Out of the blue, my aunt showed up at my mother’s yesterday morning. Had I been motivated earlier in the day, I could have made it there to see her, but… the girls and I had an off day, since they had appointments to deal with. We didn’t motivate until 11-ish. Well, Care did, but she’s freaky.

Said aunt survived the flood, most of their belongings intact (damage to the vintage ‘work in progress’ vehicles and yard accounted for) and she was not one of those evacuated. She stayed at the house while her husband (why is it I can call her first husband uncle still, 20+ years after the divorce, but can’t call W. uncle without giggling? It just sounds wrong, to me. Crazy.) boated back and forth between the house and the city and their office. She showed mom pictures of how close the water got to the house – about ten-fifteen feet from the garage door, if memory serves. Apparently the house hadn’t been overtaken in the flood of ’97, and this was several feet below that level, so yay.

The dock from the pond floated away and got stuck in the trees, and they’ll have to pump out the pond once the rest of the yard and area has dried some. Then they can let it refill on its own, with fresh water, and repair the beach then.

Relief. I have it.

The biggest (and best ever) news, though, is that my cousin, formerly stationed in Ontario, is now not only an MWO (I believe T. said he’d be one of if not the youngest ever to get that promotion when she mentioned it was a possibility last summer..) he’ll be stationed at home (well, close enough, thankyouverymuch) AND it’s very unlikely he’ll go back to Afghanistan. No matter how little I’ve seen him in the last… 20 years or so… it was an amazingly relieving bit of news.

Relief. I have more.

There’ll be writerly stuff later in the week, but since I shared my worries earlier, I thought I’d share the relief, too.