Thank goodness for men who can fix things

I'm back in my Columbus home at my desk by the living room window. While we've been gone (at Lakeside), the light bulbs have all been replaced and the windows and screens have been washed by a friend who started a handyman service after he retired from his corporate CEO job (likes to putter). I need sunglasses it's so bright. And at Lakeside, all our 1944 cast iron plumbing is being replaced by plumbers who are strong and thin enough to slide into the crawl space next to the basement to get access.

 Old age is certainly exciting. So many changes.

Word of the week—reboot

Numerous things have gone wrong here, but I think everything is working again—the car, the garage door, the phone and the TV. Our son (manager of a dealer Quick Serve) put my car up on the rack and found a huge chunk of frozen ice and dirt in the wheel well hitting the tail pipe causing  a loud noise,  and he fixed the “low tire” dash light which had been on for 4 months and inflating the tire didn’t seem to fix it; then the garage door wouldn’t go down when it was 10 below zero, and our son stopped over, got a ladder and unplugged it (rebooted) and it started working (had not gone down during our 2 coldest, below zero nights causing the neighbors to call and remind us to close the door); then the phones stopped working with a message, “no line,” so I thought well, if it worked with the garage door maybe it works with the phone, so I unplugged it, and they started working; then the TV quit, so I couldn’t reach the plug and turned off the surge protector to reboot, and then everything quit even the cable box, but it was working this morning after rebooting.  So the word of the day/week is “reboot.”

Record breaking heat--for a day

Yesterday it was 85 in Columbus--broke a record for that date. Today it's 74 early a.m., but will cool this afternoon with the rain. After a week of warm weather in California--we are prepared! I went to the coffee shop this morning with no jacket!

I'm trying to work up to 2 miles a day on my daily walk--but so far, have only managed one, with some bicycle (indoor) time later in the day. The yards this time of year in Arlington are such a mess. My husband blames lack of winter clean up, but some of the homes I pass have had messy side yards since I started walking in the area when sidewalks were installed in 2009. If the home owner can't see it because of the bushes, it isn't cleaned up. Weeds, grass clippings, plastic bottles and bags--it shows a lack of respect for home ownership (maybe they are renters?) and the neighbors, as well as the environment. There are people in this world who think it's others responsibility, or they wear blinders when pulling out of the drive-way.

And the barking dogs? They look just plain lonely to me, whether it's the black lab behind the fence which gets the little yappy indoor dust-mop types going in the near-by houses, or the big old hounds, owners need to take those doggies out for a good run several times a day. Don't buy a little pup that will grow large if you don't intend to take care of its needs for exercise.

We found 2 golf balls on our evening walk yesterday. Our neighbor says she finds more in the spring than the fall, because the golfers are out of practice. We're going to pay for some clean up and repair--big time. The previous owner had a new sidewalk installed of some kind of slate or flagstone and all the mortor has deteriorated and the stone is chipping off in layers. This might be a good material for a warm climate, but not the freezing and thawing of our area where salt is put down periodically. About 5 years ago we had it repaired, but it will probably need to be ripped out and done over with a simple concrete walk, stamped with broadcast color. Also, the previous homeowner had the back patio landscaped, and it was over done, much is now overgrown or has died, so that will be about $500 to clean up and replant more modestly. Even in a condo, you are responsible for the areas nearest your home (about 20 ft.) so we actually have more plants than we had on Abington Rd. for 34 years.

I don't have a green thumb, and my husband reserves his energy for the lake house, so it will have to come out of retirement funds. Who knew we saved and sacrificed in our younger years so we could have a decent patio garden?

This walk used to look like this, but is now broken and cracked.

Gunk, Goo and Yuck

No, I'm not talking about Congress or Wall Street, but the trap under my office bathroom sink. I had noticed a slight odor, and asked my husband if he would release the stopper, because I couldn't figure out how to do it. Asking him to do it is just about as far as my plumbing ability goes. I watched my mother accomplish just about every household improvement and repair a non-journeyman worker could do. She painted, wall-papered, changed screens and storm windows, installed a bathroom, refinished furniture, caned chair seats, shoveled snow, mowed lawns, and made the best apple sour cream pie in the world. By the time I was 8 years old I'd vowed to never learn which end of a hammer or wrench to use--but I do make a good pie.

After he dismantled the thingy, I then poked and scrubbed, the the awful black gunk just kept coming. If you think it takes millions of years to form peat or coal, just take a look at what's going on in your pipes with a little heat, moisture and pressure. For some reason I reached under the sink to look for an old toothbrush, a housewife's handiest cleaning tool, and found water. Seems when there's a hole caused by removing the stopper lever, the water you run to clean the drain runs out inside the cabinet. Who knew? "I never thought about it," was my plumber's reply. This gave us an opportunity to reminisce over other plumbing problems faced during our life together, like when he took off a faucet forgetting to turn the water off, or emptied a pail put under the drain into the sink that hadn't been reconnected. Yes, plumbing is fun.

Lady, you don't need us, you need a miracle

He says he really told her that, but I'm sure he didn't, otherwise she'd report him to his boss. You know how people hate to hear the truth. He is a service worker who regularly sees the inside of people's homes, from big mansion to shabby duplex to apartments, from attic to basement to garage. This one, he noted shaking his head, looked like a herd of cattle had been driven through the living room. Mud. Animal feces. Filthy clothes. Bad odors. Trim and weather stripping broken or missing. The home was built in 1995--nice area, working father, stay at home mom. Two young children. If he'd been an animal protection officer and the children were pets, he probably could have removed them. He says he waited after giving her an estimate while she called her husband. He could hear him screaming at her through the phone from the other side of the room.

Maybe one of those marriage 101 workshops the federal government is funding could help. Or a daily cleaning service. Or that English nanny we see on TV. Slobs come in all classes and income brackets. A friend of mine was a "home manager," she cleaned, baby sat and ran errands for a wealthy family in Dublin with 4 rotten to the core children (both parents were professional--doctor and lawyer). She couldn't stand it. She quit because each day she came back to work and it was a worse mess than the day before, even after she'd put everything in order. She was told she couldn't remove the pet dog from the kitchen counters where it would eat the butter. Some people are beyond slobdom. They do need a miracle.

Cleaning the bathroom

This story is for Bev, who patiently reads through my political stuff hoping for a good story. She loves me, my cat and my foibles.

I've never claimed to be an organized housewife. Drives my husband crazy. He knows exactly where his Boy Scout folding cup from fifth grade is. So today I started on the guest room by moving a few things to my closet off the master bedroom. However, that bathroom is my husband's, so after I rearranged my shoes which our house guests will never see, I started on his bathroom. I'll be using this while our California relatives are here, so for my sake, I decided to attack it. I don't care if a guy is a bachelor or married or a CEO with a private office suite and maid service, men's bathrooms are always YUK!

While cleaning the shower (on my knees) I got a good look at the bottom of the shower door. Double yuk. The seal on the bottom of the flap was so mold covered, I think that's all that was holding the trim piece on. I saw there were 4 screws, and needed a Phillips screw driver. I know how to do that, so I went to the basement and found a small Phillips. Three screws came out after much effort and a blistered palm. The fourth wouldn't budge. I think this is a type of Murphy's Law--4 screws, 3 come out. So instead of yelling until I was hoarse from the second floor to the basement the way the other person in this marriage does, I walked down.

"There are four screws on the trim piece of the shower door, and I could only get three of them out. I'm trying to clean off the mold. Can you do the fourth one?"

"Phillips?"

"Yes, I got it out of the store room."

"I'll get my bigger one out of my tool bin in the garage."

"What's wrong with my Phillips?"

"Not enough torque."

"What's torque?"

he explained.

Oddies, Endies, and Undies

Yesterday I noted that my husband squeaked through on registration to tour the new Dublin Methodist Hospital to get 3 credit hours in health, safety and welfare for his continuing education requirements. At supper last night (homemade pizza) he couldn't stop raving about the design, creativity and planned well-being for patients. So it is definitely a winner, all around. You folks who live in Dublin and surrounding areas are going to have one super community hospital.


As I was settling in for a nap (one of my favorite events of the day) about 2 p.m. I heard a loud crash. I was a bit groggy, but realized the roof was not above me--the master bedroom is there. So I walked upstairs carefully, thinking perhaps a mirror or painting had fallen. When I got to the master bath, I saw that all the marble trim tile had fallen off the edge of the vanity. If anyone had been standing there in bare feet, he would have had a broken toe. I walked downstairs and told my husband (he uses that bathroom), and he said he wasn't surprised, that it was noted in the inspection in 2001 when we bought the condo, but hadn't been fixed.

So I settled in again for my nap. The phone rang and my husband picked it up from the kitchen. I opened an eye and looked at the TV screen. A name and phone number appeared. The conversation was with the buyer of one of the condos that has been for sale for a year. My husband is president of the association, and this purchase has involved many meetings of the board. When he hung up he said the purchase was final. I asked the buyer's name, but he couldn't remember. Was it--and I mentioned the name that had appeared on our TV screen, and he said Yes. Now that's weird. We assume it is something in her phone, because to our knowledge, this has never happened before. Has this ever happened to you?

A nap was definitely out of the question after two interruptions, so I decided to go Christmas shopping. I had four cards from Macy's. Two for $15 off a $50 purchase, and two for $25 off a $100 purchase. The problem was Macy's was also having a one day sale--something like "take another 20% off the already 50% markdown." I'm math challenged. So when I got my carefully totalled gifts (in my head) to the head of the check out line (waited 10 minutes), they only came to $82. So I'm refiguring what we'd agreed on, and go back and pick up an item that was $18 (although the $9 would have done just as well). See, that's how they trap you. In my head, I'm deducting the $25 off my son's gift, so it evens out with my daughter's and son-in-law's, but the receipt shaves each item--and actually totals $26 and not $25. I'll stick with my head on this.

I still have two cards left, so I browse the ladies lingerie department--not for a gift, but for me. My favorite brand of undies (which always seems to be on sale) has a buy 3 get one free (ca. $18), although because of the sale, I have no idea what it will be when I get to the register. So I go down stairs and look at shoes to see if there's something in 8.5 AA, and I select 2 Naturalizers and take them to the desk (no one comes to you these days). You would have thought I'd asked for the moon. "We have no narrow sizes in any style," she sniffed (She was quite large, and I think that's why narrow sizes are disappearing). You see, I thought if I bought a pair of shoes I didn't really need, I'd get the panties I didn't really need almost for "free." Saved from consumer hell by a shoe width.