The Masculine 'Eight Inch'

Good morning, fellow bloggers.

It is a cold gray December morning, the last of its kind. (The year & month are about to change, not the weather.) Yesterday I drove past a lake and saw one intrepid fisherman huddled on a bucket over a hole in the ice. I'm not sure how he got out there because the shoreline was wet, which means the ice could unpredictable. Too unpredictable for me (although with my father I have gone out onto the ice when the shoreline was still damp.) It's New Year's Eve Day.

The dog is sticking close to me this morning because I pulled on a pair of socks (a 'go' sign) and Nancy is still in her bathrobe. this bodes ill for working-going. Because the dog is so closely underfoot, the cat is shunning me.

Molter came yesterday, tore all of the pipes out from under the sink and reconstructed them. I mentioned the faucet might be part of the problem (I never know these things for sure) and that it had defects of its own, and he suggested that while he was still here I run down to Home Depot and secure a replacement. "What would you call that?" I checked.

I know that expression.

"There must be some specification for that sink that distinguishes it from all of the faucets I could buy that won't fit," I established.

"Oh," he said. "It's an eight-inch."

So I went to Home Depot.

Our kitchen sink was a spout with two handles, one on either side. The handles are eight inches apart. It was manufactured during those days when faux crystal blobs as on/off levers were popular. Our faux crystal blobs had gotten lazy, particularly the hot water faux crystal blob which would stem the flow of hot water, but also allowed it to sit there dripping drops of water onto the aluminum sink about every second-and-a-half. 

All bathroom designs faucets look like ours.

"I wonder if there is a difference between bathroom and kitchen faucets?" I wondered.

There is. For $29.95 you can buy a new set of spout-with-two-faux-crystal-blobs: or for $100+ dollars you can buy a mind-blowing cornucopia of larger, more gracefully bent spouts, some with a removable head, some without, all sporting a single lever which dispenses both hot and cold water, depending on which direction you lev it.

You understand my dilemma immediately.

If the faucet you are replacing is being replaced because it malfunctioned and this particular faucet set is roughly $75 cheaper than any other available faucet set, YOU GET WHAT YOU PAY FOR begins to marquee through the back of your mind: at the same time...nothing on the levered removable spray heads is...eight inches. They're not eight inches apart, they're not eight inches high, they're not eight inches long... 

(Yes, she is an oldest child.Rule oriented. Occasionally mind-numbingly literal.)

A Home Depot saleswoman came up to me, an industrious and well-informed person determined to sell me a kitchen faucet set. She had, in fact, a particular set in hand. It was on sale, originally $139, on same for $118. It would meet all of my needs. 

I glanced a the faux crystal blob set, which I knew to be eight-inches.

She said, "You get what you pay for."

"But," I said, nodding toward the sale set, "is that eight inches?"

She smiled, recognizing a woman who had never plumbed in her life. Sent by a man, armed only with the masculine 'eight inch'. "They all are," she said, and handed me the box. "This is really your best bet."

And it was, because it rang up as $108.

I took it home.

Molter disappeared under my sink, and I went back to my computer where, should something ever be described as "eight inch" I would conceivably know where to start and stop measuring.   

Doing it Right

Good morning, fellow bloggers.

I had my plans all made for the day. Murphy and I were going to drive into Kazoo, Murphy was going to stay at Flowerfield and I was going to deposit my checks, and then explore Michael's and Joann Fabric's end of the year sales. Polymer clay is on sale. Kathy gave me a clay-softening machine. I'm good to go.

Flash back to Monday morning, when I walked out into the kitchen to make our coffee and the rug in front of the sink was all wet. I opened the door under the sink, moved the wastebasket, and determined that some sort of unauthorized fluid leak had occurred. So I set the wastebasket in front of it, closed the door, and waited for Nancy to come out. But, you will undoubtedly say, you lived by yourself for 17 years, even owned a house of your own--why would you not just launch into the fixing process?  And the answer to such a rude question would be, you'd be surprised how long I can ignore something that doesn't work just right.

The alternative answer, of course is, I fixed my stopped up bathtub, once. I applied chemicals. I applied a toilet plunger. I applied an actual unstopping tool, a snake, all by myself. And I stood there, sweat dripping off my brow, pride swelling in my chest that I had fixed a house problem all by myself when it started raining, and this horrible sense of dread began shoving aside my pride, and I ran downstairs to the main floor--my kitchen--and watched all of the dead, stale, chem-laden water I had just forcibly evicted from my bathtub soak through the ceiling, the cupboards, sweep over the linoleum floor and head directly for the dining room carpet. Yup. Broke the pipe.

I broke a window in the basement once, and broke seven plates of glass trying to replace it.

I have retired from the home repairs field.

The leak appeared at the end of a long silver pipe with some sort of shutoff valve on it. Nancy says it's the hot water, and it probably is because she turned off the valve and we haven't had hot water in the kitchen sink for two days now.

So I called Molter.

We call Molter for everything. He did the original inspections on both the house I bought and the house (this house) Nancy bought. Molter is a retired housing contractor/fixer. It costs about $1000 to have Molter walk through the front door, but in due time he will fix not only what you called him for, but (and this is a real plus in my book and relatively irrelevant to a lot of repair people) also what CAUSED it, and anything else funky, odd or not up to code he might see along the way.

When Molter retires again, we're going to sell the house and move into assisted living.

So Molter called this morning, and now I am waiting for him to arrive. I will show him our problem. I mentioned his imminent arrival to Nancy, and the told me to quiz him carefully. It's possible this is a quick fix. It's also possible we should just rip out all of the plumbing in the kitchen, including the sink, and perhaps gut the livingroom while we're at it. We'll see.

The major flaw in the kitchen and specifically the sink is the faucet. I must turn off the hot water 60 times a day. I do this because the faucet is learning-disabled and must be beaten into submission and Nancy's hands are not strong enough to apply the beatings. It appears to turn off, and remains that way just long enough for the victim to walk away from the sink. And then....drip.....drip....drip....drip....

I also hear noises of a certain register better than Nancy.

Or perhaps I'm just more sensitive to repetitive noises.

drip...drip...drip...drip

Woman hurls self across kitchen, wrenches faucet to the 'off' position and beyond...

The house I owned was older. It never aspired to the grandeur of this one. And sometime during its lifetime it's location became inconvenient, so someone put it on a trailer and moved it half a mile. It had faucets that leaked. I took them apart, removed the insides, and put them back together again and they worked for a long time.

Faucets aren't made that way any more.

So I'm waiting.

Murphy went to work with Nancy this morning. Don't leave me, I want to go too...

So not only am I waiting, I am waiting alone.

The Good Dog goes to Flowerfield to sleep. Too many barbarians that need to be barked at here.

Nancy and I have a running joke. Every evening she gets off the couch, goes into the kitchen, lets the dog out, fixes her glass of water and gives the cat a dollop of ice cream. She lets the dog back in and goes to bed. The dog comes to me and says, She didn't do it right. And I let the dog out again.

I have no idea what she does wrong, but she does it wrong every night.

Last night she went to bed and the dog appeared at my knees. She didn't do it right. So I let the dog out. She comes back in. I go the computer. The dog bumps me. You didn't do it right either. I let the dog out. She comes back in. I go to the computer. The dog bumps me. I explain to the dog that what I do or don't do does not substantially affect her out-going experience: that it's what she does outside that counts. She goes out. She stands on the back porch. "How productive," I admire and let her back in. I go to the computer. The dog bumps me. For the fourth time I let her out. She starts licking snow. "Why the hell would the dog want to go outside in the snow and cold just to lick snow....?" I ask myself. 

And then I go in the laundry room, just across the hall from the back door, and I wash and refill her water bowl, add food to her dish, let her back in.

Happy dog.

You do it right.  

Undo

Good morning, fellow bloggers.

I can see blue sky. It is peering out behind fluffy wisps of snow clouds--but I can see it. There is an unaccustomed brightness coming from the east. The cat is in his aerie, the dog is snoozing on the couch, and here I am, gallery-free and ready to write. I am even dressed, although one of my goals (it's a soft goal) is to not leave the house today.

Nancy is reading a Stephen King novel she received as a white elephant (according to the cover it is a library book from Allegan or somewhere: I am assuming it was sold rather than just  never returned, but then...it was a white elephant.) Our evenings have been quiet, lately. I can read, but it makes me sleepy because my glasses aren't right and my cataract needs to go.

Now that I am rich from the rampant sale of my gourds... (Oh, well, it's fun to say)...I can pay back the money I borrowed on Nancy's credit card. 

I will tell you about a conversation I had with a potential photograph buyer. I had a photograph of Babycakes lying in the sun printed and framed. I put a price of $80 on it because I had it framed at Michael's for 40% off and I would be making roughly $15 from the sale, and this woman walked into the gallery and fell in love with the photograph. However, $80 can be a lot to pay for something to hang on the wall and she was shopping for Christmas gifts, not a present for herself. I offered to sell her just the naked print, and gave her my business card. She said she would call me the first of the year, although I am not counting on that. The photographs I have sold so far are the ones I framed myself in commercial frames, perhaps because they were significantly cheaper and perhaps because the frames are all black and white, therefore blending with any wall. Larry-Michael, who also sells photographs, sells his archival prints in $7 frames from Walmart because, he told me, people who frame photographs match the mat colors to the photographs, but people who BUY photographs want the mats to match their walls.  So he puts the print in a cheap frame so the picture is protected, and lets them figure out what to do with it. I think I'm going to follow his advice next season. No more spending $66 dollars on a frame only the framer and I like.

(On the other hand: I now have some of my own prints framed.)

I also need to start going to yard sales and buying old pictures. Sometimes you can acquire nice frames that way, and I like the idea of recycling. Both Nancy and my sister would help me frame prints.

And I am about to begin coiling my gourds. I am resisting the urge to jump in the car with the dog and drive to Allegan, which hosts the closest basket-making supply store, because I need rush. Rush is the twisted paper sometimes used in making chair seats. When I was a kid, our family had an entire set of porch furniture made out of rush. It's also called paper core, and it's what coilers coil around. (Although seagrass, which I already have, would work just as well, particularly for a novice.) The method I have been using to top my gourds is, I think, also 'coiling', but it's less intense.

Interestingly enough (to me, at least) our family had a number of old baskets around when I was a kid, and with each new basket-making technique I learn to identify, I remember the basket we dismantled as kids that was made that way. We tore up some gorgeous baskets, in our youth. On the other hand, I paid enough attention to how they were constructed, while I was tearing them apart, to recognize the process in reverse when I run into it again. I have my own 'undo' key.

The brightness is steadily increasing (this is not necessarily an element of time: the clouds are thinning.)

When my computer came on this morning big red screens popped up announcing I was in DANGER. For reasons I was unaware of, my firewall had retired, so I restored it. Kaspersky has been running for an hour now, and so far it has found 12 events of what it calls 'riskware'. There is just about any kind of 'ware' possible around now. 

I need to venture into Alabama soon. I canceled the fall trip when had scheduled when the surgery/emergency family visit behind it was canceled. At the time I assured him I would be down sometime in January, and January is knocking on the door. It will be good to see him again: because of the Gallery, I missed him the last time he was up here. 

And those are my ramblings for the day.

Tidying up the Old Year

YOU could have fibromyalgia!

Yes--but do I want to???

The above assertion--that I too could have fibromyalgia--is an offer I passed somewhere on the transition from off-line to my page on Xanga. Fibromyalgia is an unpleasant and painful disease thought to be some sort of irritant to the nerve system which rewards the sufferer with unpredictable and often unexplainable pain. Anywhere. At any time. A wonderful new drug called 'Lyrica' (isn't that a pleasant name?) has recently been released with the promise that it will either cure fibromyalgia sufferers or kill them, and while I admire drug manufacturers for being up front about the possible side effects of their newest concoctions, I am steadily narrowing down the list of optional diseases I might take on to appease my desire to be trendy. (This does not in any way suggest people who suffer from fibromyalgia do so to be 'trendy': I am, however, poking serious criticism at the advertising campaign, which seems to be geared toward those people who have nothing more to do with their lives that sit around in front of the television or online, collecting symtoms of all of the current diseases.) YOU could have fibromyalgia! Are you feeling down? Does your dog look at you sadly? YOU could be depressed! Depression hurts. See your doctor immediately and order your free sample of Cymbalta today. 

And last, but hardly least, the cure for male impotence is now an improbably-placed claw-foot bathtub.

The Gallery is empty and, I presume, clean. I went. I gathered my stuff. I applied Goo Gone to the leftover tape on the front windows. I packed up some of another guild member's stuff. And I stood there, looking around, and there were 15 people, all doing something, and I could not see a single additional thing that needed to be done, I was the only person not doing anything, and I said to Becky, "This is the part I'm not good at." She hugged me and sent me home.

I have sorted out the three photographs I plan to enter in the Carnegie Center show next week.

I found a corner of the laundry room closet in which to store the rest of my photographs.

This morning Becky and Kathy will come over and we will work on the sales, counting them up, tallying them, figuring out the checks for everyone.

Tomorrow morning I will wake up, make coffee for my Beloved, throw on some clothes, fire up the computer...and write. I have not written anything of consequence since September.  And while I needed a break, new experiences, new adventures...it is winter. Tiny flakes of snow are blowing around soundlessly in the back yard. As my friend Larry-Michael said, "Winter is a time for reflection" and I reflect best in the Conservatory, at my computer.

The cat is in his aerie.

The dog has gone to work.

My friends should be arriving any minute.

And in April, Dennis Lehane will appear at the Dogwood Festival in Dowagiac.

Life is good.  

D-double-e-double-r-u-n....

Good afternoon (evening?) my fellow bloggers.

The Gallery is closed and nearly empty. We have only to clean up the building and then hand over the keys tomorrow, and Monday Kathy, Becky and I have to finish the inventory so Becky can write the checks, and we're done.  Some of us did very well, some of us kept afloat, and I think all but a very few of us at least made our booth fees.  I sold one photograph and a number of gourds.  More importantly, I made new connections with other artists who know how to work in media I've always been fascinated with but never knew how to start, and I feel more comfortable indulging my creative urges.

We had Christmas with both Nancy's family and mine--sometimes simultaneously--and now we are indulging in nonstop Man Shops Globe, experiments with linoleum prints, and napping. Today Nancy took Murphy to the Sanctuary for a D-double-e-double-r-u-n Dog Run. It must have been a success: both are now successfully installed on the couch and the cheerful sounds of snores float gracefully into the Conservatory where I am.

It is snowing outside, big, complex flakes of snow coming straight down. Occasionally little wisps of wind with redirect them. This is, of course, in our fenced in back yard, I have no idea what it translates into on the roads.

I gave Nancy a microwave oven for Christmas. Our had spit out the paint from the inside chamber, where the tray turns. For some time  now it has been throwing fits and spitting the control keys at it; recently it has taken up arcing to express it's displeasure. All in all, I would say it has just become surly. I could have gone to Walmart and picked up it's this-year's-model replacement, but I was working downtown and every day I walked past the downtown appliance store and I thought to myself, Why don't you just shop locally, support local business, and buy a real one? And I did. Our brand new, freshly installed microwave oven has a special intuitive setting for baked potatoes (one of our favorite foods) and baked our Christmas Even potatoes just right the first time. (My previous experiences microwaving potatoes has been...mixed. None all that successful, but even the individual potatoes came out...mixed. Hard here, too soft there...)

The first year we exchanged gifts she ordered Cephlon cookware and I knew I was in trouble. I remember my mother once told us (her spawn) that if we ever bought her housewares, cookware or community-use homeware for Christmas she would cook us in it, which never seemed like a particularly good goal to strive for. This was Nancy's Christmas list this year: silverware; microwave oven; something else we both use all of the time that is wearing out. I also traded with fellow photographer Carol Dugan for a shot of an eight-legged chicken (mom with babies tucked underneath her apron) and I gave her a datebook from an artist she particularly likes.

She gave me three pairs of jeans, a book on coiling, a book of dragon patterns for carving/burning/ coloring with crayons like a kid, a shaft for my Dremel, burrs for my Dremel, underpants, Reese Peanut Butter cups...packages galore. The jeans were critical because my wardrobe, barring actual social events, are jeans and my supply has worn down and then abruptly my source discontinued my faves. I was having to plan ahead so I would have clean jeans for my occasional public appearances. Like working at the gallery five days a week (which, in spite of my co-artists' claims, I never actually did.)

Today I went to the Gallery and practiced looking helpless until Matt carried my stuff to the car (where it still is) and then Becky and Larry-Michael wanted to take some of their gear home so they could get the rest of it, and so I stay to Gallery-sit while they were gone.  This afternoon I practiced working with my brayer, printing up some of my linoleum blocks so I could see how they work. I thought perhaps a small printing press might be a handy toy to play with, so I wandered onto an artists' supply site to browse. If I had that much money, I'd own a Hasselblatt. Or a Nikon with a bird lens.

So, having sprayed black ink over my my Beloved's faithful kitchen, I am now here, relaxing in the aftermath of the holidays. No guests, leftover fudge.

It's all good.