*panic* *panic* *panic*

So, we had some pretty severe thunderstorms move through here yesterday afternoon. There were even tornado warnings, which, in upstate New York? Oh PLEASE.

I beat the storm home by about two minutes, no lie, and the cats and I all kind of freaked as the wind blew and the lightening cracked and the rain came down like crazy, and the guy on TV said "shut off the TV and get in the basement!" as I sat in my living room in front of the picture window and watched him. Look, I'm not the sharpest tool in the shed, okay? I DID at least shut the pet door in the morning before I left for work so the cats couldn't get outside and get swept away in a tornado. Give me a little credit, here.

After things calmed down a little, I went out into the garage to find this:





Ignore the Mountain Dew and the five-thousand-year-old jug of bottled water and the rusty old washboard and the plant stands and the leaves all over the floor and just focus on the water on the floor, okay? Water. on the floor. Not good.

I looked up, and while there was no water pouring through the ceiling (good!), that damn water had to have come from someplace (bad!) Because I am Einstein (hahahahaHAAAAAA), I was assuming it had come down the chimney, visible behind the rusty washboard.

I went up into the attic (the garage is attached to the house, so the attic is all of a piece), and while there was a little dampness in the plywood around the chimney, there wasn't, like, a flood up there, or any mold, which would indicate a long-standing problem. Whew!

So then I went outside and looked up at the chimney, and ...




... yeah. Looks like there's a little work to do. Damn it.