the U.S. Consulate in Nuevo Laredo

*Edit: San Antonio was awesome. If anyone ever wants to roadtrip there, invite me please!*

Ah yes - one of the many joys of living in Nuevo Laredo is getting to see just what it is that I take for granted when living in the States.

Take water pressure, for example. While I got the water temperature problem solved a couple weeks ago (namely, that it was one temperature: cold), last week I got a new lesson in water pressure: when you're living on the second floor of any building (let alone a building in a city where the last thing people are really worrying about is water pressure), it's gonna take more time for the water to get to you.

I learned last Wednesday afternoon that the water reservoir at the consulate had been completely drained for some reason, and so I was prepared for a day (Thursday) without running water. What I was not prepared for was 5 days without running water. Thursday afternoon the reservoir was drained again because something wasn't working right, and so I went Friday without showering as well (actually, I improvised and took an early-morning dip in the pool at the now-vacant Principal Officer's residence down the street...I think I like swimming in the morning). Thankfully I went to San Antonio this weekend and got to shower in a slightly-run-down-but-at-least-it-had-awesome-water-pressure shower in the San Antonio International Hostel (more stories from there later).

I got back Sunday night to discover that water pressure was still not up and running (much to my chagrin, as I now had 3 days worth of dishes stacked in the sink - and I think most of you know how I am with dirty dishes). As I tested the faucets, however, I failed to turn the ones in the bathroom back to the "off" position (I couldn't tell - there was no water coming out whatsoever). Unfortunately, this worked very much against me in that the water pressure came on full blast while I was at work this morning, and while you'd think that water would drain down the sink, the faucet in my bathroom is one of those ornery ones that kind of squirts some water to the side and onto the countertop. Imagine that this goes on for about 3 hours...at full water pressure. I came back at lunch time to discover a semi-flooded bathroom (fortunately someone had turned the sink off - and semi-flooded isn't as bad as it sounds...actually "an eighth-flooded" might be more like it). The worst part is, however, that I live right above the Principal Officer's office in the Consular building, and though people were nice enough not to say anything to me, I went down to check. Sure enough, a couple ceiling tiles had busted through due to flooding...they were already in the process of being cleaned up by the building managers, but it was my fault (well...mine and that ornery sink's fault...and since you can blame things on objects according to Spanish grammar (i.e. "the watch forgot itself to me"), I'm blaming the sink). I think the only reason that sink was turned off was that someone saw that the office was being flooded.
This could only happen to me (laugh, giggle, frown...sigh...ahem).

So, floods abound. Fortunately I only owe the State Department a couple of ceiling tiles.