"I know, you know, there's no denying it, these are scary and uncertain economic times. Property values continue to plummet like a six-year-old out of a mylar balloon. Retirees are trading in their 401(k)s for a box of Special K. And the dollar has been slapped around so hard it's asked the euro for a safe word."
Stephen Colbert, The Colbert Report (11/11/09)
Yeah, that about sums it up.
Trouble has have moved into our house, and I need to know how to get it to move out!
Things you do not want a telephoning child to say - We have a problem. How do we turn off the water?
Things you do not want to find when you arrive home - Water pouring from the light fittings, the ceilings in general, flooding on the floor, discovering some of this water is hot.
Things it is quite nice to find when you get home - your three male children have managed to deal with a crisis without making it worse. And the dinner wasn't ruined either.
The boys were cooking dinner and went into the garden for a cigarette (as they are not allowed to smoke in the house). They took Heidi out, smoked their ciggies and chatted. 10 minutes, 15 max. When they got in, it was raining. Inside.
The massive leak was caused by a joint going in the piping from our hot water tank (middle floor bathroom) to our shower (top floor bathroom). Unfortunately for us, that water gets from A to B using a substantial pump. So it pumped and it pumped and it pumped.
The lads got the water turned off, having to move all Husband's quite heavy diving cylinders out of the way, they got towels and receptacles under leaks, they turned the dinner down so it didn't burn and they turned the lights off.
So, right now these are the things we do not have:
No lights downstairs - somehow, the light fittings did not appreciate water dripping flooding rushing over them.
No hot water to our lovely en-suite shower - but we do have cold, so the toilet flushes and we can clean our teeth (and sleep commando!)
No Internet - our hub was in the under-stairs cupboard, directly under the leak.
We need to decorate quite intensively - the stairwells, the under-stairs cupboard, downstairs toilet, computer room, hall, and dining room all suffered varying degrees of dampness, resulting in varying degrees of paper falling off and damage to the plaster.
Ah well, on Friday we find out how much of this our insurance will cover. Fingers crossed for us, please.
It's a bright Autumn morning in the small town of Chester's Mill. Claudette Sanders is having a flying lesson and Dale Barbara is hitching a ride out of town. Neither make it to their destination...
Inexplicably, an invisible barrier had descended over the town. a woodchuck is chopped right in half; a gardener's hand is severed at the wrist; the plane explodes and Dale Barbara, Iraq war vet turned short-order cook, is forced to turn back into the town he so desperately needed to leave
As the residents speculate about what has cut them off from the rest of the world, the Army searches for an inside man. "Barbie" is put in charge. But Big Jim Rennie, the mad who holds the town in his powerful grip, has other plans. And the Dome could just be the answer to his political prayers.
As food, electricity and water run short and children start to have premonitions of a terrifying Halloween, Barbie is forced to take on Big Jim, and his renegade supporters. Now time is running out for those under the Dome. Can they find out what has created in before it's too late?
Stephen King's mesmerizing new masterpiece - his biggest, most riveting novel since The Stand - features spectacularly sinister characters and a terrifying phenomenon. Under the Dome is a high-octane thriller, an apocalyptic vision and a fascinating allegory on a tyrannical state of political darkness.
Loved it. It is mesmerizing, it is big and, after an initial hiccup a little way in, it is riveting. The speed of moral decay is frightening and the division between Law and Order scary beyond measure. Buy it. Borrow it from the library or a friend (I'm in Harrow, if you wanna borrow my copy) - whatever. Just read it. It is good.
Welcome to the House of Dying Appliances.
Dishwasher -
Dead and gone. Sadly, not actually gone - still waiting for the delivery of new Dishwasher and collection of old Dishwasher. This should have happened Saturday, but we have heard nothing. I hate Currys!
It died last week, so I have had a whole week of washing up for six people. Bugger that - now I remember exactly why I got a Dishwasher in the first place.
Fridge-Freezer -
As you know, this is not that old. So when the fan started making a terrible, grating whirring sound, we were worried. Fortunately this is still under Manufacturer's Warranty, so we just had to make a calll. Simple - well, no. Because my life does not suck enough. I phoned the Repair Line, told the nice lady all about my troubles, she said "OK I will put you through direct to the manufacturer's Repair Centre". But she screwed that up, and put me through to the Parts Department. No, I want an Engineer. So I call the Repair Line again, only to be told the computers had crashed, and to phone back later.
So I did. And the lady at LG said "What is the serial number of your fridge?"
Well, I do not know that.
"It will be on the left hand side" she said.
So I looked, and looked, and looked. And failed to find it.
"Well, I am very sorry", she said, "I must have that before I can book an Engineer Visit."
I was gutted. Than I liooked again and thought "Fuck - mayber I should get Left and Right tattooed on my hand"
That was on Thursday. All is good now - the man cam this morning and fixed the fan. Verdict - don't put so much in your freezer that air cannot circulate. Whoops! OK, I will be more careful in future.
Washing Machine -
This died Saturday morning, just as I put a load in. And we do all the washing for the six of us on Saturday / Sunday / Monday due to working the rest of the time. So I phoned my Washing Machine Repair Man, who said he should be able to do it Monday but he is having an operation on Tuesday. So I am waiting to hear from him. Fingers Crossed!
We had a shitload of washing - siz bags, and one laundry basket. I spent three hours at the laundrette (and may I say thank goodness for laundrettes!). It was so freaking BUSY in there, and hot. And expensive!
Vacuum Cleaner -
We bought this, and it was crap. You need training to use it properly and if I get the kids to vac, they break the band that turns the beater, so it stops being any good for pet hair. I finally said I must have a new one, when it, too, died. What is it with this house this past few weeks? Luckily, someone we know runs a business selling and maintaining professional vacuums (for hotels, conference centres, anywhere they use lots of cleaners and need them to be ready to use at all times). So he is selling us one, cheap, and we get it later today.
I hope the Appliance Killing Field leaves the area soon.
If I ever have another wedding, I'm totally getting one of these:
Hand-tied goat bouquet--it's what all the fashionable brides will be carrying this season!
I am so sick and tired of propaganda masquerading as news. Fox and MSNBC have a lot more in common with Joseph Goebbels than they do with journalism. That's for sure.
A couple of days ago, Gill and I were over at a neighbor's for a small, informal dinner party, when the topic of Obama being snubbed by the Russians came up. We were told that there it was on TV, the Russians refusing to shake Obama's hand at a summit. I was quite shocked, and wondered aloud if it was racism. "No," I was told, it was because of Obama, himself, and his policies.
Well, I wanted to know more. So, today, I Googled "Obama+Russia+handshake," and the very first hit brought me to snopes.com, the universally-acknowledged non-partisan Internet source for what is rumor and what is fact. Here is what the True or False top of the page tells us:
<<
Claim: Video Clip shows President Obama being snubbed while attempting to shake hands during a visit to Russia.
FALSE
>>
The page not only goes on to explain that what this edited-for-political purposes video shows is Obama introducing Russian President Medvedev to the AMERICAN DELEGATION (!), but snopes.com also has the video that actually shows Obama being introduced to the Russian delegation, and shaking every single hand!
We were warned, years ago, by George Orwell and Ray Bradbury (among many others) that this type of blatantly-political editing-- and propaganda-as-news --loomed in our future; however, their fear was that the government would be behind it, rather than the mutinational corporations (such as News Corp-Fox and GE-Microsoft-MSNBC) that are perpetrating these malevolent hoaxes on the world today.
See the two videos below (first the alleged snub-- of Obama introducing Medvedev to the Americans --then Obama being introduced to the Russians), and then, go to snopes.com for the story: http://www.snopes.com/politics/obama/snubbed.asp.
.
"Old." "Ugly" And sometimes just plain "Unpopular".
They're the shelter dogs nobody wants. Week after week, month after month, they sit and wait for someone to take them home. They watch as their younger, cuter, smaller, more outgoing neighbours find people to love them. They wag their tails and look out their cages and try to say "please choose me, I may not be pretty, or a puppy, but I promise I'll be a good dog." But other pooches always seem to steal their spotlight.
Until now. In an amazing stroke of creative genius, a collective of Montreal artists and dog lovers has come up with the Underdog Club. It's a way to give special dogs a better chance of finding their forever home.
The Club is an art gallery/adoption shelter. Expressive black and white portraits of dogs, taken by prominent photographers, line the walls. You can buy the gorgeous, framed pictures. But you can also leave with the model, because all of the photographed dogs are there on site, ready to go.
I love these people. I have to stop looking at the dogs on their website because I am going to end up driving to Montreal and getting several.
"When we honestly ask ourselves which person in our lives mean the most to us, we often find that it is those who, instead of giving advice, solutions, or cures, have chosen rather to share our pain and touch our wounds with a warm and tender hand. The friend who can be silent with us in a moment of despair or confusion, who can stay with us in an hour of grief and bereavement, who can tolerate not knowing, not curing, not healing and face with us the reality of our powerlessness, that is a friend who cares."
~Henri Nouwen
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Previously on the Calliope
