Latest update to the grand water saga

So my neighbor finally came home, didn't see my note (apparently always comes in the door), and I told him the deal. I had finally bought a good pump (and returned the first one, as it didn't pump water but preferred to spend its time getting really hot and humming ever so slightly) and pumped out the area, twice (sigh).

He got a little agitated when I stressed again that it had never been this bad, even at the height of El Nino, and finally said, "OK, I get it! It's my fault!" OK, so we can get past this now. He had a great idea of having a buried pipe with the outputs of our two sump pumps going all the way to the street. Works for me. We'll see how far we can get with that this weekend. Yay!

And now that he's moved his sump pump's output, I only had about 1 inch to pump out tonight. What a freakin relief, I cannot tell you.

Dark spot: When I was delivering the note to the neighbor, Maddy got out, in the sneaky way she does. And she crossed Buena Vista, again. Not just on any day where there can be plenty of trucks, but on trash day, where at least 3 trucks visit our street (garbage, mixed recycling, and greens recycling). Yikes. But as I was sure I was going to find her lifeless body next to the street, I was glad to find her alive. Damn dog. I love her, but argh.