Situation Update (Patreon)

   Realized I wasn't keeping all the non-discord patrons in the loop; rather than hung up on a section or wrestling with writer's block I'm just having a rough time with the blizzard conditions at the moment. For those of you that remember last year, I fostered two litters of kittens and was able to find homes for all of them, as well as get both mothers fixed so that they wouldn't be constantly creating new litters of kittens out of thin air. Well, the mothers Ruffian and Jasmine I couldn't find homes for and I can't afford to take full responsibility for them, so they went back outside. They still visited my porch almost every morning and evening because I put kibble out in the little shelter I have out there, and—cold temps here were forecast to drop to -10 F, so I basically just set up the pet pen I bought for taking care of kittens again, recaptured them both, and have these porch strays in my kitchen as guests so they don't freeze to death or get frostbite.

   Also pictured to the side there is Cassie, another kitten I captured maybe a month earlier, no apparent littermates or mother. Cassie I already got to the vet for her shots, and she has an appointment to be fixed coming up March 2nd as well as a girl who's promised to adopt her. It helps that Cassie is a cute little shit.

   Anyways, the cold spell comes, unpleasant cold temperatures inside my trailer become "wear three layers" temperatures and—despite my best efforts and both of my heaters running at full tilt, my water freezes. I go out around my mobile home to take a look at where my line goes into the ground and yep. Pipe's frozen and burst. The tracfone I'd taken care to charge specifically in case of this kind of winter emergency mysteriously has no charge, and when I try to turn it on it just tells me Low Temperature Warning and that it's shutting down. I email the park owners and they promise to send out a plumber to evaluate the situation the next morning.

   The next morning, still no water, also no plumber. Snow's coming down heavy and piling up, and our little sketchy trailer trash neighborhood has basically been forsaken by plows. The frozen line bursts open around noon and starts flooding the back of my trailer. My water valve's already shut off (or so I thought) so this shouldn't even be happening, I panic and run around and pry off my exterior panel where the pipe is, so instead of flooding my back room and bathroom it starts spraying water across the back of my neighbor's trailer. Phone still dead, panic starts to give away to helpless dread.

   Then, the plumber arrives about a half hour after the flooding. He's as confused as I am, eventually crawls deeper into pipe maze and shuts down a different line. Turns out the valve I shut off was part of an old plumbing system that just got left down there. Still connected to the park water in the ground which is why I'd thought it was legit, but not actually the current line that pipes water up into my trailer anymore. FML. He replaces the pipe and has to run, because he's been nonstop replacing pipes and meters and blowouts of all kinds because of the cold spike.

   My exterior access panel is completely borked. Bottom wood part of it was rotted to begin with and crumbled away, the rest is soggy and warping even as we tried to jam it back into place. The super temporary solution was basically pinning it closed with the nearest stuff I had on hand so that I could rush back inside and start addressing the interior water damage. We also broke most of my skirting trying to find the right pipe system, but were able to borrow insulation sheaths off old unused pipes for now to reinsulate the new patch feeding up into the access panel there. He did warn me that most of the insulation he saw under there was so old/shitty that it might as well not exist, so that's... gonna be added to the to-do list.

   Water damage wasn't bad as I feared, afaik it only soaked into all the flooring and killed the one power outlet there near the hot water heater (I think a lot of the water wound up back under/behind my bathtub, but I have no way of accessing that). In any case, a fair bit of my insulation was compromised and obviously since you can see the daylight shining through while standing in the back room's closet, that's not going to be so great at keeping out icy temperatures and actual snow.

   My slightly better temporary fix was just cramming in as much dry new insulation as I could and sealing it all off with tape. Then pinning it back into place just in case, because tape wasn't sticking to some of the bottom edges there because they were slick with ice from the spraying water and I have no realistic way of dealing with that right now. My uncle lives just the next town over and has a vehicle, but with snow still coming down heavily and roads not being plowed he doesn't have a way to get to me for a few more days.

   This all happened yesterday, and I was soaking wet, freezing, and exhausted, so I didn't get much done after that besides waiting on the hot water heater to magic me up a hot shower, showering, and then kind of sitting here in a stressed out daze. Last night/this morning I got up several times to go check to make sure the temp seal I made held and that the water was still running, and by 8:00 AM it was, so I kept my heaters running and went back to sleep for a bit.

   Wake back up at around noon. Snow still piling up, and to my surprise—no water flow from any of the faucets. Run outside to check everything all over again, no apparent breakages or leaks. I pull my room heater into the back closet and hotbox it in there with the cord running under the door in case maybe my temp seal just wasn't good enough or had some issue I didn't see and part of the replace line froze. Then at 2PM, the plumber pulls back into park in the same spot in the middle of the street and gets out, this time for the guy right across from me, whose water meter just blew out. Apparently my lines weren't frozen at all, they'd just shut off the park water for a bit because of that guy.

   I move hotbox closet heater back into my room, where all of my cats immediately migrate to in search of warmth. I refill my water jugs and do dishes and clean up. I still have Jasmine and Ruffian in a pet pen in my kitchen, they've had my other heater basically pointed at them this whole time so they don't freeze to death (and also my kitchen/living room stays above freezing enough that those water lines don't rupture). That's basically where I'm at now. Stressed and on edge and fearing the worst from moment to moment. Before the cold spike hit, I'd spent the last of my spare money picking up some emergency kit in case the power went out, and thankfully I haven't had to deal with that just yet. But, we're also not through the whole cold spell yet.

Commissions with artist Skull Zombie for the game project are suspended for now, we were partway through a v2 of his Stephanie design. I instead want to have that last bit of that money set aside for emergency plumber or electrician or whatever supplies might be necessary in this last week of January.

tldr; IT IS VERY COLD AND UNPLEASANT HERE, STAY SAFE EVERYONE.