More Things I Learned (and/or Forgot To Say) Last Night

Forgot To Say: Electrical inspector came yesterday. Our furnace is officially finished, finished, finished!

Learned: Our Sleepy electrician is, like, best friends with the electrical inspector. See, in our experience, the electrical inspector is kind of a punk -- he not only yelled at me for calling once to schedule an inspection, he also yelled at the Other Electrician for letting me. He insists the electrician be here for inspection, and I knew that, so I worried when Sleepy told me not to worry about it. Turns out everyone else has to be here, but Sleepy can stay home. I think it can't be a bad thing for the town inspectors to know that we know their best friends. (And don't worry, worriers, Inspector said Sleepy not only did a good job but went overkill on safety issues. So the AssVac won't be burning down any time soon. Rats. Or, not because of the furnace, at least...)

Forgot To Say: Our Old Electrician, Jack -- the wonderful man who pulled the permit and supervised the work in our kitchen but didn't do it, instead using the time to teach us how to run power ourselves, all for the price of a loaf of banana bread baked in our new (then) oven -- died two weeks ago. Spinal cancer. We didn't know until last Saturday. He didn't want anyone to know, apparently. But we drank a toast to him at the bar, and so should you. He drank O'Doul's; he'd want you to have whatever.

Learned: The AssVac will burn down after all, but for reasons unrelated to the furnace (worriers, start your engines). When Johnny and John B. went up in the attic to examine the rain coming down the stink, they discovered an open box of connected and uninsulated wiring protruding from the floor just inches from where the water was pouring down. The water is not pouring anymore, but we have to get Sleepy back here, pronto! (Johnny only told me this last night -- I assume because the inspector was here yesterday and our furnace is officially finished, finished, finished, and god forbid I should go to bed without something to fret on.)

Forgot To Say: Johnny got his job back. He starts Monday. Paychecks, yay!

I want a pony, and safe wiring, and a Red Rider BB gun, and a new roof, and an E-Z Bake oven, and a finished kitchen to put it in...

Just Because It's Been A While...

Okay, really I'm posting because I forgot to tell the outcome of the stink pipe (just between us, I can say stink).

So, it was the night our Sleepy LaBeef backup-electrician stayed till 10:30 playing Johnny's beautiful bouzouki (someday I'll post a picture of it; it's gorgeous -- not quite as nice as Dirty Mike, but still, pretty not-bad-for-a-bouzouki). Before they started playing, and almost before they started drinking, John B. and Johnny crawled up into a side part of the attic that I never even knew existed until that very moment, to check out the leak around the stink pipe.

"Pretty bad," was the verdict. And then bouzouki and beer-drinking ensued.

A few days later -- I guess this would have been last Thursday, after we were back from our second round of courthouse hell -- John B. came by with I-don't-know-what fixit-things. He and Johnny leaned a ladder up against the house, climbed up -- John B. with a newly-mangled back and Johnny with an oldly-mangled knee -- and fixed it.

I really don't know what they did up there. I could go ask Johnny right now -- which is what I usually do in these situations (you don't think I actually know about all the things I write about, do you?) -- but I don't feel like it. I'm taking a little mental vacation this week. They fixed it, okay? It doesn't leak anymore. That's all I need to know.

Oh, and we need a new roof. While they were up there, they determined that we'll definitely be needing a new roof.

But for now, we're going to hope the old one holds till next year.

La la...


Does anybody know how to hang wallpaper? The computer kind, I mean? Because seriously I wouldn't mind having to write about these damn disasters all the time if I had Dirty Mike smiling encouragement. Or just staring off into space, looking all pensive 'n' shit...


La la...

Two Things:

First of all, I've been feeling guilty because I haven't actually done anything around here to write about since I took the door off (you use a heat gun when it's 95 degrees outside with 74% humidity!) -- but then I remembered:

I said "anything related to the heating project counts as doing something." So all these plumbers actually count! So I've been working hard! And writing about it!

Day whatever plus six or something: Accomplished! Yay me!

And the other thing I've been meaning to explain is this: In the beginning, I said we were going to save up for the heat project and do it when we had the money.

Well, we didn't actually manage to save $6000 in two months. If we could have done that, we would not have had to buy a tear-down like the AssVac, would we? But we had saved some, and we had a couple thousand dollars in an old savings account for emergency someday disasters.

We decided in early July that it made sense to take the money out of savings to get the heat done and over with, then spend the rest of the summer putting the money back. Otherwise, if we waited until we actually saved it all, I was afraid we might risk (ahem) not being able to get somebody here in time.

But in the month and a half we've been chasing plumbers all over Townville (cue Benny Hill music), we managed to put a little more money together. And now, with our new low-low price, it looks like we won't have to tap into savings after all!

Yay us! We might even have some money left over!

Which is a good thing, because when this is over we've got to start saving for the roof...

Climbing The Walls

Most people, when they hear something hit the roof of their house, think "Oh, something just hit the roof of my house" and get on with their lives.

But when we bought this house, the entire back half was black-mold-squash-rotten, all from one tiny little twig (okay, a fairly large tree branch) that had hit and somehow stabbed through the roof, and everyone had just gone on with their lives. For years. And we spent two years and thirty-five thousand dollars making it habitable again.

So when I hear something hit the roof, I have to get a ladder.

And that's how, at 5:30 this morning, after apparently hitting the snooze button an inexplicable five times (and somehow switching it over from beep to radio), I wound up climbing out of bed and up onto the roof.

Only, for some reason, I decded that I didn't need a ladder.

It was a pretty healthy whomp, and sort of fleshy sounding. In fact, I was pretty sure that it was squirrels even before I heard them scurrying around up there. Tree branches don't scurry, and squirrels don't crash through the roof -- well, they certainly don't scurry around after they do, at any rate -- so it was a pretty safe bet that everything was fine and I didn't have to go and see.

But with things lke this you just know: the one time you don't go see will be the one time there's a little fluffy, twitching tail poking through the shingle and a whole mourning squirrel family scurrying around.

For some reason, I decided I had to sneak up on them. I was just awake, and I guess I thought seeing a blank roof wasn't good enough, I needed to actually set eyes on scurrying squirrels. So I skipped the ladder. Because, you know, ladders are so loud and otherwise a squirrel would have no idea that I was coming.

I went out the back, being careful not to let the screen door slam, and threw a leg over the rail. I managed to get myself up on the railing on one knee -- like I was proposing to my house -- and grasping the gutter for support, when I remembered about my back. I wasn't going to be able to haul myself up there, not even if there was a big, flaming (and, apparently, scurrying) asteroid to be examined.

But getting down and getting a ladder seemed just as pointless. So I held on to the gutter for dear life and, shakily, stood up. I was like Kilroy, peering nose and fingers over the edge of the roof, my feet wobbling like circus dogs on a rubber ball, my back begging me not to hurt it any more...

There was nothing up there.

I don't really remember getting down.