Update on the water situation....

After being steered in the right direction by the 80 year old neighbor, I ended up finding the water main and turning off all of the water for the entire house. Although that made things tricky for the rest of the weekend, it turned off the rushing water...and I was totally relieved.

Thankfully, I am not losing it. There was, in fact, a problem with the valve. This is what my friend had to say, "The plumber came yesterday and fixed the valve that was broken inside the stalk leading to the knob. He said that it could have just been from trash coming through the old pipes or something like that." While that all sounds like mumbo jumbo to me, I'll take it. Just as long as I still am "with it" enough to know how to turn off a faucet without breaking it.