Of Plumbing and Driving

Just a quick update concerning the plumbing situation I mentioned before. You know the one where the toilet decided to go bust and leak nice clean toilet water down through the floor into our kitchen right above the stove... Ya that one.

It turns out that I am not only very very bad at drywall repairs but I should not have closed it up to begin with. So, on the advice of at least two reputable sources (a plumber and my father who just knows a lot about anything to do with houses) I spent and hour cutting out all of the drywall and joint compound that I jammed into the hole (and trust me, it was just jammed in there, I wish I took a picture) as well as an bit extra, slathered the whole area with mold retardant paint and left it to dry.

So now we're left with a lovely hole gaping above our stove for as long as it takes to save enough cash to hire a professional to fix it (I am no professional, in fact I am the exact opposite of a professional).

On another note, we should expect a great ice and snow storm! We're due me thinks. I for one absolutely love snow in all its forms! Though ice does make for a perilous commute here in DC due to the absolute panic that seems to set in the minute the first flake falls. Though, the more I think about it, that panic also seems to set in during any and all adverse driving conditions. Actually I think that their is a constant state of panic that over takes DC drivers the minute they get behind the wheel. I would guess that it may be due to the realization that there is, what seems to be, an overwhelming number of bad drivers out there. Due to that number, panic sets in out of fear of bad drivers, thus making you a bad driver because your in a panicked state...

Well, now on to good things...

K is back for the untimely business trip! That makes me happy. Especially because I no longer have to resort to lecturing the animals on my take of Quine's theory of logic or the pros and cons of latex versus oil paints or why I so desperately need a hobby....

Also I'll be going home from work shortly and will get to brush my teeth! I forgot to last night before leaving and I hate the fuzziness that my mouth develops over a ten hour shift if I don't brush beforehand...

Please excuse the ramblings, I am always a little overtired on the first night shift of the week.

Cheers!

Some Time To...

Nothing like a mental hiatus to make you wish you could take a real hiatus. Over the last week or so I've been doing as little as the world will allow, which is a lot more then I would like to be doing. Due to some situational situation-ness I had a wonderful 6 days off, just me and the animals. It seemed like a great time to catch up on some personal tasks I wanted to do and maybe finish the book I started reading about 6 months ago, didn't happen (well partly).

Last Friday I was talking on the phone to the folks when the panicked voice of K came from the kitchen saying that there was something I should see. So I said a quick goodbye and went to take a look. And there, above the stove, dangling from the ceiling was a giant bubble of paint. Yes, the kind of bubble you get when there is a rather large water leek in the ceiling above. After uttering about 30 to 100 rather course words we scrambled for a bucket and placed it under and gave it a poke.

I'd say about a gallon or 3 came gushing out, nice, brown, slightly off smelling water. As well as about a square foot of drywall.

Due to the excessive amount of foul language that was used at this point I think I should move on with the story.

After dropping K off at the airport on Saturday I was off to the hardware store for, well at this point I was only guessing would be a long list of things that are needed to fix gaping holes in drywall. I was right, putty knives, joint compound, joint tape, sandpaper, sand screens, oh and not to mention drywall. Since my original plan for this mini vacation was repainting the living room I picked up some paint too.

To make a long, involved, aggravating story that is filled with swears and the realization that I am about as good at drywall repair as a drunken 9 year old, the ceiling looks like a drunken 9 year old tried to fix it and we will need to hire a professional to fix it in the future when we can afford it.

I say when we could afford it because I omitted a portion of this story. You see after draining the bubble and cleaning up all of the mess that came with it, we realized that there was no more water coming down. This was good but odd news. Where had this water come from and why had it stopped? So I want on up stairs to see what could be seen in the bathroom (which is above the kitchen), nothing. No toilet overflow, no shower leek which I had been hoping for.

WHERE THE HELL DID THIS WATER COME FROM!

So a plumber was called and thank the lord he could come today.

After close inspection it was determined that the leek WAS from our incorrectly installed toilet (and yes it was post flush water... yum) and it would have to be removed to be fixed. It was also brought to our attention that the reason that our toilet was flushing so poorly prior to this is that it was no good, something about build up of calcium making the pipes about half the size they needed to be. The fix? New toilet, new gaskets and a through cleaning of rust from the fittings. The price? About 900 duckets.

Thank you O' prior owner who thought you were the handiest handy man to grace this earth. The list of crap you have screwed us on by not knowing what you are doing is growing at a geometric rate! Form the pipes filled with grout in the basement floor that will have to be jack hammered out to the incredibly bad "finished" basement construction. From the jimmied electrical systems that have outlets housed OUTSIDE of the baseboard to the paint you splattered all over the floor (conveniently covered with rugs and furniture when we looked at the place). And now this incorrectly installed toilet...

I'm not saying that the house is bad or a lemon, but there are a few things that are really just killing me.

Plumbing will put me in an early grave.

On the up side, I managed to trim out the living room and paint it a wonderful earthy gray with white trim and one red wall. Of course I've stayed up till 2am every day for the last week working, trying to complete this project before Saturday when K returns. I now have just one stretch of trim to finish painting and one more coat of red to apply for this FIRST room to be done. Then? Then on to the rest of the house....


Who needs a drink.......


Cheers

More Time, Less To Do

So apparently next week the entire country is coming to DC. I can't blame folks for wanting to be here for what every one seems to be calling the "OBAMAPOCALYPSE" or, in other words, the inauguration ceremony. At first I entertained the idea of trying to get tickets but I found out that the average senator or rep was getting about 100K requests for the less then 1000 tickets they had each. Then I entertained the idea of just going to the mall to see what I could see, after all I am off work for most of the week due to circumstances out of my control (namely a bunch of idiots that can't seem to do a very simple task so I must suffer their incompetence) but after the thousands of news reports about the overwhelming number of folks coming to town and the complete gridlock that is expected, I decided against it. So now I am left with the unfortunate situation of being off work, house bound and alone (if you don't consider the company of two wild and crazy dogs, a cat that loves to pee and a tank full of fishys actual company) due to the untimely business trip of my K.

I had considered taking the opportunity to try and best my drinking alone marathon record (set back in the late 90's) of incomprehensible drunkenness (three days) but due to the realization that I am NOT invincible (I think that set in in around 05) and that I detest hangovers unless they are for a really good reason (by good reason I mean someone put a bottle in front of me). So I decided against that as well. So what will I do with my long house bound weekend, 5 days of BLANK.

And that may be just what it is, I'm sure some of the time will be filled with admirable activities like scooping up dog poo or cleaning up cat pee or maybe if I am really lucky a tv overdose!

That all just sounds so depressing, but unfortunately true, though I am intrigued by the possibility of painting my living room, now if only we could agree on a color... maybe I'll just do it anyway................................... and see what happens (if I'm never heard from again after next week you can guess why).

So as it comes, tomorrows Friday (well today is Friday actually for me because I am working Thursday night making Thursday Friday until it's actually Friday and then Friday is Friday) and I have no solid plans beyond sleeping till noon and cooking a Friday dinner. It's an unfortunate truth that having more then one day off without any solid plans makes me a little uneasy (uneasy like I'm wasting a good opportunity, not uneasy like theres an ice-cream truck driving by and that weird driver is staring at you again...) but I'll have to make due.

Or maybe I'll just help out with national security by as El (soon to be not) Señor Presidente suggested...

"People say, 'How can I help on this war against terror? How can I fight evil?' You can do so by mentoring a child; by going into a shut-in's house and say I love you."-Washington, D.C., Sept. 19, 2002

Now that sounds about right! know any shut-in's I can go harass with love???????

Mental Haze

That’s about it.

My brain has been on vacation for the last week, of course I have too but I had to come back to work yesterday and unfortunately my brain decided to stay on vacation. It's making it difficult to do some pretty menial tasks. Talking for instance or writing or just making it to work on time (something I have not done yet this week). To be honest the freezing rain was the cause of my ten minute delay tonight but the lack of a functioning noggin has not helped either.

Perhaps it was the week off or the 100's of hours logged in front of a TV or the bottles and bottles of wine and beer consumed or the complete lack of doing, well anything really. I must have lulled the thinking parts of my brain into a coma, now I just need a weekend to wake them up again...

I had planned on talking about one or two of the wonderful bottles of wine I drank last week or the plans for repainting the complete interior of my house (which I did NOT start on last week as I had thought I would) or even maybe come up with some poignant political commentary on some political person (of who's names I can remember none of which) or the lack of a really really good pizza anywhere near anywhere around here.

Alas I cannot put together a complete sentence or pertinent thought on any of the above subjects. So perhaps tomorrow or the next day I'll revive some of that gray matter into a cognitive state, at least enough so as that I can regale you with some witty remarks about a fine red wine from somewhere in Europe or the very strange incident that keeps occurring with my old neighbor and his odd excitement about doors and giant warehouses filled with them...

So until I am coherent enough to explain myself,

Cheers