After a beautiful voyage up north to play music with three friends and then a chattery visit in the dark night air with another one, I returned home to face House Buying Issue du jour. According to a loquacious plumber with a scope and a camera, the 70-year-old sewer pipe from the house to the street is on the verge of collapse, a problem that will cost up to $10,000 to fix. Today we will get an estimate for asbestos remediation, and there are also some questions about the furnace. I doubt any of these figures will be good news.

My guess is that the sellers are in in state of woe. I do feel for them, given what we went through with the well in Harmony. But they are stuck with a mess.

In other repair news: a man who looks like a Super Mario Brother came to fix the window to the apartment deck, which was hanging from its supports like a drunkard. After meeting with our realtor and signing this-and-that contingency papers, Tom and I repaired our nerves by eating tapas and gnocchi and clam stew at nine o'clock at night. Then we came home and watched the DVD of our sewer scope, which was pretty hilarious/mysterious/disgusting. Imagine a lurching, sped-up, Go-Pro view of that nasty gelatinous stuff in your bathroom-sink drain, and you'll have a good idea of our sewer video. It did need Marlin Perkins or David Attenborough pointing out the salient highlights, though. Also a soundtrack.