Catching Up

Well, that was a year of suckage, wasn't it?

From discovering that we had a real, honest-to-goodness epidemic plague loose in the world, to discovering that our neighbours were and remain a bunch of idiots who would rather take massive doses of horse dewormer¹ than get an injection containing Bill Gates microchips, black helicopters and gosh knows what-all else, to the discouraging fact that the said plague was not playing fair and was infecting people who had been given the injections to the pundits on both sides of the arguments getting super stupid largely because their TV studios were half empty²

Disappointing the results of the polls, too. Almost half the people who could be arsed to get off their fat backsides and vote still thought a man incapable of stringing coherent thoughts together on any given day, a man who gave the country permission to behave like animals (providing they were on the right side of course), was still a fit choice to lead us. I fear for the continued existence of the United States.

And the barely believable events of January 6th, when the world watched the so-called largest democracy in the world host a third-world insurrection which it seems increasingly possible was actually fomented by the outgoing administration and a bunch of back-room actors who put Nixon's dirty tricks team to shame. The world watched the all-too-close call American democracy had with the Dictator's axe-crew, most of whom seem bound to escape the well-earned legal thumping the astoundingly stupid rioters are getting.

What seems strange is that the people in charge of the aftermath don't appear to grasp that the constitution-established law was well and truly broken - the Constitution often doesn't say much about the things people commonly believe it does, but has very definite and easy to understand language about how the government is chosen, and what should be done about people who attempt to subvert that process by force of arms. And yet the charges that are brought are of the "disorderly conduct" and "breaking and entering" variety, rather than traitorous insurrection. No doubt I am too naive to understand the nuances of the law involved.

Feeling completely unempowered to affect events on the larger stage, let me return to more personal matters.

The Citizenship Screw-up

I filed for US Citizenship in 2020. The date for my case to be heard was originally January 2021. On January 1st, it changed to March 2021. Then it was changed to "It's all taking a bit longer than we thought. Stand by". A small crisis was averted when my visa was extended by some very helpful immigration people, and my new date became December 2021. It is now back to "Stand By". Covid derailing the wheels of government, of course. Can't be helped, but worrying.

Working From Home

In March of 2021 I was ordered to cease and desist coming to work, and start and commence and, presumably, ensist, working from home.

Initially, I expected this to be a problem, and for my productivity to drop due to distractions, but in actual fact, and despite various "experts" on PBR⁵ opining to the contrary, I found myself working far more efficiently and productively. My attitude was great in the morning, an effect I put down to not having had to cross swords with the Bloody Long Island Rail Road before I started, I worked steadily without interruptions or distractions from people in other cubes having loud phone calls, and often would log back in after the rather stupidly configured remote software kicked me out after 8 hours⁶ so I could finish what I was doing.

Not only that, if I was required to work an extended shift to accommodate the truly herculean efforts my colleagues in the applications teams were putting out to switch NYC from a face-to-face process to a remote-by-computer one, I could do so having had a bite to eat and still feeling relaxed and keen to go because my morale had not been hammered flat by the Bloody Long Island Rail Road demonstrating that they could not get me appreciably merry in a brewery.

Of course, this had to end. "The optics are not good" one manager said. Several more opined that we were needed to help save the NYC small businesses by buying lunch from them.

I have to admit I found this rather hard. For years I've listened to these same NYC dwellers tell me how the commuter is killing NYC by working there then leaving, paying a non-resident level of tax (which in my case is an outright falsehood, I am required to pony up as though I live in NYC). Now we commuters are the last, best hope for the NYC small businessperson?

I returned to commuting to find the Bloody Long Island Rail Road still couldn't give me a good time in a cat-house.

Not only do they still cancel trains - and still make a habit of canceling the straight through Wyandanch-Brooklyn trains in preference to the umptytump Penn Station trains - now the trains they provide as an "alternative" are overcrowded superspreader parties on wheels. So lessons learned and preparation for a post-Covid world: Nil.

The New Roof Ditheration

In August I decided to put a new roof on the house and solicited bids. Only one builder showed up, but he gave me a fair price for what looked like a very good deal. Then he vanished. I called him in October and he said he was having trouble sourcing materials, which was understandable, but that he would get back to us soon. A few days after Thanksgiving he called me to say his team would be around my house on the second week of December to replace the roof.

I pointed out that the brochure he had given me spoke long on the subject of the roof being composed of a self-sealing arrangement of shingle and underlay, that the sealing process required several days of warm, sunny weather, and specifically said that unless the roof was properly sealed it wasn't covered under the warranty.

The builder agreed that this was indeed the case, and we then agreed that he should schedule the work in the spring. The week he wanted to start, there was a heat wave.

I Attempt Plumbing; The Anti-Handiman Demons Fire For Effect

Speaking of Thanksgiving, Mrs and Mrs Stevieling asked if they could come and stay and we said yes, which required us to clean out The Stevieling's room, which she had left looking like someone had backed a thrift shop into it and then blown it up. Mrs Stevie, under the impression that I proposed putting them up in that room then cooperated wonderfully, finding a storage unit for a reasonable price and packing everything up. I helped transport it, but refused to help parcel it up. actually, that is not true. I had offered to go in with a pitchfork and deal with the bloody problem but had been rebuffed.

With two weeks to go before wheels-down, Mrs Stevie announced she was going into Manhattan for a long weekend with her friends, to attend some band performances. She believes this band is really cooking. I believe that band has overcooked to the point of needing a packet of baking soda and a damp cloth to smother the flames, but of course I do not say that out loud when she plays their CDs. I limit myself to groaning, clutching my ears and crying "By All The Gods Olde And New, Please Let It Stop Soon".

Anyway.

I saw this as a good time to renovate the horrible downstairs bathroom that had never been properly improved since we moved in, and featured bright yellow el-cheapo renter-special fixtures'n'wotsits. Peace, quiet and no-one making uninformed comments about unavoidable fires breaking out or complaining about the shrieks of pain the normal deployment of a blowtorch elicit.

So no sooner had Mrs Stevie decamped, I grabbed hold of the vanity top and pulled hard and it tore off the wall, being bodged in place with eight-penny nails that were mostly rust after 30-mumble years of steamy showers⁷. I filled a few things with water in anticipation of Anti-Handiman Demon activity and turned the household water supply off⁸

This was necessary because the little stop-taps that live under the sink had fused into solid masses of brass when the Chixulub meteor smashed into the Earth. Replacing them was going to be high on the list of Stuff to Do. Then it was the work of a few minutes with Mr Tiger Saw and the vanity and sink were outside and I was ready to deploy m' plumbing skills!

The plan was to cut the old fittings off using either my trusty pipe-cutter or, failing that, my even more trusty Tiger Saw, but naturally a problem poked its spiky head out of the u-bend almost immediately. The old stop taps had been soldered into place very close to the walls, likely before the wallboard had been nailed into place. When cut, the hot water line would be flush with the wall.

Plan B immediately sprang full-formed into Mr Brain (in fact I sort of planned for this eventuality ahead of time by buying the parts needed, which was stupid because in thwarting the need to overnight sans water because the blasted shops would be shut had naturally woken up the Anti-Handiman Demons and given them time to plan villainy of the most desperate stripe). I would solder the stop tap to a short length of pipe, then use a copper sleeve to join that to the newly-cut pipe. This would mean the stop tap soldering of the heavy brass fitting would be done away from the wall, and only the relatively quick copper-copper soldering would need to be done very close to the cardboard cladding of the wallboard.

I started with the cold water line to give me a chance to get my soldering hand back in before having to deal with hiding pipes. It went well. I had the assembly all soldered up and had inflicted the obligatory agonizing hand burn by picking up the red-hot brass tap fitting in about five minutes. Then I grabbed a spritzer bottle I had pre-filled with water as a makeshift fire extinguisher¹⁰ and put out the small fires that had started on the wall and it was Job Done. Half Done, anyway.

The hot water line added the complication of having zero pipe poking out of the wall. I countered this by grabbing the pipe with vise-grips and pulling it out of the wall. Luckily the pipes had been installed "Genaro Fashion" and had no internal bracing to speak of and so there was some leeway to be had. The pipe was cut and a new fixture fabricated. Deciding to get a head start on fire suppression I spritzed the wall liberally before I began waving the roaring flame of pipe soldering all over it.

A sad mistake.

The wall absorbed much water, then gave way, and the pipe retracted, pulling the vise grips through the wall, making a rather large hole. (see picture).

Snarling some pre-prepared class three Words of Power I grabbed the pipe, reconfigured the vise grips and applied heat to the pipe. The wall gave way some more and the pipe retracted taking the vise grips with it.

It was all very tiresome.

Eventually, by holding the vise grips with my foot while I waved the flames over the pipe I was able to solder the fitting into place. Then I was able to turn on the water, add some flexible riser pipes and test the water was working properly. Of course, the first time I opened one of the stop taps I let go of the flexible pipe and so the water that was supposed to go into the coffee can (see picture) went all over me instead, but that did have the effect of extinguishing a couple of small body hair fires I had not noticed, so all was well that ended not badly, all things considered.

Then I replaced the U-Bend, which was where the Anti-Handiman Demons really got the bit between their teeth.

If you take a look at the annotated photograph you can see the old u-bend u-bending then disappearing into a compression fitting on what turned out to be a cast-iron pipe fitting connecting to the greywater drain. Water from the kitchen sink also passes through this pipe, as does the dishwasher drainage. Further downstream is where it joins the outflow from the commode which is where I'm drawing the line.

Ever since we've lived here the sinks block about every four to six months requiring a tiresome and disgusting process of filling the kitchen sink with water then using a plunger to suck the crud out of the pipe and into the bathroom sink, then allowing it to drain out again. This will be relevant soon. Back to the U-Bend.

No matter how much I swore the bloody fitting would not come loose so I could remove the old U-Bend and replace it. I ended up having to heat it with my trusty blowtorch, after which I could use Mr Pipewrench to unscrew the collar and pull out the straight pipe from the cast iron fitting along with 30 years worth of impacted crud that had backed up behind the compression fitting seal.

After a short dry-heave break I deployed the new U-Bend and compression fitting and discovered two unfortunate things:
     a) The new straight pipe was a very worrying rattling fit in the cast-iron fitting, and
     2) Home Despot had changed supplier for their compression fittings with disastrous consequences.

Old-style compression seals are triangular cross section. You slip the collar over your pipe, slip the seal over he pipe "blunt" side toward the collar, slide the pipe into the fitting seating the seal as you go until the pipe is where you need it, then screw down the collar to deform the seal and fill all the gaps. Works surprisingly well.

The new seals appear to be simple rubber washers, square in cross section, and in this case the seal would not deform and make a proper seal no matter how tight the collar was screwed down. The straight pipe was still a rattling, and therefore leaky, fit. Luckily I had a fresh old-style seal in my toolbox and some unused class threes in my vocabulary and was able to deploy both to fit the U-Bend securely. And thence to bed for some well-earned rest.

Now, I had had to cut the straight pipe to the approximate length required - that is what it is for, to allow some horizontal customization options when matching to the sink drain. But it bothered Mr Brain that I had slid so much of it into the fitting that it had to be protruding into the greywater drainpipe. I resolved to remove it again the next day and cut it shorter.

It was while doing this the next day that I recalled just how long the old straight pipe had been. It must have been pushed all the way across the greywater drainpipe as in Diagram 1. And thus a sneaking suspicion as to the cause of all those old blockages made its way into Mr Brain. Now the situation more resembled Diagram 2 the flow of water attempting to drain from the kitchen or dishwasher would be unimpeded by the bathroom sink U-Bend's straight pipe and I thought blockages might be a thing of the past as a result¹¹.

The next day I fitted the sink vanity and discovered that the U-Bend was a 1 1/2 inch pipe but that the sink drain was a 1 1/4, and moreover was a good four inches too high to connect to the U-Bend anyway, so another run to Home Despot was enacted to search for a conversion adapter, which they did not have so I made a run to Arse Hardware where they said they didn't but I found that they did, albeit as part of a kit intended for some other purpose. After that it was the work of only half an hour with Mr Hacksaw and some more class threes to connect the sink to the wastepipe, the taps to the risers and the little chrome stick to the plug release. Huzzah! A sink!

The water flow through the taps was surprisingly light and disappointing but there were no kinks or blockages and last night's drenching had proved the water pressure was good. I guess in the intervening years since I fitted that exact same design of tap to the old sink there must have been some sort of well-meaning water conservation activity at the tapworks.

I will draw a curtain over the removal of the old toilet and the installation of the new one, except to say that I managed to drop my prized Leatherman down the sodding wastepipe even though I had it blocked with paper towels. I couldn't get my hand to it as it lay on the bend, threatening to slip over and drop into Pipus Incognita, but Mrs Stevie could and retrieved it just so she could lord it over me for a few days. You'd think the pipe would have been filthy but it was sparkling clean. Even so the Leatherman was subjected to maximum hygiene soakings in various chemicals before I allowed myself the pleasure of sucking it again, as I had no idea what Mrs Stevie had been holding before she grabbed Mr Leatherman.

The toilet, bought for its profile and general looks, turned out to be a new design that intentionally only half filled its tank. The instructions bloviated about a new special power flush design that used less water (which I was less than happy about given the lackluster performance of the new taps) but for a wonder it works very well.

Mrs Stevie was briefly interested in a different model that advertised it could flush 100 golf balls, but I pointed out that the golf balls would inevitably clog the pipes and disable the septic system, and would cost a fortune to boot, and she decided that wasn't a desirable feature after all.

Installing the commode also called for another fossilized-shut-stop-tap-ectomy, and I had a slight brainwave when I decided to add a right-angle turn to the extra pipe I was adding so the stop-tap would be close to the wall but not require me to set fire to the wall to install it.

And that, for a wonder, worked well even when I wanted to install a new over-the-toilet hutch-cupboard thingy and did not end up having to saw slots in it to accommodate the piping even though I had not thought to measure it all up first. Not only that, the new commode was wider than the old one, so the stop tap would have been hidden in a multiple Class Four location vis-a-vis installing a risor pipe to the tank. As it was, only Class Twos were involved.

Thanksgiving.

The kids arrived in theater and promptly buggered off to be with their friends and others who were actually pleasant company. But the Stevieling insisted she would make thanksgiving Dinner round her grandmoher's house for the immediate family, around five people. Grandmother then invited All the extended family and a panic attack was triggered.

I came downstairs the day before Thanksgiving feeling crappy. Ever since I went back to work I've been catching one cold after another. I underwent Covid tests the first few times, all negative, but had stopped doing that because I had none of the other symptoms of fever, chills, boils, locusts and whatnot. But I had warned everyone that I was not going to put the Grandmother at risk if I got very sick. I'm getting ahead of the story.

The Stevieling was showing signs of quiet desperation, and after a few minutes of insistent interrogation by yours truly admitted that there were insurmountable problems with her doing the cooking she planned at our house. There was no room in the fridge. There was too little time to make the five pies she had planned. It was all going horribly wrong.

I strolled over to the fridge and started unloading cans of soda, huge flagons of iced tea, and bottles of "Harry Potter Butter Beer" Mrs Stevie had laid down in the late Jurassic. The Stevieling opined there was now enough room in the fridge, but not enough hours in the day.

So we decamped for the swank bakery just down the road where Daddy's Bottomless Money Bucket provided three pies that only required a bank loan to secure. Thick choking smoke filled the bakery.

"The pies are burning!" screamed the baker.

"Calm yourself! That is merely my wallet immolating itself." I replied.

Having resolved The Great Pie Disaster by hurling money at it, the Stevieling decided she would bake the two remaining pies herself, which she did.

On the day, I was very much sicker, and in the mood to just lie groaning under a blanket in peace and quiet, so I did that while everyone else decamped for Grandma's. Well, there was a small debacle when the pumpkin pie we had bought turned out to have a skin of mold over it, but the baker replaced it with no arguments. Something to do with the way the pumpkin slurry had been prepared. What do I know? I'm not a baker.

Staying home turned out to be a Good Idea though, as my quick solutions to the Stevielings' problems had of course attracted some anti-handiman demons which she, poor girl, was unprepared to deal with.

When they got to Grandma's house, now full of people, the kids made their signature Turkey Wrapped In Bacon And Painted With Butter, placing the bird in a foil baking pan.

What they didn't do was put the baking pan on a rigid baking tray before putting it in the oven and roasting it, with the result that when Mrs Stevie attempted to remove the now-brimming-with-fat baking dish it buckled and spilled "some" fat into the oven. Had anyone noticed even this wouldn't have been a problem, but then someone had the bright idea of baking crescent rolls, and the afternoon descended into fiasco.

The spilled fat ignited, filling the house with dense black smoke.

It was at this point that it was discovered that Grandma didn't have a fire extinguisher and fiasco became debacle. It was decided to evacuate the house, but only after everyone had grabbed a plate of food, which they ate in the freezing cold driveway. Mr Stevieling raced around banging on neighbors' doors pleading for a fire extinguisher, which either no-one had or no-one was willing to share. Grandma was having a meldown about her "ruined" oven, and the Stevieling was in tears over the whole affair. I imagine that after a few more of these sorts of out-of-parameter excursions she will have my own fatalistic attitude and simply run in circles gibbering.

It took so long to organize all this chaos that the fire, of course, went out, and the smoke dispersed without causing further damage, allowing a resumption of Thanksgiving in the more-traditional inside venue. Grandma was fulminating over her oven which would :have" to be replaced.

The next day I rallied the troops, grabbed some cleaning supplies and the kids and deployed them in oven-cleaning mode at Grandma's house. Grandma was now just muttering darkly, but was secretly pleased to have the Stevieling nearby again. I investigated why the smoke detector had not gone off during the Great Thanksgiving Conflagration and discovered that Grandma's habit of poking it with a broom handle when it went off during her cooking sessions had bashed and smashed the works until they were now just a do-it-yourself kit. I departed to Home Despot to throw more money at this Thanksgiving Fiasco to Make It Go Away.

Two hours later the oven was clean enough to put it into auto-clean mode without the danger of more dense black smoke, the new smoke detector was securely mounted to the ceiling ready for its first damn good poking and we left so we could get lunch before the kids had to be back at the airport.

Grandma was now fit to be tied, as the vision of a nice new oven had receded over the horizon. Not only that, she later admitted that the oven had never been so clean. Turns out she doesn't use the self-cleaning program properly.

So much for Thanksgiving.

And just before the year could wind down and die with a whimper, the Chateau Stevie Furnace o' Heating stopped, er, heating.

I suspected the bloody thermocouple had burned out, but since Mr Stevie had not had the wit to look at the thermostat while I was doing battle with the Bloody Long Island Rail Road, John the Plumber was not alerted to our situation until 7:30pm at which point he quite reasonably said he could come first thing the next day. Which he did, and he took two hours to install a themrocouple that worked and do sundry other essential maintenance stuff. In the meantime I deployed a small electric heater to keep the core of the house inhabitable, then went to bed.

The next day John the Plumber did battle with the furnace and merged victorious after only two and a half hours of man vs furnace in a World Gone Mad, and Chateau Stevie gradually warmed to tolerable levels.

1. Yesyesyes I know that Ivermectin is also used as a by-prescription-only treatment for scabies, but people aren't taking that, they are taking the over-the-counter stuff they get from the feed store↑
2. Bill Maher has been a particular disappointment for this writer, as his writers have had him spouting the most ridiculous and easily disproved stuff about what the CDC are³ saying to how natural immunity is better than that conferred by the vaccines⁴. His angst over the lack of bums on seats has had him reversing many of his positions and taking contrary viewpoints depending on who he is targeting. As a rather vocal former commentator was fond of writing at the end of his unhinged rants: Sad.↑
3. not, actually↑
4. or, if you buy into so-called medical science, not so much, really↑
5. Public Radio, a listener supported non-commercial radio↑
6. Because I was not watching the clock, not needing to make allowances for catching the one straight-through train from Brooklyn to Wyandanch. Think of how much free overtime the taxpayers of NY could have had if the software had - for example - been set to kick people off after eight hours fifteen minutes↑
7. Neither the kid nor that bloody woman open the sodding window, and the Stevieling was wont to use an entire 50 gallon tank of hot water per shower. It's a wonder she didn't dissolve or grow gills↑
8. I can do this easily because years ago, as an anti-flood-the-house-while-we-were-on-vacation measure I had installed two inline ball-valve shut off taps, one in each line. Now I simply walk to my workbench in the Basement O' Crap, reach up, grab the handles, shout YAR-VOLE HERR CAPITAIN, DIVING ZE BOAT!⁹ and pull the levers down↑
9. Traditional↑
10. I've formed the belief that running around trying to improvise a fire extinguisher after the water has been turned off lends any plumbing job an air of unacceptable amateurishness and opens one to unnecessary spousal approbation, and having taken care of the latter possibility it seemed prudent to deal proactively with the former↑
11. And it seems that water flow from all drains has improved. Fingers still crossed↑