[Insert select 4-letter words here ...]

Remember this?

I spoke too soon. I think Loving My Upstairs Neighbors is an abysmal failure. Because I try not to use them, and because I value self-expression, I will refer to this weekend as "The [Insert select 4-letter words here] Weekend. Think of it as a sort of choose your own wording essay.

I really should just say "It was Horrible," and stop, but writing is therapeutic, and I need to salvage the one remaining day in my weekend.

Friday night, after returning home, I heard the alarming sound of a waterfall in my bathroom. I like waterfalls - waterfalls that are OUTSIDE. Not waterfalls coming from my bathroom ceiling, cascading down the shower wall, ricocheting off the tub and streaming onto the floor. It had the lovely scent of laundry detergent mixed with gunk from the crawl space through which it passed on the way into the Hobbit Hole.

I yelled to Himself, who went upstairs to knock on the neighbors' door (still gone, still inhabited by adult children). We could hear them walking around and talking - but they didn't answer. The landlord is on vacation. I left a message on his vm, his home phone and then, in a moment of sheer desparation, I sent an e-mail that was, well, awfully honest about my frustrations. I then stood under the bathroom vent, as that is the room under which I could hear the neighbors' kids, and I vented LOUDLY about my frustrations with the third Great Flood in three weeks. It made me feel better, even if I can hear them better than they can hear me. [Insert 4-letter words]. I then shut off the main water, preventing any future flooding.

I opted to leave the gunky floor, the soaked towels and rugs (just washed a couple of days ago from LAST WEEK'S flood), the groty bathtub and icky scrubbies and shampoo bottles until Saturday, and I went to bed, finally, about 12:30 a.m.

At 2:45 a.m., I woke up in excruciating pain. I nearly panicked, until I extracted the cobwebs from my brain and realized that I am nearly 40 weeks pregnant - waking up in pain at this point is a good thing, in most instances. I lay in bed, wide awake and hurting, timing the rhythmic, intense pains. 5-6 minutes apart. Every single thing that I didn't have ready for Baby Girl's birth ran through my head (including the fact that I don't have my brother's new cell number programmed into my phone - random!). I couldn't sleep, and I hurt. I got up and moved to the couch so I could read. I was just getting to the point where I was contemplating waking Himself up to go to the hospital when the pains went away. [Insert more 4-letter words - 90 minutes of excruciating pain for nothing]. I never did go back to sleep.

At 6:30 a.m., I got up to begin scrubbing the bathroom, figuring I might as well take advantage of my wide-awake frenzy while it lasted. I tackled the bathroom floor, the kitchen floor (because if I'm mopping one, I might as well mop the other), scrubbed the bathroom and kitchen and threw all the wet, gunky bathroom linens into the washer (again). The disaster recovery people showed up (again) and proclaimed the ceiling "wet," necessitating an industrial-sized (and industrial-sounding) fan (again). In the process, they made a huge mess, after accessing the crawl space. I lost it and snapped at the poor crew (who should be family - this is their 7th trip to the Hobbit Hole in three weeks). I apologized immediately as they scurried to clean up the new mess.

I spent the day feeling wretched. Hurting, tired, violent headache - and feeling like a lousy older sister because yesterday afternoon my youngest brother, S, came to visit. I never cooked once the whole time he was here - he ate cold cereal and mac-n-cheese. Himself talked S and I into driving 30 minutes to the nearest Chipotle - that was the only semi-real food he had his entire stay. His entertainment included a trip to Target to purchase Baby Girl necessities (although we still failed to remember sheets - we own no baby sheets), though we also took him to the big area ski sale.

We arrived home only to discover the upstairs neighbors [insert long string of 4-letter words] had TURNED OFF THE A/C. AGAIN. No one was home (not that they answer the door anyway), so I left a note in the door. Although they came and went last night and this morning, I still sit in the Hobbit Sauna, basking in the warm glow of the hottest Labor Day weekend in The Frontier in 57 years. [More 4-letter words].

I slept fitfully for about 4 hours and woke up at oh-dark-hundred feeling like I was coming down with the flu - from a combination of weekend-, sleep-depravation- and pregnancy-related ailments. I forced myself to attend church, looking forward to an afternoon of rest, as Himself and I were going to a friend's house for dinner, where Himself was cooking.

Except ... [warning - insert more 4-letter words], Himself decided he didn't want to cook, but it was too late to cancel, so I spent two hours in the inferno of the Hobbit kitchen-sans-A/C slaving away on the dinner that Himself arranged and packaged it up to drive to the next county. The food was good, the company wonderful, and Himself humored me and only stayed a short time.

So, here I sit, not even able to compose something witty or well-written, sore, exhausted and extraordinarly upset with the upstairs dwellers ... hoping that tomorrow will bring sleep or at least a better day.

**I do need to note that the landlord has been wonderfully responsive ... my frustration does not lie with him.