The saga continues. I talked to the insurance guy again, and he said there is still a possibility we could be covered. All we have to do is show there is a 'possibility' that the mold came from the flood that was the result of the dumpster fire (see post from May 23, or somewhere near there). Due to the fact that 'possibility' is built into the problem (floods cause mold, we had a flood, we have mold; hello? anyone? anyone?) and the agent still doesn't recognize it, I think it will take an act of God to convince him, and that's what we're hoping for.

In other news, I have my first classes tonight: Hebrew at 4, Old Testament Studies at 6:30. I'm looking forward to it, but I anticipate some difficulty with both (and especially with Hebrew). I'll know more about what to expect after tonight...

Well, after hounding our insurance agent for 11 days, he's decided that our loss isn't worthy of coverage. Our apartment complex has, of course, denied responsibility as well and has no plans to compensate us for our loss. A friend of a friend who is a lawyer initially told me that it was a "no-brainer" that the complex should pay. I called this friend of a friend back, and he seemed less sure, suggesting that I take up the matter in small claims court. So, I could threaten to sue and make my and Sarah's life miserable for the next few months (arranging witnesses, gathering receipts and pictures, making court dates, paying fees, etc., etc.), or I could just bend over and take it up the tailpipe, trying to clean mold off our ruined things as I accept our lot in silence. I have to go look for the bleach...

Edited sequence of events since returning to California.

Thursday: found our apartment filled with mold, called the insurance compay and the apartment manager

Friday AM: called State Farm, insurance agent said he'd send out an agent and would know more on Monday; manager said he'd send maintenance men to look at our apartment

Friday PM: no agent; maintenance men said they didn't see mold

Friday later PM: called State Farm, they said no agent until Monday; we went to the apartment and pointed out the enormous quantities of mold to the maintenance men; they gasped.

Saturday AM: we were given a new apartment

no further progress until Monday

Monday AM: called State Farm, they said no agent; apartment hired a company to find where the mold came from

Monday PM: agent arrived, took pictures and left; company decided the moisture was in the walls

Tuesday AM: called State Farm, insurance agent said he needed to talk to another agent and the company (mentioned above); said he would do it Tuesday PM

Tuesday PM: called State Farm, agent couldn't get ahold of other agent or the company

Wednesday PM: called State Farm, agent still couldn't get ahold of other company, did read report written by other agent; agent called landlord and asked questions

Thursday AM: called State Farm, agent still didn't get ahold of company

Thursday PM: apartment manager said sending out a new compnay to text toxicity levels of mold; new company would be out on Monday, results on Wednesday; asked if I just "wanted to sign a release of liability and take (my stuff) out"; not being the world's biggest idiot, I said no thanks

Thursday later PM: called State Farm, agent said he would talk to his personal supervisors

Friday early AM: threw my back out (too much sleeping on the floor)

Friday AM: called State Farm, agent forgot to talk to his suprvisors, said he would right then

Friday PM: called State Farm, agent said he would, "Go talk to his supervisors right now" (had forgotten again)

Friday Later PM: called State Farm, agent said he needed to talk to apartment manager and would know more on Monday

One week, zero progress. Thanks a bunch.

I'm still reading. I'll soon have to start writing. I've not gotten any news about the mold and the related insurance claim, so, for now, we're still sleeping on the floor. School starts in a week for both Sarah and myself. It would be nice to have things set up by then, but I don't think it's going to happen. Back to work...

Tonight we're spending our first night in the new apartment. We still don't have phone or internet (or bed or couch or table or chairs or clothes or computer, etc.), but I was able to get an old laptop running and have been 'borrowing' a wireless signal that is streaming into our apartment via an unknown neighbor. Thanks pal. Anywho, I recently relized that I have 1450 pages of reading to finish in the next two weeks. So that's what I'll be doing... More later.

Sarah and I have mold. I'll write more later (lots of internet investigating to do, and I'm at the library), but the gist of it is that we're moving and most of our personal property is covered with mold. We walked into our apartment (after a 18 hour trip), anxious to see how things looked after two months, and, as it turned out, things looked moldy. Very moldy. On the bed. On the couch cushions. On the computer. THE COMPUTER! And don't get me started about my basketballs. Presently, it looks like the mold came from one of the walls (you'll recall a previous post about a fire in the dumpster--when they put it out, there was standing water in the hall, and I'm pretty sure it was soaked up by our walls). Anyway, the apartment complex is moving us to a newly-renovated apartment (it's fantastic, and far nicer than we could afford), and our rent isn't going to change. Good from the bad. I read a Bible verse about that once...

Our drive to Alabama took significantly longer with our detour through Asheville (and the Biltmore Estate) and on the Blue Ridge Parkway, but I think the extra 400 miles was worth it. The history of the Biltmore is fascinating (click on the link), and I think everyone really enjoyed our time there. We apparently visited the parkway on a hazy day and didn't see nearly as much as we could've, due to low visability. Next time...

For now, we've at Grandma and Grandpa's (in Mobile), and it's great to be here again. It will probably be pretty hot today (yesterday it was 102 degrees about 200 miles north of here), but I wouldn't imagine we'll spend too much time outside. Hurray for central air.

Biltmore

This message was sent using PIX-FLIX Messaging service from Verizon Wireless!
To learn how you can snap pictures with your wireless phone visit
www.verizonwireless.com/getitnow/getpix.

To learn how you can record videos with your wireless phone visit www.verizonwireless.com/getitnow/getflix.

To play video messages sent to email, QuickTime� 6.5 or higher is required. Visit www.apple.com/quicktime/download to download the free player or upgrade your existing QuickTime� Player. Note: During the download
process when asked to choose an installation type (Minimum, Recommended or Custom), select Minimum for faster download.

Tomorrow we head Alabama to visit my grandma and grandpa Watson. We're taking the long route down, with the plan of visiting the Blue Ridge Parkway and Biltmore Estate en route. All in all, it should be a great trip; I'll try and post some pictures via my cell phone, but we'll see how that goes.

In other news, I'm sick of taking Benedryl: I feel sluggish and stupid (I tried doing some simple math and it took far, far longer than it should've). I've also had a fever for most of the evening, so I'm beginning to think that the bees/wasps/hornets may still be battling my immune system. We'll see how that goes...

You’ll note that I haven’t been writing much lately. At first, it was the jet lag. As you might have guessed from the cell-phone pictures, Sarah and I were stuck in an airport for quite some time (27 hours in Philadelphia). All told, we traveled for a little longer than 47 hours (bad weather caused some cancelled flights), but we were also bumped twice, which allowed us to earn four, free, roundtrip tickets anywhere in the U.S. It’s quite a blessing. Because of tiredness, then, I wasn’t completely motivated to write. After we got back, my Uncle Mike and Aunt Gayle were visiting from Florida, and we were doing a lot of family stuff. Later in the week, I was just lazy. Then came yesterday.

Yesterday, I almost died. Sometimes, I say things like that, and I mean that I went through a difficult situation but didn’t really ever actually face death. Yesterday was real. It started with some heavy rain. We’d been having a heat wave, and, on Wednesday night, we finally got some relief: there was a three-hour thunderstorm and torrential rain. The storm was over by Thursday (yesterday), but the rain persisted. Dad had previously gone back to our creek and found it so swollen that he thought we might be able to traverse it with a canoe, and since it normally it isn’t much more than a trickle, I figured I better go back and check it out.

When I arrived, I found that we did, indeed, have a river running through our backyard. It was quite a sight, and I immediately headed deeper into the woods for further investigation. I came to a spot where two sections of the creek converge and found the whole area was completely flooded. I had my camera with me, and I tried to work my way to a spot where I could accurately capture the scene that was before me. In order to reach where I wanted to go, I needed to cross a section of water via a downed tree. I was quite proud of myself as I tiptoed across a trunk that couldn’t have been more than three or four inches in diameter. What I didn’t expect was the white-hot pain near my shoulder-blade.

At first, I thought I’d just run into a pernicious horse-fly (they grow pretty large around here), but when I craned my neck, I spotted the culprit. It was a wasp (or hornet, all I saw was yellow and black). At first, I was just irritated: what was I doing to him that he’d sting me for no reason? As I realized that I was being repeatedly stung by very upset insects, my annoyance quickly turned to, “AHHHHH!!!! I’VE GOT TO GET OUT OF HERE!!!!” I ran a few steps through the ankle deep water (by now, I’d crossed the creek and was in a swamp), and the hornets followed, still stinging. I decided it was now or never and, like a crazed bear, tore through the woods and ran to the house to take a shower.

Breathless, I burst into the kitchen, calling for tweezers (for the stingers) and Benedryl (for my allergy to bees), and I jumped into the shower. I hadn’t been stung in years, and these seemed to hurt significantly more than I’d remembered, but I didn’t start to get worried until I put two and two together: my ears were swelling (a bad sign: hadn’t been stung there), my armpits and groin where itching (another bad sign: hadn’t been stung there, thankfully), and my chest was starting to tighten (the cherry on top and worst sign of all). It was then that I decided I’d better go to the hospital.

Although I’d not previously had this kind of reaction, I knew enough to realize that I was in the early stages of anaphylactic shock (I think getting stung 10+ times really pushed my over the, shall we say, allergic edge). Whoops. It turned out to be God’s provision that I decided to go to the ER: my symptoms continued to worsen as we neared the hospital, and, by the time we arrived, my face was purple, my lips and ears were huge, and I’d broken out into hives (they covered my entire body and looked amazingly horrifying). A nurse tended to me immediately; I was hooked into an IV, given some drugs, and observed for about two hours. As it turns out, the doctor said that if I hadn’t come in, the end result would have been my death.

I look fine this morning and don’t have much pain (though two of the stings are still really sore). I’m supposed to take a 5-day course of steroids and continue taking Benedryl until tomorrow. The doctor also wrote me a prescription for an EpiPen (synthetic adrenalin) and told me to keep one on hand at all times. Because I was stung so many times, it’s unknown whether I’ll react this way if I get stung again (by just a single bee; I doubt that I’ll ever have a pleasant reaction to being swarmed), but I suppose it’s good to be cautious…

P.S. See pictures below

Fw:

This message was sent using PIX-FLIX Messaging service from Verizon Wireless!
To learn how you can snap pictures with your wireless phone visit
www.verizonwireless.com/getitnow/getpix.

To learn how you can record videos with your wireless phone visit www.verizonwireless.com/getitnow/getflix.

To play video messages sent to email, QuickTime� 6.5 or higher is required. Visit www.apple.com/quicktime/download to download the free player or upgrade your existing QuickTime� Player. Note: During the download
process when asked to choose an installation type (Minimum, Recommended or Custom), select Minimum for faster download.

Fw:

This message was sent using PIX-FLIX Messaging service from Verizon Wireless!
To learn how you can snap pictures with your wireless phone visit
www.verizonwireless.com/getitnow/getpix.

To learn how you can record videos with your wireless phone visit www.verizonwireless.com/getitnow/getflix.

To play video messages sent to email, QuickTime� 6.5 or higher is required. Visit www.apple.com/quicktime/download to download the free player or upgrade your existing QuickTime� Player. Note: During the download
process when asked to choose an installation type (Minimum, Recommended or Custom), select Minimum for faster download.

Fw:

This message was sent using PIX-FLIX Messaging service from Verizon Wireless!
To learn how you can snap pictures with your wireless phone visit
www.verizonwireless.com/getitnow/getpix.

To learn how you can record videos with your wireless phone visit www.verizonwireless.com/getitnow/getflix.

To play video messages sent to email, QuickTime� 6.5 or higher is required. Visit www.apple.com/quicktime/download to download the free player or upgrade your existing QuickTime� Player. Note: During the download
process when asked to choose an installation type (Minimum, Recommended or Custom), select Minimum for faster download.