Monday - July 13, 2015

Monday Gak

The diverter valve on the shower decided to stop working this morning. Isn’t that special?

I did what I could, running out to the garage to turn off every valve I could find. And found out that this unit may not actually have a unit shut-off valve. Or if it does, it doesn’t work.

So after filling up all the jugs and bottles and watering cans I could find trying to drain the lines, and filling the tub to overflow with clammy cool water, and still not seeing any slowing down in the water flow, I gave in and called the office.

“Why, there’s nothing we can do. You need to call a plumber and when they get there call us and we can come turn off the building. But you’ll have to tell all the neighbors that the water is being turned off.”

Gee, great. Fine. Whatever. So I call the plumber, and thank heaven, they can send a guy over in a couple of hours. So things will be fixed. And perhaps even a functioning shut-off valve installed.  I don’t care what it costs.

And here I was going to write of our big weekend adventure, crawling around up in the roof truss rafters, putting the clothes dryer exhaust pipe back together. Because - welcome to condo life, where you are responsible to all your neighbors! - every 3 years we have to produce a certificate saying that the dryer vent has been professionally cleaned. Not that I couldn’t do it myself with a blower and the auger whip drain cleaner for my power drill. Right. Anyway, the last time one of those guys was here, before we bought the place, he was so heavy handed that they popped the corner elbow on the exhaust vent. Which is built inside the stud wall of course. So we’ve actually had the dryer venting into the attic for the past 2 1/2 years, instead of out the vent pipe. Which isn’t really a problem, because it’s an electric dryer (no CO vapors from gas heat) and the low height truss roof attic has several passive vents to the outside. So no moisture builds up either. But my wife is tiny, and willing, and pretty good with tools and stuff, so she was able to worm her way in there and tie everything together with half a mile of fresh duct tape.  The vent cleaner guy should be here in half an hour. Let’s see what happens.

I was going to write a fun missive about the Taming Of The Kittehs, but it turned out to be a Fail. Which is what I knew it would, but I can’t say that out loud, and she just adores the little family of semi-feral cats living outside here under the bushes. Mom cat Scowler, and her kits Fred and Ginger. I know. They’ve been given names. We’re sunk.

She’s been trying to tame Scowler for a year now. No luck. None. She comes close, but then runs. The two kits are spooky and spookier. But she’s persistent, and with the help of many cans of tuna fish and sardines, managed to get them to actually come inside into the kitchen, while she stood there and talked to them. And that was nice. The kittens appear to be weaned at this point, so perhaps now was the time. She snuck outside, came around the kitchen from the outside, and quietly closed the sliding door, gently capturing the two youngsters. And panic ensued. And stayed ensued for several hours. Eventually I went in and opened the door, and they were gone in a heartbeat. Sorry honey. I know you love them. But you can’t tame a half grown wild animal. Catch one as a baby, and maybe you’ll get lucky. Not these. I do hope she forwards me some of the pictures we took during the fracas, because it was pretty funny. Flying kittehs literally climbing the walls behind the refrigerator.

I managed to get the black one in a box for a few minutes, and he was so tharn* that I could pet him. Aww, soft kitteh. Ginger is more like her mother, and just went psycho. Later there were tears, but she’s accepted the truth. But she still wants to care for them and protect them, living out under the pricker bushes in our big bad jungle. I say no. That’s just going to get them to breed, and soon we’ll have even more of them.

Posted by Drew458     on 07/13/2015 at 08:41 AM   
Filed Under: • Daily Life •  
• Comments (1) • Trackbacks(0)  Permalink •  

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