Yeah we've reached crisis saturation again which unfortunately means crisis blindness

Well, we finally just called the plumber on Thursday. No go. Just like every other plumber we've talked to, he doesn't have enough time for a job where he has to do a survey and make a plan before potentially digging up the yard until next year. (That's only a couple of weeks now of course. The first time a plumber said that to us was over a month ago... but then again, it could still be that he means not until February!). But in the meantime, in all their defence, this isn't a standard emergency as long as our sump pump is still working fine. I mean, our current situation IS acute or emergency in the sense of "there has been sewage contamination in the basement and it will recur if anything happens to the pump" but not an emergency in the sense of "the tenants' apartment lacks functioning plumbing and drains": the radiators, hot and cold running water, toilets and other drains are all perfectly fine in their apartment. The latter kind of emergency is the kind emergency plumbers usually deal with - stoppages and blockages and things like that. The former kind actually can't be fixed at all without installing new pipes either under the yard or under the cement floor of the basement (preferably the former because that's faster and cheaper, but it's still not actually FAST to do it legally). And that's why nobody has enough time to do it in the next month, because that's just how plumbers' schedules in this area fill up: they have holes where they can run off to a quick job but they don't have gaps long enough for a whole proper job, because they've got all those booked in advance.

I was complaining to my newest friend about the situation and saying how agonizing it is knowing that we're causing pain and inconvenience to our poor Ukrainian tenants and we're trying to fix it but we can't become better landlords because we lack the people skills, and they would be better off with my BIL or MIL or someone like that for a landlord, because, I said, probably we would have found someone to agree to help us by now if we were just friendly extroverts who know everybody and are good with people!!!

But she said actually, her parents had a nearly identical problem just a few years ago. They own a house and a pipe failed and flooded their basement and even though her dad IS an extrovert who knows everybody and is really good with people (he's a fantastically likeable guy, he's great, remind me to show you a video of him throwing an axe at the Viking village last august). He worked as a manager in a big local industry plant (he's an engineer) for his whole career, so he knows even more people in the building trades than your average small town extrovert, but he STILL couldn't find a plumber who could fit them in, and they had to wait over a month, including Christmas, with whatever he could MacGuyver together.

Also the Ukrainian tenants just asked Wax about renewing their lease next year and we are happy to have them, even though we are surprised they don't want to run for the hills.

Anyway, after the last plumber said no, I did look up a few businesses from the next town/island over who say they do work out here, but we have not called them (yet?), and we've discussed the possiblity that we should just call the guys we already know and ask how soon they CAN fit us in, even if that means waiting another month or whatever, and go from there. We were both kind of "Hmm, yeah maybe that's what we should do" about it, but after two phone calls on Friday we didn't have any energy left to make that decision. I suggested we should try sanity check by asking her brothers if this sounds smart to them, because even if they aren't smarter or whatever, at least they are not four months into crisis mode, which really does a number on your ability to compare and contrast things, or make decisions, or strategize in any way, because everything is just INTERNAL SCREAMING all the time, like Anakin's Vader reveal in RotS going NOOOOOOOO, and anything you have to choose or judge just seems insurmountably huge, like all the options are equal but with a huge heap of existential despair on top, like "Should I buy socks for BIL? Would BIL like socks? But would anybody actually like socks? Does anybody need anything at all? Probably not and also probably not socks!" So anyway: maybe we will try this sanity check idea, but it's also a nontrivial task to compose the question readably for them.

Good things in spite of it all:

BUT I did see my newest friend in person! She stopped by on Friday afternoon and we talked for hours and exchanged handmade holiday cards! That was nice.

And Tristana has made some more progress in coming closer to the gate, which is really exciting for Sipuli. She hasn't come close enough to the gate to actually touch noses, or even to be touched with Sipuli's paw, but she has come within about two feet, and she's stayed there even when Sipuli got excited enough to go zooming around and yelling about it. We had a nice chat with the animal behaviorist on Thursday and we feel hopeful, and she gave us a couple of good suggestions, too.