Category: miscellaneous

DIY Victory. Huzzah!

I successfully replaced the flange, drain, and stopper in one of the bathroom sinks yesterday. Before details are parsed out, some entities are owed thanks.

  1. The builders who constructed our house seventeen years ago, because they used standard fittings.
  2. The plumbing industry for establishing clever and simple plumbing solutions that even fools like me can fix.
  3. Hardware stores for carrying parts as needed.
  4. Youtubers who put together excellent how-to guidance.

I’d been planning this job for a few months but was intimidated because, plumbing. It’s right up there with wiring and electricity for me. Fed by sitcoms, movies, cartoons, and cliches, my imagination is well-stocked with visions of what could go wrong for someone who isn’t mechanically proficient, like the guy who looks back at me from the mirror.

Nothing did go wrong, though. Yes, it was work. Two hard parts emerged. First, unscrewing the flange in the sink from the drain. Those puppies had been wedded together for seventeen blissful years. Separating them was a stinking challenge. I needed to hold onto the vise grips and keep the flange from turning while somehow reaching beneath the sink and turning the pipe to unscrew the flange. I needed another set of hands.

Enter the partner, my spouse, aka, K, the wife.

I set up a heavy-duty screwdriver in the hole where the popup lever connects the stopper to the plunger. Yeah, these are the technical terms (*snark*). I don’t know the true terms. With that rig in place, I, um, gripped the vise grips and held on tight. Then I had my wife turn the drainpipe below, using the screwdriver as a lever. I felt tremendously satisfied when that worked.

The other aspect was that we have designer stuff in the bathroom. I wanted to use the original plunger because its design matched everything else in the bathroom. But the lever wasn’t compatible, forcing me to find an imaginative solution for a hybrid system that worked. That, brothers and sisters, consumed about forty minutes of my seventy-five minutes sweat soaked endeavor.

When I finished, I went into the other room. My wife was reading on the bed. “Done,” I said. “Come see.”

“Hang on, I’ve almost finished this book.”

“Really? That has priority over my DIY success?”

“See this tear?” She pointed at her eye.

“I’ll see your tear and raise you my sweat-soaked shirt. It was hot in there, and cramped.”

“I’m almost done. I just have a few more pages.”

I went back alone and admired my results. With one down, I’m purchasing more replacement parts and doing the other two sinks this weekend.

Don’t get cocky, I tell myself.

I won’t, I reply.

What can go wrong?

4

The Writing Moment

He was enjoying himself. He was working and revising, either the third or fourth draft, although an incomplete draft. The ending was tentatively written but he needed to reach that point, had to bridge yet the first huge chunk — four hundred pages — He had an urge to rush it but there was a lot to still be told. Patience, he kept telling himself. Patience.

Yes, he was still learning the story. The story fascinated him, and he was having a good time learning it. Someday, maybe he’d know the whole.

1

Friday’s Theme Music

You ever think about changing your calendar? I wonder how it would affect us if on each New Year, our first day was 365 (366 for a leap year). Then the days count down, like a Julian calendar in reverse. Today, instead of August 26, 2022, it would be something like Friday, 128, 2022. Then you’d think, oh my goodness there’s only 127 days left to this year. Your conversations would be interesting as people suggesting having a celebration on the 120, and you reply, “Is that a Friday?”

Today’s particulars aren’t notably different from yesterday. When I awoke a few hours ago, the temp. was 61 F. We’re up to 20 C now. Sunset is expected at 7:55 PM after a sunrise of 6:30 AM. Our high will be about 93 F. No clouds in the sky, and it’s blue. Air Quality is 2, so pretty darn good. On the news front, the GOP has shifted targets from the DOJ and are no longer chanting about defunding the FBI. Now they want to defund the IRS. Their cycle, from the false statements of the former GOP POTUS to their continual insistence that the 2020 POTUS election was stolen to some who lost claiming they won (yes, I’m commenting on you, Laura Loomer), to verbal attacks on different government departments seems to be about sowing discord, distrust, and confusion, which destabilizes our government, polarizes our politics, and disrupts our society. So no changes in the news, other than, oh, yeah, flooding, fires, droughts, baseball, football, and other sports. But yea, people cry, Lake Mead’s water level is no longer falling. We’re saved!

From reading news and reflection on my dreams and daily activities and routines, The Neurons feted me with John Lennon, “Watching the Wheels” from 1981. Do you remember when he was gunned down? I surely do. Anyway, The Neurons have “I’m just sitting here watching the wheels go round and round, I really love to watch them roll,” repeatedly playing in the morning mental music stream. That’s how my mood is, to some degree. Moods, like so many things, are a spectrum, so I’ll be sliding along to something else sometime, and then probably back again, and off again, and so on.

Yes, I have my coffee already, and I’ve eaten brekkie — waffles today. Now I’m contemplating the cats washing themselves and contemplating their fur, ears moving as a car passes, a bird breaks cover and tweets, caws, or screeches, pausing as a far dog barks and a prop plane drones closer. Stay positive and test negative and so forth. Here’s the music. Sing along if you will. Cheers

3

The Pinkerton Dream

I was a young man in this dream — which sounds like it could be the title of something, doesn’t it? — and working in some office. I don’t recall any work details other than I was happy and productive, respected and appreciated by management and my co-workers. A standard variation of the U.S. office space served as setting.

One of my bosses came by and said, “Have you heard of the Pinkerton deal?” I answered that I knew who or what the Pinkertons are, and he replied, “You haven’t heard then. But you will.” He later came by and said, “The Pinkertons have made you an offer, but they want you to move to Austin, Texas. Let me know if you’re interested because we’ll better their offer and move you to Austin. We’d love to have you in Austin.”

I replied, “I’m not interested in moving to Austin so I probably won’t take the deal.”

I received the Pinkerton deal later. I didn’t immediately turn them down because it was a great offer, and I was flattered and impressed. I told them that and they replied that they’d give me the same deal without the need for me to move because they really wanted me to join them.

The same boss as before came by. I told him of the new offer and said I was going to accept it. He said that they wanted to keep me so they would match any offer, and to make sure I spoke with them before I accepted any offers.

Astonished — and again flattered — I agreed. That’s where the dream left it.

0

The Emails from the Past Dream

I was in a small and modern well-lit office, relaxing in a black office chair with my feet up on a desk, a cup of coffee at hand. A computer was on the desk behind me.

I began telling people things that were going to happen, doing so in an offhand way to a close circle of friends and family. I don’t recall details of what I said but they were supposed to happen within a few days to a week. Friends returned and told me that they’d mentioned it to other people who believed these and accepted them as prophecies, surprising me. I laughed about it and then thought, well, I should be doing this via more than just comments made to others, so I began sending texts and emails. I thought of it as a lark, but yet more people were said to believe what I said, and that my following was growing. Friends began suggesting that I start doing things on Youtube, IG, or other social media. I made different jokes about that and then thought, what if I started sending the emails out in the past. As I began doing this, going back and sending emails from a day or two before, I wondered how I was doing that. As it worked though, I thought, can I go further back in time and send emails from yet further back to warn people about things? I tested that idea by going back two to three days at a time at first. Mind you, I wasn’t time traveling, but using a computer that could send emails out from the past. Taking a leap of faith, I decided to try going all the way back to when I first became familiar with email, in 1991.

My computer screen had been white with black sans-serif letters. When I went back in time in the email system, the screen became black with green block letters. I laughed when I saw that, because that’s how I remember the screens being then. I discovered then that how far back I went dictated how far ahead I could predict things. Going back to 1991 allowed me to make predictions for thirty years ahead. I also started learning that I could predict for specific places and people.

All of this continued to take place with me in that office, feet up on my desk, a cup of coffee at hand.

3

Tuesday’s Wandering Thought

He realized that many things needed to be done, and that he was the person who needed to do them. A list was made and priorities established, good initial steps. Critically, he would need to remain focused and ignore the call of books and computer games, and keep his energy marshalled.

That was always the challenge.

0

Overheard

The first woman said, “She is fostering two kittens and I’ll bet she’s going to be a foster fail.”

The other woman replied, “Wait, did you say that you had a cat that lost its tail?”

0

The Angry Dream

First dream phase I was in the military, but I was a civvie in the second. I found some red tile and learned it was available, so I had it moved and then spent a day reflooring a place. I put the tiles in place but then had to pour some stuff over it to hold it in place. No time to do that before the others returned so I went to meet them and tell them what was happening with the floor.

I walked in. A young female airman in standard uniform of blue skirt and light blue shirt walked in. Looking down at the floor as she walked, she started smiling and kicking the floor apart.

I stormed up to her and almost grabbed her. I almost went for her throat but caught myself. Seeing me, she went white. I said in my hardest angry senior NCO voice, “What are you doing?” As that was rhetorical, I then introduced myself, told her what I’d spent the day doing, and then had her get down and put it all together. As she was doing that, she began crying. Others entered and asked about what was going on. I ordered her to stand up and explain to everyone what was going on.

Next, I’m a civilian working at some company. I work alongside some pompous jackass who thinks himself a god. He has a routine of stealing others’ ideas and not sharing credit. He likes to belittle people and spit at them. Knowing this, I began working on a project in secret. Part of that required me to order porn from a catalog. (Yeah, I know, strange, but it’s a dream.) This idiot confronts me at one point, claiming to know what I’m doing, mocking me with a smirk as he thinks he reveals my plans. He’s completely wrong, so I don’t react.

When I finish my project, I take it to a meeting. He’s sitting behind a table. After I explain the project and show my results to others, who praise it, he starts verbally attacking me, mocking and smirking, and then spits in my hair. Well, that was it.

Verbally lashing him, I lunged across the table. As he shrank back into the corner with a look of shock, I grabbed him by the hair, lifted him up, and spit in his face several times, asking him how he liked being spit on. After releasing him, I told him that it’s indicative of who he is that when I came across the table for him, no one tried to stop me or said a word. The look on his face was priceless.

Oddly, the guy looked like Benedict Cumberbatch, an actor who I enjoy.

Dream end.

0

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