Problems Looking up as Holiday Season Approaches

As I mentioned last night, we've been having plumbing problems at Talk, Talk, Talk, Talk, Talk central. Sewage was backing up into our toilet bowl and bathtub. It's generally not a good idea to have such a problem when the city is undergoing subzero temperatures and other people's boilers breaking and pipes bursting. I had to go through five plumbers until I found someone who could come today. I was on two lists of "We'll give you a call if we ever come up for air" (and, to their credit, one of those did call back about two-and-a-half hours later to let me know they were sending someone over--I had to tell them to cancel, because I already had someone. What the plumber who came found was that tree roots had grown into the pipe leaving the building, and cold water that was moving slowly froze in the pipe. It's unusual for waste water to freeze, because it's just moving through and never staying in any one place to freeze. I figured that there had to be some other obstruction involved. Everything's running fine for now, so that's one less thing to worry about.

Speaking of good things, the UPS package I complained about not coming three weeks ago has shown up. When I wrote that post, I didn't know that we'd have to consider it lost and then take steps to get the contents replaces, but that's what we've been living with ever since. We found out today that the package has ostensibly been found. We asked UPS to hold it for us to pick it up, and as I've told everyone who I've talked to, I'll believe it when I see it (I had to go out there twice in the past for this package and came up empty both times). But, even without holding the package in my hands, it sure feels like I'm believing it already.