Big day around the ol' homestead.

I woke up from a nightmare at 5am and couldn't get back to sleep. I haven't done that in a long time, but dreaming that you're about to be ripped apart by a pack of wild dogs with no chance of escape kind of shakes one up, ya know? No biggie, because the alarm was set for 6am anyway. I had things to take care of before the cabinet guys showed up at eight.

Guess who *didn't* show up again today? If you said "[expletive deleted] electrician", then give yourself a cookie.

I made sure that the dogs were penned up out of the way and let the cabinet guys into the house. They were in for a long day, because they have to be done before Monday when the floors get done. As soon as they arrived I took off to run a couple errands, one of which was picking up some plumbing parts for a leaky sink drain upstairs.

When I got back, I found out that my neighbor Mike had called. We had sort of made plans to install a laundry tub in my basement today. He was ready to do it, so we headed out again, right back to the big generic hardware store and then to it's equally big generic hardware store competitor across the street. Before long I had purchased a sink, faucet, and more various plumbing bits.

Mike does this stuff for a living, so I was looking forward to learning something new. In just a few hours we had rerouted the washing machine drain, installed and plumbed the sink, tapped into the hot and cold lines and run new to the sink and relocated the washing machine. I also made another run to the hardware store for a length of copper pipe and also found the lint socks I needed.

The aforementioned lint socks were the reason for this whole exercise. Our basements have a floor drain but no sump, and every couple of years the drains clog from the lint that flows out of the washer with the rinse water. By routing the washer drain into the laundry sink, I could fasten a lint sock to the end of the hose and it would catch all that soggy fluff and keep my drain from clogging. The lint sock looks kind of like a chainmail condom (probably $15.95 from Adam & Eve), and attaches to the hose with a zip tie. After two loads of laundry, there is already visible crud that was captured. Every month or so I'll throw it out and put a new one on, they cost about a buck apiece.

I did make one more run to the hardware store for an extension length of washing machine drain hose.

The cabinet guys were here until 7pm, and one of them will be back tomorrow for a while to finish with the last couple base cabinets. I sent a bag of tomatoes and jalepenos home with them tonight. My neighbor Mike got a bag too.

In totally unrelated news, one of the dogs has horrible gas. We're talking EPA-alert caliber dog farts. We think it's the new dry food they're eating. The plan is to switch back to the old stuff and see if that helps, because I keep expecting guys in white hazard suits to burst into the house and start to decontaminate the whole area.

Part of my movie order arrived today! Expect some reviews in the near future. Cringing won't help, stop being such a wuss.

Posted by: Ted at 09:04 PM | category: Square Pegs
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