Wow, just wow

Remember me posting about the ex-protégée who'd been dissing me in public and insulting me at my house? Well... she has hit a heck of a run of bad luck and I really feel for her. She and her spouse had to move from their apartment to a complex that would enable them to move out whenever it is time to relocate to their new place in the Great Lakes area, whenever the Navy contract comes through. So they moved to their temporary abode and the first thing that they found was mold happily growing in the refrigerator and the dishwasher, and cockroaches and ants wandering the rooms. They called the management. It took two follow-up calls to finally get some of that addressed. A new refrigerator was brought in and the dishwasher was "sterilized". But no exterminator showed up.

Go forward two weeks and she smelled something nasty while in her bed, got up, and found six inches of sewage backed up into their bathtub. It turns out that this is a fairly common problem in this apartment complex. Her description of how it was handled by the maintenance folks was disgusting and the guy left without fully cleaning the sewage from the tub. In the meanwhile, ants reinvaded the kitchen. And a couple of women tried to let themselves into the apartment (and nearly got shot!) without knocking or calling out. It turned out that they were cleaning crew and had thought that they were called to clean an empty unit. B had already scrubbed the life out of the bathtub so she sent them on their way with a flea in their ear about knocking before trying to enter. Another round of calls to the main office leads to an exterminator showing up - who said that this call was the first service request he'd gotten. The office had not bothered with it before that day. But the exterminator was thorough, and she was content with that.

Then this week hit. Their toilet began to leak out of the bottom. It seems that the maintenance folks neglected to use a proper wax seal on it when they installed it after the "renovations" they'd done before B & her spouse moved in. So there is yet another work order in to get the toilet repaired. Which is the only toilet in the apartment. But the maintenance guy won't get there until tomorrow because he's dealing with a sewage back up in a different apartment.

We had torrential rain yesterday and the day before. B woke up because she could hear water dripping. It is coming out of the wall and the frame of her bedroom window. It was also coming out of the wall and window frame in the other bedroom. It was leaking so badly that the caulking and the wall board around the windows started falling out. Both windows will have to be replaced, the openings re-built, and the wallboard replaced. I have no idea where B & her spouse will live while that is being done.

The Luck, she is not smiling at B.

(no subject)

I've been sewing. Got two white under tunics done and the staining on a long-loved tunic complete. I'm staining the inside of knotwork designs around the neck which are outlined with stem stitch. The staining is just permanent ink and will make the area appear to be appliqued. The embroidery acts as a dam to keep the ink from spreading beyond its field. Later I will thicken the outline with another row of stem stitch and add embroidered diamonds inside on the stained area, to mimic the pattern of the trim on the sleeves. At some point I'll post a picture of the thing. Wait. I've got a work in progress photo, if this works https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=10161301277399283&set=a.10150327748139283¬if_id=1687724238418038¬if_t=feedback_reaction_generic&ref=notif . I decided to fill in all of the knotwork medallions rather than every-other-one, just in case I couldn't find matching ink later on. So there was a lot more ink therapy going on this afternoon. Right now the tunic is heat setting in the dryer.

I just learned that I am supposed to be sewing four hoods for our household to use as payment to mercenaries we hired for the Pennsic War. I thought I was sewing two tunics but the person in charge changed things up and didn't tell me, so off to the store I went, credit card in hand. Oy! There was no wool to be had. I found only one bolt of linen in the whole place, and it was black. Everything else was "linen look" or a mix of 80% viscose and 20% linen. In other words, crap. But crap I will have to work with. I promised that they'd be correct-to-period for Viking Norse but the fiber content, ugh. The colors and cut will be right and I will line the things. Our coordinator has been warned that these will be fashion accessories, not working hoods.

I used three Turkish towels to make a peplos to wear to and from the bathhouse. I'm not happy with it at all. I had found a really nice weave that I liked https://www.etsy.com/listing/1178007877/pool-towel-turkish-towel-boho-towel?ga_order=most_relevant&ga_search_type=all&ga_view_type=gallery&ga_search_query=turkish+towel&ref=sr_gallery-1-28&pro=1&sts=1&organic_search_click=1 in blue and ordered two of them. But after a longer wait than I expected, the towels that arrived were not what I ordered. Neither were they as wide as what was described. So I resorted to amazon and ordered a third towel from there. It is the same size as the other towels but a different weave and shade of blue. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07YL1FXDF?psc=1&ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_product_details I'll have it be the front panel and the others the back and sides but it's just sloppy looking. Sloppy. I'm not going to waste anymore money on something I won't be using outside of Pennsic, especially since we have no plans to continue going to the War after next year. But I am disappointed.