My Grandpa in 1910

I come from a long line of weirdos.

Link Free Zone

It just occurred to me that I have been publishing this blog for almost a year now and I have not posted one single link.  Tell your friends -  Tilting at Woodpeckers:  the Link Free Zone!  Uninterrupted reading for your edification and enjoyment.  Something new for the Interwebs.  :) (LOL)

The Sump Pump Chronicles (Part Two)

After waiting several weeks for it to rain again so I could determine if the pump was working, I decided it wasn't and so I hauled it out, took it back to the local independent hardware store and had it replaced with a new one.  That took about two minutes and the nice man even carried it out to the car for me (Valu Home Center, Nash Road, Wheatfield - yay!).

Reinstalled the pump.  Replaced leaky flexible hose.  Turned on the breaker.  It worked!  I have a few leaks to deal with, however - one at the other end of the flexible hose (hopefully taken care of now) and one where the semi-rigid pipe attaches to the sewer pipe over on the other side of the crawl space.  *groan*

It rained the other day and I heard a strange sound - the pump had come on all by itself!  YAY!

So all I have to do now is fix those leaks....

I'd better do it soon - I am losing interest in this project.

The Sump Pump Chronicles

Day One, Monday: 

Bought a new column sump pump at the local indy hardware store. It was on sale! Yay! Saved ten bucks!  Yay!

1/3 horsepower, one year warranty, previous pump lasted 11 years.

My crawl space is has gravel on the floor,  and of course the sump hole is as far away from the door as it can be. I have approximately 36" of clearance with pipes and stuff all over the place that will force one to duck even lower. I have covered part of the floor with 6 mil plastic.

Had not been under there for a couple of years.

Have to gird my loins and every other part of me - tall rubber boots over long socks with sweatpants tucked in. Shirt tucked into pants, long sleeved hoodie over that with hood tied on so no spiders will end up down the back of my neck.

Foam knee pads and rubber gloves complete my ensemble. I look so very fashionable. Oh! And sometimes I wear goggles, too.  Couldn't keep the goggles on too long because they kept steaming up.  It had to be over 80° in there - and the humidity was over 90%.

So I made a careful list of everything I needed so I would only have to make one trip in and out. Dragged all of my tools and such in a back pack and pushed the box (with the pump) ahead of me as I crawled in. Carried a rechargeable flashlight in case the power went out.

I thought of everything.

I thought of everything except for the stuff I forgot.

So I had to crawl back out and get a measuring tape, some duct tape, rope, bungee cords and a few other items. Made sure sump pump breaker was OFF up in the house.

Crawled back in.

Unplugged and removed old pump. Removed flexible hose.

Reattached flexible hose to new pump. Set up the float valve.

Inserted new pump into sump hole (which was full of water) and it tipped over immediately. Could not seem to get it to stay level. Tied it and bungeed it into position finally, replaced the cover, gathered all my tools, plugged it in, and crawled out.

Turned on the breaker.

Nothing happened.

It had tipped over. Found this out after I crawled back again (after turning off the breaker because it is so drenchingly wet under the house I am petrified of getting electrocuted and then who would feed my kitties?). I unplugged it.

Repositioned the beast, reset the ropes and cords, replugged it, crawled back out, staggered up the steps into the house, turned on the breaker, YAY!!! It was running!!!

YAY!!!!!

It shut off after 10 minutes and I could see from the doorway it had tilted again. No more crawling tonight.

Day Two, Tuesday:

Read and reread the little booklet that came with the pump. It suggested that if one were to experience a tilting problem with a flexible hose hookup, one might consider installing a sturdy PVC discharge pipe between the catch valve and the flexible pipe.

So I made a list of needed items and stopped at the local hardware on the way home from the shop.

Bought two rubber flexible couplers with stainless clamps, a five foot length of PVC and one male adapter because they thought I might need it.  Had two hardware guys helping me with this purchase, and it took 20 minutes to come up with this solution.

After I got home, checked the breaker to make sure it was turned off, donned my "outfit" this time I decided to utilize my little red plastic sled to transfer all the goodies underneath to the work site. This also included a half a concrete block which was gonna be my new weight for the sump hole cover.

So I gathered everything including an extension cord and a clip on lamp (did I mention the rechargeable flashlight died halfway through Monday?) and duct tape to protect the plug.  Put my cordless phone into a baggie and brought it with me in case I had a stroke or something.

So I crawled in, pushing the very heavy sled and playing out the extension cord for the clip on lamp.

Unplugged the pump. Unhooked the flexible hose. Measured the PVC. Cut it.

Too long! Was hitting a duct. So I cut it again. This time it fit nicely and I fastened it to the adapter and the check valve with the rubber connector. Inserted everything into the hole and the whole thing came loose. Did it again, only tighter. Came loose again.

Grrrr.....

Tried the other end, the end that attaches to the hose. Well, they sold me the wrong size flexible connector.

Grrrrr.......

Hooked the thing back up as the original pump had been connected, hose to check valve.

Plugged it back in, crawled back out, got a Charlie horse in my leg climbing through the doorway, managed to make it back into the house, turn on the breaker, it worked for 5 minutes then tipped over again.

I turned off the breaker and went to bed early.

Day Three, Wednesday:

Took the cut length of PVC and all of the connectors to the shop to play with.  Re-cut both ends of the PVC and filed them smooth. Decided that the adapter end needed a build up of something sturdy to even out the gripping space, so I used two film canisters and a short length of blue plastic tubing and at least got the check valve end to fit really well.

Added a few more things to my list like old towels to soak up some of the water lying around on the plastic in the crawl space, and I stopped at the hardware store again on my way home from the shop to exchange the rubber connector to the correct size.

Got home, checked to make sure breaker was off, donned my now rather sweaty and disgusting outfit, gathered the new items for the sled and crawled in.

Unplugged and unhooked everything. Started rehooking up the PVC pipe, and that is when I realized that the new correct connector was still in my purse, upstairs in the house.

Crawled out, got the connector, crawled back in.

Hooked everything up perfectly.

Stabilized the whole get up, wired it into place, very happy.

But I left the sled under the house when I crawled out to turn on the breaker.

Pump worked for ten minutes, I sat in the doorway happily listening to it. Then it turned off and in the sudden stillness I could hear distinct leaking and dripping noises.

By the time I ran into the house, turned off the breaker, ran back out and crawled back under, the leaking had ceased but the rubber connector by the flexible hose, the motor of the pump, and the board covering the hole were all soaked.

So I wiped everything off, unplugged everything, crawled back out, turned off the breaker and went to bed.

I am thinking about just going back to the original set up, returning the two rather expensive flexible connectors, and using the pipe for something somewhere down the line.

*sigh*

Day Four, Thursday:

Checked breaker is off. Crawled under house to put up a clear plastic splash sheet to protect motor from moisture if I have not tightened the connectors tight enough.

Crawled back out - turned on the breaker. Nothing.

Worked out a plan to minimize the crawling.

Turned breaker off, unplugged trouble light extension in garage. Crawled back in, switched plugs - plugged light into sump outlet and plugged pump into extension.

Crawled back out - turned on breaker - light goes on!

Plugged in extension cord. Sump pump does not go on.

So.....

This tells me that the outlet is OK, the breaker is OK and the PUMP IS WONKY!!!!!

I am getting ready to haul it out now, repackage it and exchange it for a new one.

Grrrrrr.......

OK, so now that I think of it, when I turned it on last night the motor may have gotten a bit wet from the leaking whatever part.

It should be able to stand a little moisture, doncha think? It is a sump pump for crying out loud!!!

Just crawled back in for a looksee and discovered that the sump hole is nearly dry - it had at least 12 inches of water in it earlier - and the plastic splash sheet I taped up is also dry - so I guess I solved the leaking problem and while I was searching online sump pump troubleshooting guides, it must have turned itself on and pumped out all the water.

It is a lot quieter than my old one.

So I just have to keep an ear out for it now for the next couple of days - and the tools in the sled can stay under there for a while.

Turns out not all of the leaks were solved,  another visit to the beast showed some drippy areas so I have tightened all of the clamps as tightly as I can tighten them.

I posted this photo online elsewhere and someone suggested I looked like the Sump Pump Grim Reaper and another person said I looked like the Statue of Liberty (tired, poor, weary) but I think I shall call it......"The Statue of Limitations."

Goin' on a Pump Crawl with the Statue of Limitations.

My Anti-Bucket List (Plus My Bonus Bucket List)

I saw this idea somewhere on the Internets and although these “meme” kinds of things usually fall into my “meh” category – I thought this one was pretty cool.  It is my baker’s dozen list of things I have absolutely no interest in ever attending, watching, reading, listening to or doing (in no particular order of dislike). 

1.    Going to any theme park, Disney in particular.  I will watch the old Disney flicks from my childhood and cry at those scenes in Lady and the Tramp and Bambi, but that is about as Disney as I get.  No t-shirts with Mickey or Pluto or Goofy, no mouse ears – I will, however, continue to make my own small worlds.  Speaking of theme parks, I have no desire to ride on a rollercoaster or any amusement park ride scarier than a carrousel.  (I love carrousels.  Pretty horses!)  I could also add Las Vegas here – it is kind of like a theme park, right?  Not for me!
2.    Watching movies like Titanic, the Star Wars prequels (Jar-Jar Binks?  I rest my case.).  Not finding myself drawn to Avatar (to quote Paula Poundstone, “Wide nose bridges exhaust me.”)  I would rather rewatch the movies I know I like.  Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, The Last Picture Show, Emmett Otter’s Jugband Christmas, The Black Stallion.  Speaking of Titanic, I hope I can make it through the rest of my life without ever again having to hear Celine Dion sing.  Or see her on television.  Or look at a picture of her.
3.    I have no desire to climb aboard an airplane and fly anywhere.  I don’t even want to have to go inside an airport – I’ll just drop you off, OK?  Back in the sixties I rode in several flying machines, including commercial jets, a bush plane and a helicopter.  That’s enough for me – yeah, they all look like ants, don’t they?    Oooh, pretty clouds.  Yup.  If I want to approximate that aerial feeling let me re-read Richard Bach’s Stranger to the Ground.  That will get me close enough to flying and it is a whole lot quieter!
4.    Never had a manicure or a pedicure – never will.  Zero interest in this.
5.    I have lost the desire to attend any more mega-concerts.  Yes, I know, back in my "yute" I was at the real Woodstock, but the idea of massive crowds freaks me out now.  Last huge concert I attended was Bowie at the Niagara Falls Convention Center (in the eighties?) and I walked out during his first song.  I couldn’t breathe.
6.    Anything involving being on or in water.  Going on a cruise has never ever appealed to me, I have never learned to swim and probably never will, even hot tubs give me the willies.  Germs!  Yuck.  Bathing suits!  Double yuck.  Water over my head.  HELP!!!
7.    I have to admit I will probably never finish slogging my way through John Galt’s fifty four page speech in Atlas Shrugged.  I have no desire to read Ulysses or anything by Sylvia Plath, Dostoevsky or Hemingway.  I will keep re-reading Thurber’s The Night the Bed Fell and all of the poems by ee cummings and my favorite science fiction.
8.    You will never find me at a tanning parlor.
9.    I think it is a pretty safe bet that I can make it through my entire life without ever drinking a cup of coffee, developing an appreciation for the taste of alcohol, or eating another hot dog.  Starbucks?  What’s that?
10.    I can also very safely say that I will never get another tattoo.  I can enjoy someone’s beautiful ink job but one is enough for me - the pain! The pain!
11.    You won’t find me attending any future sporting events.  I went to an Army/Navy game once (beautiful mules), saw The French Connection at the Aud,  went to a motocross (LOUD!), saw my dad’s curling team (gosh it was cold in that arena!) and went to a few wrestling  events to see Ric Flair and Rowdy Roddy Piper - that’s enough sporting events for this lifetime.
12.    Karaoke?  Good lord NO!
13.    I cannot recall ever dining alone at a restaurant of any type.  I have ordered take-out and picked it up, and taken advantage of the occasional drive-through, but I have never actually stayed to eat when I am by myself (Roy Roger's at the rest stops on the New York State Thruway don't count).

My Bonus Bucket List

 I suppose for every anti-bucket list one should have a bucket list.  On and off through the years I have kept a short list of things I would like to try or learn or try to learn in this lifetime.  Juggling and dancing used to be on this list.  They both got crossed off (untried) many years ago!  I used to want to go to Lilydale – I am no longer interested in that – it sounds too commercial these days, sort of like a psychic galleria.

Exploring the pyramids (Egyptian or Mayan), experiencing the solstice at Stonehenge or seeing Chichen Itza shining in the jungle dawn,  floating weightlessness in near earth orbit, summiting Everest, rafting down the Colorado – I’ll have to save these adventures for a future lifetime.  Mayhap next time I will dive the Great Barrier Reef (if the coral still exists), catch a wave at Waikiki (if the ocean is not filled with tar balls and plastic detritus), photograph translucent icebergs in the Arctic (if the ice still exists), perhaps find a nice crystal cave for a little spelunking (no, not really – it will take more than my allotted number of lifetimes to embrace spelunking).

My bucket list is quite modest these days.  Mostly things I have been meaning to do for quite some time now.  I can only come up with ten items.

1.    Spend a couple of days at the Corning Glass Museum.  I have been threatening to do that since the sixties.

2.    Tour the Darwin Martin House. It is within walking distance from my shop, for cryin’ out loud!

3.    Talk a stroll out along the breakwall on a nice sunny day when there is not a lot of wind.  I drive by it every day and it has always intrigued me (except for the fear that maybe I might accidentally fall in the water and drown).

4.     Walk over the Peace Bridge.   I once walked over the Rainbow Bridge (which makes me sound like a deceased cat or dog, doesn’t it?) – and it was a truly wondrous experience at the Falls.

5.    Go to Niagara Falls at least twice a year, once in Summer when there are tourists and once in Winter when there are no tourists.

6.    Learn to do tai chi and then actually do it regularly.  Afterwards enjoy a nice cuppa chai tea. (Seems like they should go together, tai chi and chai tea.)

7.    Learn to play the ukulele.  After having abandoned clarinet, piano, guitar, banjo, dulcimer and doumbek, surely I could learn to play the uke?

8.    Take the train across Canada (while it still exists) (the train, that it – I am sure Canada will exist for a very long time).

9.    Learn to do what I want to do in Photoshop without swearing at it so much.

10.     I have given up on ever “finishing” my house, or taming my yard but someday I would hope to be able to declare that I am organized.  If only for a brief interval – ahhhh that would be nice!  This way, if I end up with a tombstone, they can carve on it, “Once, she was organized.”

Hair today.....

Purple, red and blue on silver.  My dear mom is probably spinning!

Hair Trigger

This is a poem that my mother wrote sometime in the late fifties or early sixties.

“My Hair”

I oil it, boil it –

Cream it, steam it,

Dye it, tie it -

Stroke it, poke it –

Brush it, crush it,

Tint it, glint it –

Curl it, hurl it,

Wash it, squash it -

Style it, file it.

And how does it look

When I finally stop?

That’s it, you’re right –

Like the end of a mop!

My mother’s hair was the abiding bane of her existence, and when I was a child my mother’s obsession with my hair became the bane of my existence.   As is typical of most women down through the centuries, those born with curly hair harbor a burning desire for straight hair, and those born with straight hair would do almost anything for curly hair.  This has always completely baffled me.

My dad had beautiful thick black curly hair when mom met him and she loved his hair.  He spent his whole life trying to comb the curl out of his hair and had more or less succeeded by the time he died at the age of 85.  Mom’s hair was completely straight and so she always coveted curly hair.  She tried every product she could get her hands on to give herself those elusive curls.  She described the color of her hair as “mousy brown,” and in later years, she dyed it to cover the gray and chose the color “ash blond,” which sounded really exotic but was in reality very close to mousy brown. 

Naturally since mom had struggled with her own hair for so many years, she wanted my curved hair to be curly and so I was sent to a succession of beauty parlors (run by church ladies on their closed-in porches or in their finished basements).  I always trotted in with a picture of some model from the Sears catalog or a photo from a magazine of the latest teen idol and the hairdresser always did the same thing – a pixie cut with really short bangs (the name Mamie Eisenhower still makes me wince). Then there were the dreaded permanents – stinky and awful!  I loathed beauty parlors.

When Toni Home Permanents were invented my mom was their ideal target market.  She loved home permanents – and I can still remember the feel of that cold lotion on my scalp (dripping down the back of my neck) and the awful stench.  The little papers and the curlers, the stench!  The pulling, the yanking, the stench!  Part of the instructions with these home perms included leaving the ghastly stuff on for a period of time, preferably under a hair dryer – but we did not have a hair dryer so we knelt on the floor in the kitchen and (God’s truth!) stuck our heads into the heated oven.

Before Christmas one year when I was about nine or ten, dad teased mom and me ceaselessly about how he was giving us a present that we two could share.  This had us completely baffled – because of course I was a kid who liked horses and, well, mom wasn’t.  We tried to pry this secret out of dad for weeks – he was as silent as the Sphinx (eyes twinkling merrily).

Come Christmas morning – at long last our mysterious present was ready to be opened.  Mom and I tore into the wrappings of this medium sized box and found - a hair dryer!!!  It was one of the early versions made for home use – it was pink plastic, and it had a long pink hose connected to an elastic edged pink plastic cap.  Mom and I were in seventh heaven – and the oven returned to its original function for the drying out and burning of foodstuffs.

In between the home permanents we went through a succession a bobby pins and clips and hair pins, metal hair curlers, plastic rollers, hair nets, even little red rubber things called “Spoolies.”   Pin curls and gloppy green sticky styling gel and trying to breathe in the middle of a cloud of foul smelling hair spray!  Simply writing about these things makes my scalp hurt!  I can still remember the feeling of trying to sleep with those lumpy awful instruments of torture on my head – trying desperately to find a comfortable spot on my pillow. 

When I was in junior high school one of my classmates, Rosalie, had a mom who was a hairdresser.  Rosalie was not in my crowd, but my mother decided that I should make an appointment for a haircut and a permanent just to grease the social wheels.  Rosalie was thrilled and the appointment was set.  I dragged in my usual photo of the casual slightly wavy pixie cut, and told Rosalie’s mom that I did not want my hair to end up being “too curly.”

Rosalie’s mom set to work.  Rosalie hovered around, and even her dad made an excited appearance to bring me some special chocolate bars (Heath bars which I did like not back then and have never liked since) – the whole family was so very pleased to meet dear Rosalie’s new friend.

When Rosalie’s mom was done cutting and clipping and snipping and winding and perming and neutralizing and rinsing and drying and combing and fussing and spraying, she gave me my eyeglasses.  I looked at myself in the mirror in complete dismay as I beheld the tightest set of curls I had ever seen!  I was worse than a poodle!  Shirley Temple!   Harpo Marx!  It was all I could do to pay and choke out my thanks – I bolted out of that little shop of horrors and wailed all the way home.  I was having a complete meltdown by the time I stormed into the parsonage and encountered my mother, who was, of course, eagerly awaiting my return.

Even mom had to admit that my hair was too curly.  She calmed me down and said she would see what she could do with it.  She dug out her cheap dull hair scissors and her even cheaper (and duller) pair of thinning scissors and set to work, muttering and swearing under her breath.  She yanked and she cut and she pulled and she thinned.  I sat on a kitchen chair as she hacked away at those tight curls for well over an hour –the dull scissors caused her to end up with huge blisters on her fingers by the time she was satisfied with her handiwork and ushered me into the bathroom to peer at my new hairstyle.

I have to admit for probably the only time in her life my mom had pulled off a styling miracle.   The new version of the “do” was short, casual, amazingly even all the way around and only slightly curly.  My tears dried and I was able to hold my head high in school the next day – that is, until Rosalie saw me.   “My God!” she exclaimed, “What happened to your hair?!”  I stuttered and stammered and tried to blame it on my mother (my recall of this part seems to be blessedly dim) but I do remember that Rosalie never spoke to me again.

Actually, my mom was allowed one more very different kind of hair miracle in her lifetime.  After years of dyeing her hair that mousy brown (I mean ash blond) she went several weeks past the time for a root touch-up and discovered that in her late forties, her hair had turned a lovely silver gray.  So she let the dye grow out and for the last years of her all too brief life, she had spectacularly beautiful silver hair.  This also afforded her the excuse to buy an entirely new wardrobe in blues and grays, instead of her usual pinks and browns.  She was ecstatic!

In the time since leaving my parents’ home I have grown my hair down past my waist, chopped all but my bangs off to 1/4", dyed my hair jet black as well as varying shades of purple – but most of all I have ignored my hair.   I have been in the thrall of trendy boutique style salons and I consider myself fortunate to have escaped from the crimping irons and Aqua Net of the eighties.

At the recommendation of a framing customer I tried out a new salon a few years back.  At this salon I was ushered into their hushed sanctuary and given a five page form to fill out about my hair routine, products, and preferences.  I could not believe this questionnaire!  I wash my hair (lather, rinse, repeat) with whatever is on sale at the drugstore and then use some conditioner.  Then I try to remember to brush it before I leave the house.  That is my hair routine.  It was obvious that the time had come to grow my hair out yet again.  (I guess that is really my hair routine:  grow my hair until it is so long it is a literal pain in the neck and then have it chopped off, donate resulting pony tails to Locks of Love, and then start all over again!)

But now, lo these many years after her death, I find myself wondering every so often – what would my mom have thought of me with purple hair?   I am sure that mom would be really pleased that I have come full circle and found a “proper church lady” to do my hair and I like to think that she would at least be happy that I am paying some attention to my “crowning glory."

Cringe-worthy bangs, 1949