C.J. Cherryh's Blog, page 129

Pretty well without bathroom tile…and have a hole in the floor…

Turns out the leak punked some wood at the corner of the tub….

So we had to chisel that out. About a foot, foot and a half.

We now don't know if we have enough tile to cover the patch when we get it. It's going to be a squeaker—and Lowe's has discontinued that tile.

And when we were hammering the wood chisel, it shook down some glassware downstairs in the basement, putting all my crystal at risk—but only breaking minor things, I hope: Jane didn't let me see what went: she carried the survivors upstairs to wash, and while she was washing it, one dinged crystal glass—broke, and slashed her hand. She is now on painkillers. It's almost good enough for stitches.

I swear to you, I can't wait to have construction done with!

 

Today Jane napped, mostly.

This is good. Nuff said.

Closing in on it…and writer's block…

The stairwell to the basement had an area just above the door, on the stairs side, that we hadn't been able to reach: a grip-footed extension ladder and me to steady it let Jane get that.

Her job of mudding the bathroom wall where the backsplash was is impeccable: if we'd hired it done, it probably would have had a few flaws. Hers is so good we have to look at the unaffected board and wonder if it's too smooth, but it looks good when painted: as we have indeed painted it. So we're ready for the sofit, the lights, the cabinets, which we can put up.

We have the tile ordered, and it may be here today. (It comes from Seattle.) Ironically, what may put us off a week is a pencil thin rim of dark tile that will border our little mural: it's coming from California, and will be here next week if Seattle doesn't happen to have enough. But at least by next week, we will have all the pieces, and tile will happen, and we will have one more very important fully-finished room!

And the book is finally moving!

Let me add—I've always maintained there's no such thing as writer's block, because the fault isn't that much in the writer…

What happens is that a writer fails to maintain enough personal space. We're difficult sorts to live with—we go standoffish at times, and that's that 'personal space' business; we don't answer mail, we don't open letters; we let papers stack up;' we forget invitations, anniversaries, and holidays—and it's all that personal space and clear schedule thing. When Jane was sick, all that personal space protection went to blazes; when she got well, I was still rattled, and construction began; and it continued through 'birthday season,' mine, hers, Lynn's—and into the holidays; and more construction—and all my what-iffing faculty was engaged with tile choices and cabinets and painting and such, because hers was, and then mine was, and we both got ourselves involved. No wonder the writing got confused. So we're now carefully redefining that personal space we each need, the time we need to spend solving puzzles of a writing kind, that don't have to do with computers, programming, wiring, painting, tile choice, learning-how, and all the other kind of puzzles that can fill your mind. When a writer's writing, the puzzles all need to be writing-puzzles, if that makes sense. So now that we've officially put off the flooring problem, and are closing in on the bathroom problem, we are determined to do our puzzle-solving in terms of story. And that, for a writer, means a happy writer.

 

 

I think we've reached a decision on the floor…

…that we just can't, right now. The bathroom has to go ahead, because we have no lights, no cabinets, and you shower with a billowing lot of plastic wrap…But it will be beautiful.

The kitchen floor I fear is not going to settle too much more: it's just going to look like hell. Sigh. But neither of us can take any more time off, and first we thought, well, we can just get the flooring while it's on sale, leave it in boxes, and install it when we have time—

But the more we read customer reviews of various types, the more we realized we need to physically inspect every piece of flooring on receipt, because the edging strips on the pieces tend to crack and shatter if, say, someone lets a forklifted pallet down too hard. You can open a perfectly intact box and discover major damage in the edges of many pieces. And if your flooring isn't all part of the same 'run' from the manufacturer, you can have dye-lot issues, especially on cheaper brands. So if you don't open it for a year, you could be way out of luck.

The secret to how some companies manage super-cheap laminate? They bundle 'lots' together: some may have scratches; some may have broken edges; some may have other small flaws; and there you are: if you don't inspect, you could open up boxes full of problems—and of course since they're just repackaging, trying to get a warranty actually honored is impossible: the seller merely refers you to the packager, who may offer a 50 year warranty—but that's, like the pirate maxim, more like a guideline. Try to find any satisfaction for it and you're hosed.

So……I think we're going to add the French payment to the floor fund and just shop for flooring when we actually have time and strength left. We've almost got a bathroom: Jane's plaster job where we removed tile is SO smooth we now have to worry how to match the texture of the previously painted smooth wall. She's good. But she always is. We have a fan, vented to the outside; we have a functioning storm window; we will have a new countertop, new medicine cabinets (with two women using the same bathroom, and cabinet, it was like Fibber Magee's closet: you open it and bottles might fall out) and our pretty sink and new faucet, plus pretty shower curtains. It'll be real pretty.  The kitchen—well, it's just going to be a lumpy floor, but it's a floor. We have that pretty well dried out with fans. And we have our Oreck air purifier units which do a pretty good job protecting us from pollen and mold.

The good news is that the minute we admitted we shouldn't get that flooring yet, my brain came back on line and I got that scene I've been struggling with and I have the end of my book in sight. Writers are one part insane, you know, but it has to be a carefully coddled insanity, carefully focussed.

 

 

We've settled on the tile and border.

But the gal we need to order from is at the dentists.

Re-try tomorrow.

We got the gasket for the dishwasher tub…ie, that keeps the water inside the dishwasher.

We are really tired. Allergy is bothering me—couldn't have anything to do with soaked wood flooring. Naw.

The bathroom however has all its pieces except the tile, and it will be here soon. Hardest come by is the tiny border we want around the little tile mural. But that's all within two weeks. We are now showering with overfriendly plastic wrap which billows up every time you turn on the water.

We did get a surprise check for French rights to Foreigner, which will pay for the kitchen floor, if we lay it ourselves. Score one for us! So far our repairs have held and we have had no more leaks in the kitchen. I am installing a water-alarm in the kitchen cabinet underside, so that if water drips down there, it will scream like a banshee.

We found a flooring we like. It's not too bad in price. When we go back to deal with the tile situation, we'll talk about that. Our downstairs has ancient indoor-outdoor carpet that has been flooded. Our basement stairs are slabs of board covered with same, with no facie board, ie, there's a gap under the steps. But we can still handle that ourselves. I am however making a deal with Jane that we get the board (laminate) now while it's on sale, but postpone laying it until we have time to do the job. We are now facing end-of-year accounting and, of course, that great American pastime, getting things together for the income tax people, which is a national obsession until April 15, the deadline, surpassing baseball, football, basketball, and the lottery, and has probably cost billions in heart attacks and lost productivity. The mere thought that there could be 50.00 more deduction in those figures if you could just find it will keep some people, particularly men with some clerical skills, going at it to the exclusion of rest or food, figuring and refiguring. I used to worry about my father every time that period rolled around: he'd start in January, trying to find receipts, and wind up with a dining table covered with receipts, papers, scrap paper and tax forms, many, many tax forms. I so wish we'd just go over to a national flat tax—but in the eyes of many that would take all the sport out of it.

 

 

We now have a bathroom exhaust fan…

And we got the dishwasher to wash decently.

Getting into the receptacle box for the switch for the fan revealed 1950′s era cloth-covered house wire, one coming up, one going sideways, 3-4 wires welded to make one hot, various white wires going in various directions, ie, the basement lights AND this AND Jane's room lights are all on this circuit. That—didn't take us an hour and a half: what did—it was a 1950′s receptacle box, metal, nailed from the inside to a stud, so it couldn't be pulled out. Nailed-from-inside gave us the clue that it could be dismantled, but evidently it had been installed from the hallway side, with all screws holding wires in place facing the back of the box, which had been assembled around it. We found a couple of critical screws and got the box apart, then had to cope with the new box, from Carlon—with these stupid push-in apertures that were too small for the wire bundles to fit through safely. It took us an hour and a half to get the first box apart, thirty minutes at least to decide to chisel out some of these stupid tabs so the wire bundles would go in, and then—ta-da! install the guts to the ceiling fan. Give Broan this much: the wiring for the device is light, fits in a corner, has a plugin—and the quite heavy fan-works has a plug and fits snugly when you push it into place.

Now we have to work over another of these original sockets. We went out for waffles (bad us!) and came back cold and falling over, and slept until noon.

The good news is that Dr. Shane got my lower back straightened out, and I'm much better.

 

and…….it's the dishwasher, too.

Lucky us. Apparently as we slid in the basket with a knife in it, a blade slashed the gasket—only thing we can figure, since only we have ever used it or had access to it. Apparently it leaks slightly on the right side, but runs down the ell in the door bottom to finally drip out on the left side…

And we did so much dish-washing with Christmas cooking, we had a leaky dishwasher door, the leaky dishwasher connection involving the garbage disposal, the leaky sink drain involved with the same connection, and a leaking pet watering bowl. It's a wonder we didn't flood the house.

We have now met with a workman who will install the tile and do our counter and build a little sofit to stand the lights off above the mirror.We are going to buy the tile ourselves and let this guy do it—which saves a little over what the shop would have charged.

Jane has spent the day in the attic installing a ventilation fan: I have spent the day in the bathroom handing her things through the ceiling.

Did I mention our lovely insurance won't handle the kitchen floor situation without a 25% increase for 3 years in our insurance cost? So we have a screwed-up kitchen floor. They say it can take a week or so to really dry, so maybe it will flatten some more.  The kitchen floor is going to have to wait. We'll do that installation ourselves, and that's behind our other problems.

And the dishwasher screwed up the washing of the last load and didn't drain properly, so we now have to wonder if there's another problem…

 

Update on the kitchen water situation…

I swear to you—it's houses. Wherever water is, water can be.

But I am going to try drying it all out. We've got the side panel off the dishwasher, which gives access to the under-cabinet space, and we've got a fan running.

Bashed my hand—or stressed it: I've got a heckuva 'mouse' between my first and second knuckles: not the first time that's happened, but it twinges every time I use the index finger. Does wonders for your concentration while typing.

Jane meanwhile has the bathroom spackling job, and is sanding away. She's working on 3 hours sleep a night, and can't rest. I couldn't load the dishwasher problem onto her. Meanwhile my back is out: you know, that lovely twist where your left shoulder is going at an angle while you're walking straight ahead. We're going to have to take one afternoon off and get me to the chiropractor, and that means I lose a whole day on muscle relaxant, plus the driving.

And now there's a leak in the dishwasher.

We're going to have to go back to handwashing until we get this sorted out.

Worse, it's causing the Pergo flooring to buckle a bit. So we may eventually lose the kitchen floor. If it ain't one thing it's another.

 

…for tomorrow we diet.

We've been very bad since Jane's birthday back in October. Now we have to get serious.

So…

Breakfast: we split a hand-cut slice of toast, with butter and jam—you need something to go on.

Lunch: probably yoghurt;  maybe a Caesar salad, once a week a half a cup of soup.

Supper: Caesar salad with half a chicken breast diced and re-heated with olive oil, rolled in parmesan, no croutons, measured helping of salad dressing as per the bottle; sometimes chicken stir fry or half a cup of homemade steak stew with squash instead of potatoes.

 

That'll be typical. The main object of the diet is to have very little grain, very little fat, very little meat, no processed starches or sugars; and keep to the federal guidelines (on the cans and bottles) for serving size of everything except green vegetables—of which you can have as much as you want. Wine, one glass per day.

The object is actually to lose weight, and lose it fairly expeditiously, so you feel better.  Then you can add back in the things you've cut, but keep the portion sizes down and pad it out with veggies, mostly green-leafy type: salad dressing has to be held to 1-2 tbs, measured, not eyeballed.