Things that we just can't keep

I learned that there a lot of intangibles that you lose when you go through an experience like this.  We are pretty lucky.  Only a small part of our house was damaged and everything that has been done has been manageable.  I can’t imagine what it would be like if the damage were on a larger scale.  We lost a couple of big items.  In addition to built-in stuff like the carpeting and trim, our sofa is completely trashed.  Still, I found that a lot of the little things that were lost bother me much more.    

My wife's I-pod was in my gym bag, which was on the floor.  I guess it is fine that she can get a new one and most of our music is stored on the computer.  For some reason this still bothers me.

One of my favorite books (I know, a guide book of architecture seems like a weird favorite book) was soaked through.  I've had it since college and the pages were scrawled with remarks, notes and corrections to the book. You can replace the book but you can't really replace all of the rest of it.  All of the notes from pretty much every conference or class I have taken in the past two years are gone too.  Many of the manuals were saved but I refer to my notes far more than I typically refer to the printed material.

My homebrew equipment got flooded.  The hand-made chiller is trashed and I can't imagine brewing in this stuff since it was found submerged in sewage.   I haven't brewed in ages but for some reason I feel like starting up again.

Here are a couple pages from my portfolio.  I was able to salvage some of it but most of it looks like this.  Maybe I could explain that I intended for the drawings and photos to have a sort of "hairy and sketched on look"?

Since I was already throwing stuff out, I took the time to add other construction debris to the pile.  It piled up pretty quick.  Hmm, wonder if I can pile things enough so that the demo guys assume that the giant plastic crap that my kid plays on is actually part of the garbage...

It looks like many of my neighbors are in the same situation I am in.  This isn't very comforting.

After two days of pumping and bailing, clearing out debris and mopping and mopping again, I got the place pretty clean.  Actually, it is the cleanest it has been since we moved in.  Unlike most folks, I don't really see a "bright side" in this either.

There is one bright side though.  One thing did get saved.  I still have my Sanjaya leg!