I'm a keeper!

I've been known to collect a thing or two.  Stamps and postmarks, Hot Wheels, telegraph insulators, cans, (ahem) straws (ahem), ugly neckties, cookbooks, rocks, shells, bottlecaps and matchbooks, to name a few.  I also hang on to random crap in the event that it might, someday, become useful.  Sometimes I fancy myself a sculptor of found objects, like the time in college I taped all of my friend's trash to his wall.

And titled it.

He was less than thrilled.  It was even worse for him when the tape failed to hold the soda cans up through the night.  Plink!  Plunk!

Anyway, I digress.  As a sculptor-to-be of found objects, it first becomes necessary to save found objects.  As such, a random assemblage of rusted metal, uniquely shaped plastic and glass and disused motors have been collected over the years.  Unfortunately, a minor incident last Friday told me I might be out of control.

My daughter sent me this picture:

This random plumbing part was rolling around in her car, which used to be my car, and she wondered if it was important.  It's the washing machine hookup valve from our house.  In Wisconsin.  A valve that I replaced in 2005.  A valve that, despite being seized up by calcium and iron deposits, seemed worthy to me of keeping.  For integrity, I suppose.

Something apparently needs to be done about me. 

I never set out to hoard, nor am I, ultimately, a hoarder.  Not by any means.  I'm not climbing over boxes in my entryway.  I can, with minimal effort, get a car into the garage next to the motorcycles.  We're not sleeping amidst piles of laundry on our bed.  I don't have stacks of newspapers from 1978 on the kitchen table or a bag of empty candy wrappers in the hall closet.  Our toilets flush.  There are limits, after all.  We rented our house to a hoarder, and I had to ask her to leave after she turned our house into a tinder bundle.  I can't even watch that TV show without shuddering.  Deep down, clutter actually bothers me.  Not that my boxes of 'stuff' aren't taking up their share of floor space in our basement and on the shelves in the garage.  The only redeeming quality is that I know what's in each of them.

And isn't at least one redeeming feature enough to keep me?

Blast from the Past - Door goes up, door goes down. Door goes up, door goes down.

(Originally published June 2007)

Ah, the joys of summer.  Nothing like trying to fix a garage door in 5000% humidity.  I left for work early today, gung-ho to get a small project done while it was still quiet there.  Sadly, I was dry for a whopping seven minutes this morning before the fun began.  I opened the garage to get the garbage can, only to find my newly-hung fluorescent shop light (they hum like angels!) dangling precariously above Buttercup, one of my new ceiling hooks clattering across the floor.  Crisis averted and light removed from the danger zone (cue Top Gun theme).

Garbage delivered safely to the curb, soda retrieved from the fridge, I was ready to be on my way, and even be to work early today, when I attempted to close the garage door.  Half-way down, I got a 'brzzrt-thud-thud-whirrrrrrr' as the safety switch kicked in and reversed the door.  Hmm.  Interesting.  I hit the button again, only to have the same result.  On further inspection, I noted that one of the two cables (or 50% of them for you math buffs) was no longer an active participant in the spring-and-pulley show, and the door was landing askew.  I wound the cable and tried to slot the end into the pulley, at which time the cable unwound.  About this time I decided wearing gloves MIGHT be a good idea, rather than filling my hands with oily metal shavings.  I slotted the end into the pulley and then wound the cable around, and it unwound.  I finally loosened the pulley, MOVED the slot to where it would actually reach, then wound the cable and tightened the pulley again.

Success!  Almost.

This time instead of half-way down, I got to within a foot of the ground before 'brzzrt-thud-thud-whirrrrrrr'.  I released the safety catch on the opener, re-tightened the cable, then tried closing it again.  I think I got about  30 'brzzrt-thud-thud-whirrrrrrr's before I got within inches of the ground.  One more tightening, one more  'brzzrt-thud-thud-whirrrrrrr'.

I unlocked the side door to the garage, since it only locks from the inside, and opened the big door again, then dropped it to the ground without the opener attached.  One final tighten, and now the door goes up, the door goes down.  Door goes up, door goes down.

And if you've ever been thrown into a pool with all your clothes on, just imagine that pool being bathwater warm and extremely salty.  That's how I felt by the time this was all done.  It should go without saying that I was NOT early for work.

Random Acts of Thursday - I Will Kill Them

I unwittingly initiated the battle Tuesday night, but my opponents certainly drew first blood.  I will have the last.

We haven't had rain lately, so I was out on the front porch watering the plants, trees, shrubbery, and apparently a nest of yellow jackets under said shrubbery, as well.

I turned to spray the pear tree when it happened.  A sharp, stinging pain in my leg.  I brushed at it, saw nothing.  Again, in my side.  And again, in the back of my neck.  Which is when I turned and saw the swarm of hymenoptera between me and my only egress from the porch, aside from opening the door and letting them follow me into the house.

My neighbors, I'm sure, have video proof of my insanity, because that's the nature of modern life.  Eventually I'll be a YouTube sensation, running erratically around my driveway, swinging my arms about, and getting stung mercilessly before running around the back of the house.

And into a locked patio door.

Took off and shook out my shirt on the patio, two or three more wasps fell out.

Got into the house, into the bathroom and shook out my shorts and boxers.  Two more little yellow bastards fell onto the floor, dazed and spinning.

All told, we counted nine welts, including a few multiple stings.  Considering that I had to run through the swarm AFTER my underpowered human brain came to terms with what was happening, I don't think that's all too bad.  I'm also comforted knowing that it would take more than 1000 stings to kill a healthy adult.

But the pain and itching has me out for vengeance.  I will kill them.

The Great Wall of N

I like older homes, homes that have some character to them. I understand that 'character' usually means 'expense', and sometimes means 'big mess'.



When we moved to Florida, we rented a newer home, with a contemporary layout. This meant that all of the main living area, while technically divided by a half wall, was really one big room, and the secondary bedrooms and garage combined occupied less square footage than the master suite. Really. I could have stored the Spruce Goose in our master bedroom, and yet we had to walk sideways through the garage if we ever parked a car in there. Our neighbor would work on his truck at three A.M., and one time while I was on the road for work, the alarm system, which we never activated or armed, went off early one morning until Lori was able to rip the plug from the wall. Our yard shared its rear boundary with an open road where teens would drag race in the wee hours of the morning, because somewhere along the way, Floridians decided they no longer wanted big, private yards.

In contrast, the first home we bought after we were married was built in 1952 by Lori's grandparents. It was a beautiful home, with proper scale, division of public and private spaces, and views of the lake. It killed us to sell it. However, when we'd get a heavy rain, the window wells would fill up at the back of the house and flood the basement since the yard was dense clay sloped to the house. There was a fair amount of asbestos in the flooring, which wasn't an issue unless you ripped it up. We did. But the windows were original to the house, and better insulated and less drafty than newer replacements ever could have been. In winter, our roof was the only one in the neighborhood with a perfect blanket of snow instead of long icicles and patterned patches of bare roof. On those cold winter days, I chopped wood and we cozied up by the fireplace. We had great neighbors, every one of them. And it was home.


The next home we purchased, in Florida, was built in 1971. Again, the rooms were properly scaled, you could sit and read in the living room without being blown out by the television in the family room and the private spaces were separated from the public spaces. The public spaces all faced the side and back of the home, so there was never that 'on display' feeling that you get with some homes. And it wasn't perfect, but we did things to make it ours, made plans for additional changes, planted trees and flowers and had a certain level of home-y comfort surrounding us. The neighbors who made an effort to interact were great neighbors. It was 'home', for lack of anything better. But some of you may remember last December's plumbing fiasco. There went the Christmas budget.


Now in Ohio, we're renting again. The home was built in 1966, but refurbished before we moved in. It feels like home. Same pattern as above, separation, privacy, et cetera, nice yard, nice neighbors. We've done a little landscaping to make the front of the house more inviting, make the rear deck lush. We've bought other little things to make the house feel like ours.


But the deal with renting, the BIG deal, is all the little things. Our landlord is engaged, responsive, and seems to have a vested interest in our residential experience. The work he had done before we moved in was impressive. And when our wall oven died, when it just wouldn't light after 44 years of dutiful service, he had a service tech at the house that week. When it was determined that parts no longer exist, a new wall oven, an unusual and non-stock size was ordered. And when Jim and Jim showed up to install the new unit on Saturday, he was there as they finished to check out their work and settle their bill. He was there to call the landscaper, when the lawn wasn't coming in like he expected. He was there to call his handyman when an outlet proved to be dead. And all of these things come along with my monthly rent.


Sure, I enjoyed home ownership, but many of the aspects I enjoyed don't require ownership.  I mow my lawn, because I enjoy it. We planted plants and a Japanese maple because we like those items and it makes it feel more like home to us. We put up drapes, we're hanging pictures, I ran cable to the family room for our television, but in the end, any investment we make in our home now is our choice, and any of the big things can be deferred to a higher power. I don't have the stress of unexpected costs like the oven dying or a clogged main sewer line or a hailstorm ripping off shingles or the garage door coming off the track.


Because that's what rent is for.

Fun Fact Friday - Well, well, well.

Melissa and I were watching an episode of 'Holmes on Homes' the other day, and if you're not familiar, it's the kind of show that will make you second-guess ever hiring a contractor again.  Especially if you live in Canada, apparently.

They were replacing the entire septic system on the house in this episode, and the contractor was using dowsing rods to find the pipes.  Walk over the pipe, the rods cross.  Oooh, dowsing, it's some cool, magical stuff, lemmie tells ya.

I was all set to post about the science of dowsing, a form of divining (like throwing chicken bones to predict crop yields, and such.)  Sounds science-y to me. 

Turns out it's all just hooey.  Dowsers with rods or bendy sticks have the same success rate as anyone with dumb luck.  In some cases, it's even less accurate than dumb luck.  This is just compounded by people using the same method of dowsing or 'witching' to find just about anything.  Looking for gold?  Try dowsing.  Rubies?  Dowsing.  Water?  Dowsing.  They probably even use the same stick for all of it.

However, there is some science involved in the process.  In our brainy subconscious, we can cause things to happen just by thinking them.  Like the Ouija board pushes to 'No' every time you ask your dead grandma if she loved you best.  For experienced dowsers, knowing the lay of the land and where water typically appears, minute muscle twitches can cause the branch to turn, a slight twist of the wrist can make rods cross when your brain is convinced this is where water should be.  

And even then, you could be wrong.

When I was in college, I had a bit part in a play called 'The Diviners'.  It was about a young boy with 'the gift' of divination, using a rod to find water so critical in depression-era Indiana.  And of course, there are skeptics.  We were all small-town rubes in the play, especially me, my role called for it.  But it calls to mind the following movie quote.  Since we didn't have a Monday quote this week, I'll let you guess on this one instead.

"You've got to remember that these are just simple farmers. These are people of the land. The common clay of the new West. You know... morons."


It shouldn't be difficult. 

Movie Mania Monday - Just cut them up like regular chickens

Saturday was a beautiful, sunny Florida day. Tough to appreciate that when mulch was on sale, and buying 50 bags that have to be loaded onto a cart, into the truck, into the wheelbarrow, and then into the flower beds, that's 200 or so lifts. Check out my abs! (No, you don't really want to do that...)

The yard looks much nicer, though, and the roses are in full bloom out front. Still not sure what the deal is with the bush in back, it keeps growing and growing, but it just won't bloom despite fertilizer and encouragement. We lost so many tropical plants with the hard freeze this winter, though. I keep hoping a few more will re-emerge, the yard looks so plain. Another plus, though? Mower started on the first pull, even after sitting for four months.

Of course, I figured I could finish up the rest of the mulch on Sunday, once I was done with some work projects I've been fighting with during the week. Of course, after all the lifting on Saturday, I could barely move. Plus, it rained most of the day, and nothing says biting insects like rain and wet tree bark.

Today is our daughter Melissa's 21st birthday. Amazing how time flies so quickly by, I remember her and Steph being so tiny, so bright-eyed and innocent mischievous. Now Melissa tells me the beer I drink is nasty and that Bud Light is the be-all and end-all of deliciousness. She's young, she'll learn. Of course, at least as of when I wrote this, nobody ventured a proper guess last week's quote. What a shame. Netflix, anyone?

On to this week's contest. Once again, kids, let's review the rules. Identify the film being quoted below using only your noggin. Don't Google, don't Bing, don't Yahoo, don't Ask Jeeves. If you're first, you win the peoples' ovation and fame forever, along with the coveted title of Iron Quote Guesser. Voici la quote de la semaine:

The rose goes in the front, big guy.

Allez guessing! If this happened to be on over the weekend, I apologize for making life so simple for you. I picked the quote two weeks ago, as I did with next week's quote as well. Consider it a 'gimmie'.

Random Acts of Thursday - Home Sweet Home

As (1) we will soon be visited by a Realtor to list our sun-dappled Florida home, and (2) as we are on the quest for temporary-to-permanent housing elsewhere, and (3) as I had you identify many television home-away-from-homes a few weeks back, I thought it only appropriate to show a selection of movie and television homes, places that warmed your heart and mine, no matter what Thomas Wolfe may have said about it. Your job is simply to place the house in its proper setting.

With that in mind, some of these are simpler than others, I'll admit. Two of these are from movies I've never seen start-to-finish, one is from a film I've never seen at all, and the final one should be considered a bonus, since the photograph is modern, but the film is from 63 years ago.

So? Have at it, quizzlings!

1)2)
3)
4)
5)
6)
7)
8)
9)
10)
11)
12)
Bonus points if you identify both directors who have two films in this list.

More bonus points if you're willing to help me move. Anyone?

I'm not a plumber, but I'll take a look...

Author's note: Your regular 'Random Act of Thursday' will not be seen today. Instead we bring you the following heartwarming tale of home maintenance.

I hate the smell of sewage in the morning. Smells like…failure.

Lori called me yesterday to tell me that the dishwasher had backwashed and flooded the sink cabinet with its leavings, thanks to some previously inept plumbing work. I touched the hose from the dishwasher to the disposal, which promptly fell off the disposal into my hand. I tapped the sink trap, which promptly dropped from the disposer and out of the wall.

We’ve been fighting with a minor clog for a while now, but I couldn’t figure out how one side of the sink would work just fine, and the other did its best to attract mosquito larvae by standing for long periods of time. I tried fixing this myself yesterday, and finally broke down and called the plumber when my 'Junior Plumber Fix-It Kit' snake couldn’t get past the resistance in the drain.

This is not the first time we’ve had to call a plumber for this sink - click here for last year’s saga.

Forty feet of professional drain snake later, the sink was draining, swirling away all Coreolus-like, and all was well with the world. I managed to scrub the stink of failure (and sewage) from my hands, cough up $175 for his time, and went to sleep thinking we were groovy.

Cut to this morning, nice hot shower, refreshing, new day has dawned, and the like. However, when I opened the shower curtain, I saw the lake where once was our bathroom floor. The water going down the shower drain was forcing its way back up through both toilets and running over the wax rings. Sixty feet of larger scale professional drain snake from the street (and $200) later, we can once again flush with minimal trepidation. Ah, the joys of home ownership.

Can’t you just hear Wagner playing in the background?

Elliott and the terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day

***note, I apologize now for the negative tone and self-centered nature of this post. Save yourself. Go Google cute bunnies or surf porn now, avoid the whole mess.
I had a fantastic weekend. Should I, therefore, be punished? Apparently so.

My phone died Sunday night, and apparently that means that the phone itself decides to go into paperweight mode after recharging. No calls, no email, nothing. Therefore, I never got the calls from the mechanic about the Buick, so even though I dropped the car for service yesterday morning, it didn't get fixed. I was able to bum a ride home, but now I have two vehicles in south Tampa and none at home, on a night I work until 8 pm. I'll be going to get Lori tonight, then driving back down here to get my car, then driving back home. That's not inconvenient. Not at all.


And the Packers lost. To He-who-shall-not-be-named. But we won't discuss that.

When I got to my desk this morning, my computer was off. I didn’t shut it off, but powering it back on confirmed a ‘thermal event’ transpired overnight. That’s a weather condition, not a PC issue. It’s like the Alli people referring to uncontrollable anal seepage as a ‘Treatment Effect’.
***artist's depiction. If only our closet was actually this big!

When the computer finally booted up again, I got the email from Lori that the new double-poled, double-shelved, beautifully organized closet that we put together last month suffered a meltdown this morning. The top shelf collapsed, and since it landed on the bottom pole, I’m sure that one’s worse for wear, too. Lori can’t tell for sure because the whole closet is just a jumble of wire shelving, clothes, hangers and boxes.
***not the Dammit, but the markings are strangely familiar


Now I just got another email from her, indicating that the Dammit Dog decided he wanted to roll in poo, and is now encrusted in it. He never does this, but it’s my fault, I haven’t picked up the yard lately because in rainy season, it disintegrates before I can get to it.
Meanwhile, our systems have been experiencing outages all day, so clients can’t access our system. And their clients can’t access our system.

And, thanks to stress, the nightmares are better than ever. Lori woke me up because I was whimpering in my sleep, apparently. That’s better than snoring, I would think, but she doesn’t agree. As I was trying to go back to sleep, the medivac helicopter was suddenly hovering and circling above our house until traffic wherever they were headed could clear. That’s not disconcerting when you’ve just been woken from a bad dream. Not at all. When I came back from lunch, my desk fan wouldn’t turn. After a few minutes disassembling, turning, flipping switches and banging it on my desk, it’s finally running again.
And I just read that my favorite magazine, Gourmet, is stopping publication after 68 years.
Can I get a do-over on my week? Because this one just isn’t working for me.

And it’s only Tuesday.

When Darwins, we all win.

They've been doing some work on our office, building walls, tearing walls down, moving the buckets around for the new leaks in the roof, the usual. By they, I refer to Frick and Frack, and while the quality of their finished work is generally impressive, sometimes I must question their means.

I don't have a camera phone, so you'll have to bear with me. One of the walls they removed contained several electrical boxes and outlets. The conduit to these boxes is firmly and permanently ensconced in concrete. However, since they need to come out, our fearless crew is using a sawsall.

Plugged into one of the outlets they're cutting out.

On the up-side, if they fry the building electricals, I can go work from home for the rest of the day.