July 2015 – Page 4 – Just regular folks.

Happy 4th of July.

Keyla and Edda celebrated the 4th by enthusiastically displaying their USA headgear. Did you know in Argentina (and other places, I assume now) pronounce USA like ooosaa? When Keyla first said this I was confused, ooosaa? What’s that? Apparently it’s how the USA is known in places other than the USA. Anyways, hooray oooosssssaaa women’t soccer team. Way to go!

Vince came home from scouts on Saturday. It’s nice having him at home again. Even though he spends a lot of time in his room, it’s much quieter in the house without him. He got his camping merit badge and a pottery merit badge at camp – he always says he has a lackluster time, but I think he’s just being too cool for school. Poor guy, came home from a week in Rome (no internet) a week at scout camp (no internet) and then landed in our house where, alas, we had no internet. The biggest news of the holiday weekend was that our internet went down on Friday morning and Jeremy spent 100 minutes on hold with Verizon to get an appointment for today (Sunday). We went more than 48 hours without the internet. It was like we were living in 1990 (well not really since we all had cell service).

As a result of my inability to surf the internet freely for celebrity gossip or to do any sort of online shopping (I don’t really like surfing the web on my phone), I actually read a book. I’m reading one of the true crime variety which is both fascinating and repulsive and I think it puts me in a bad mood. I probably should stop reading it because of the bad mood, but now I want to know what happens!

U Street Electric Work IV

Yesterday, the inspector came and issued 7 corrections. 6 of them are pretty isolated and local. The last has to do with grounding all metal boxes. I thought when one screws the switch onto the metal box it should already be grounded. Evidently, it was not enough for the inspector. He would like to have an addition wire (grounding pigtail wire) screwed directly to the box. Since the gauge I use is either 14 or 12. Maybe, there is no enough room for all boxes. For those boxes, I decide to use plastic ones and it can save an addition wire to make room for others.

By next Wednesday, I should request for a follow-up inspection. After the dry wall is done, the inspector will come to have the final one.

Dripping faucet.

I spent a few hours today repairing a dripping faucet. It wasn’t really just dripping, it was running – a steady stream of water which means our next water bill is going to be a bit (OK, maybe a lot) higher than usual. The youtube video I referenced indicated that it would only take 30 minutes to fix this problem which was a complete lie. The video taught me that I needed a special faucet cartridge puller-outer which I got yesterday on my first trip to Home Depot ($12).

I took everything apart and found out that there was a little pin that needed to be taken out vertically (it’s the brass thing-y rising out of the top of the cartridge). So I had to chip away at the tile above the brass thing-y without breaking anything.

I decided to chisel out the tile with my brand new chisel which I procured on my second trip to Home Depot ($7). I had a good time on this second trip because I explained my problem to two guys (employees) in the tile aisle and asked if they thought I should buy a tile chipper ($13) or if I should buy a tile scorer ($11) and then hammer out the scored tile. I think they were entertained that I could actually talk plumbing/tiling with them. Anyways, they said I should just take a hammer and chisel to make the hole bigger. I told them I was worried I would shatter the tile into a bazillion pieces and then have to replace the whole wall. They both shrugged their shoulders and said – that might happen, we’d give it a 50/50 chance.

While I was chipping away at the tile, I managed to hurt myself without realizing it and soon my work area was covered in tile dust and blood.

I finally pulled the cartridge out so I could see which one of the 10,000 cartridges at Home Depot I needed to buy (3rd trip, $39). I did run into the same two employees on my third trip and they asked me if their idea had worked and I triumphantly held up the broken cartridge as evidence. High fives all around.

and the week goes on…

We are having a bit of a rough time readjusting back to Rockville time. I was worried that I would spend a lot of time jet lagged in Italy, but I shouldn’t have worried about that, I should have worried about this week back in my own house. Edda is still crashing early and getting up for good at 3 am. I’ve been sleepy at odd times (which has meant a slowish ramp-up to my regular working-at-work speed) and I’ve been fighting a lingering cough for at least 5 days now (which in my pessimistic mind means I have TB because I have to go next week to get my annual TB test for nursing school).

Also, I had a terrible stomach bug – which instead of the usual 24-hour variety – I got the 2-hour variety last night. That whole intestinal debacle ended up with me sleeping in the bathtub at from 3-4:30 am (somehow the coolness of the tub was a relief), but I felt well enough today to eat all my meals and hold on to them. That terrible stomach bug was so short that I almost think I dreamed the whole thing. But Edda caught it and got sent home from camp today (they showered her twice within 5 hours). Poor Edda. Poor camp counselor.

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It’s quiet in the house without Vince. I hope he doesn’t have this stomach bug. I haven’t heard a peep from him, he’s out of cell range and anyways, I think they ban electronics at scout camp.

This selfie he took? He looks like he’s 25 years old.