The Streetcar Chronicles

Remember a few months ago when I posted about S’s own methods of sorting the garbage and recycling? After coming back with groceries tonight, S set about throwing out some of the old items from the fridge. I was facing the stove as I was getting dinner ready, but I could see from the corner of my eye that she was up to no good.

“What are you doing?” I asked as she put saran wrapped cheese, a container of cream cheese and sliced bread still in its plastic bag into the organic bin.

We laughed at how full the bin was; but I couldn’t pass up the opportunity and so I got out the camera and snagged a picture. I give you photographic evidence of the S method of garbage sorting:

[click for a larger image]

In her defense, S made a good point that all garbage (organic and otherwise) is being thrown into the same heap at the temporary dumps operating during the strike.

Still, it’s a sight to be seen, watching a grown woman sneak around the garbage can like she were doing something she didn’t want to get caught at.

It’s a good thing she’s cute.

S and I are hot stuff. No, I’m not being a smart ass; I mean it in the most literal sense. It’s currently 24 degrees but it feels closer to 30 degrees with the humidity factored in. Our new air conditioning unit will be installed Wednesday; as in the day after tomorrow.

The main floor of the house doesn’t feel so bad and the basement is quite cool. The upstairs? It’s a fucking sauna. We have a fan running in the bedroom and the furnace fan working to try to cool the house. Curtains are also drawn and lights are kept off or on low. I made bbq for dinner tonight because I didn’t want to create any heat by using the stove, veggie steamer or any other kitchen appliance.

Continue Reading…

I mentioned in a previous post that we had someone come and give us a quote on replacing the air conditioning unit. Yes, that’s yet another thing this old house has asked us to repair and/or update. I am hopeful that this is the last of the repairs for awhile. Maybe we’ll even be able to focus on doing stuff to the inside of the house. Imagine!

I digress; being the responsible home owners that we’re trying to be, we called a few places to provide us with quotes as to what the replacement would cost. One of those places was Sears. I know what you’re thinking, why bother with them again when they messed up so badly with the furnace cleaning? S’s cousin Roberta swore by them and told us that having Sears replace their furnace and air conditioning went really well.

Continue Reading…

The sink in the upstairs bathroom wasn’t draining very well lately. We had treated it with some Liquid Plumbr a few weeks ago, but that didn’t seem to help. We didn’t want to make that a regular habit since we worry about messing with the pipes in this ol’ house. Over the weekend, I figured I’d give it some elbow grease and see about getting it cleaned sans harsh chemicals.

I set about taking out the stop and was horrified at what lay in the pipe below. It was so gross, I was gagging and thought I’d upchuck. I filled up the sink with some water and took the plunger to it. A few attempts led to some more crap coming out of the emergency drain on the side of the sink. I looked down the drain again and it looked much better than it was before. I cleaned off the stopper and decided to place it back in the drain. That’s when the fun started.

The stopper went all the way down until it was flush with the drain. The faucet has one of those thingies (I’m using technical terms here) where you can push and pull on it to make the stopper rise up and down. As it turned out, that thingie was no longer connected to the stopper and pulling and pushing on it had absolutely no effect on getting the stopper out.

Continue Reading…

Phew, what a whirlwind weekend. We knew it’d be a busy one since we were hosting P’s birthday get together on Saturday and then spending our Sunday doing the Mother’s day thing. Knowing that you’ll be busy and then actually being busy are two different things.

Things got started on Friday night when S and I went to Costco to pick up some steaks and salmon to grill on the BBQ. We took our empty propane tank with us and hoped we’d find somewhere to fill it. We were pleasantly surprised to find out that there was a refill station at the Costco. S is not a fan of propane tanks; she never goes near the BBQ when it’s on and didn’t want anything to do with removing the tank. The entire time it was in the car, S kept glancing back at in the space behind my seat. “Maybe we should have read the instructions before putting in the car,” she said. “It’s not going to blow up, is it?” she asked a few minutes later. She’s so cute.

After Costco, we hit the supermarket to pick up some remaining items and then rushed home before the skies opened up. We got home just as it started to rain and I quickly set up the propane tank before going into the house. It was after nine by the time we had everything put away and we still hadn’t had dinner. I figured we’d just have cereal but when we were putting things away in the freezer, S had caught sight of leftover pasta that was in there. “I kinda want that pasta for dinner,” she said.

Continue Reading…