The First Day of December

1:45 pm
Last night I started reading Palimpsest, a novel by Catherynne M. Valente, and read some more of it this morning.  Her style is like an assemblage of dream, fantasy, delirium, and hallucination, and yet her prose is beautifully precise, assembled with a watchmaker's precision.  Her plots are like a cross between the Arabian Nights and the Twilight Zone, and her stories have their own internal dreamlike logic.  If you are thinking about reading one of her books, go to a bookstore or library, open the one you're interested in and start reading the first page.  You'll know within a page or two whether you'll want to keep reading.  She's one of those you have to be there.  If you're not "there," you won't get past the first couple of pages.  But if you are "there," you're in for a great read.   So far, this book is hitting me in the same "sweet spot" as Elizabeth Bear's Bone and Jewel Creatures did.  That little novella blew my socks off.

I have this little book marker made from a piece of folded card stock with a thin piece of that magnetized plastic on each end -- it has an owl illustration on it.  (I did have another one just like it with a unicorn on, but the white cat tried to eat it.) You open the magnets and put the book marker down over the top of the page and let the magnets come together with the page between them.  It's supposed to keep the marker from falling out if the book gets dropped.  I was using that book marker to mark my place in Palimpsest.  When I read in bed, I put the book marker on my chest right below my chin.  It's just what I do.  When I was done reading this morning, I put my hand up to get the book marker, and it was gone.  I looked in the bed, among the covers, under the pillow.  I looked on the floor, and under the bed, but didn't find it.  I don't know where it is.  I think it was stolen by the faeries.  Or else it flew away.   Apart from the fact that I really like that book marker, it's not like I don't have more.  I make them from pictures I've cut out of magazines which I paste onto pieces of fancy paper and sandwich between pieces of clear packing tape.  Or else I make them using a desktop publishing program, print them out and sandwich them between pieces of clear packing tape.  The plastic packing tape makes them durable.  I've had some of them for 15+ years. 

2:20 pm
The door bell roused me from my "bloggerie" -- The plumbers are here.  (I put a note in with my rent check that my toilet was still leaking.  She must have called them immediately she opened the envelope.)  Maybe this time they will finally get it fixed.  It's been leaking for months now.  They've already been out once. The water was coming from around the base, so last time they replaced the wax ring that goes between the toilet and the drainpipe.  They're going to put a second wax ring on top of the one they put in last time to see if that does the trick, which means they have to unbolt the toilet from the floor.  Again. 

3:00
They've got the second ring put down, and the toilet put back and bolted down again.  Now, they've discovered that the leak was coming from the base of the tank and that it was leaking down the very back of the toilet base.  They took they tank off and discovered that the gasket between the tank and the base was split right at the back, and that's where the leak was coming from.  I feel relieved that it was leaking from the tank.  The thought of its leaking from under the base was grossing me out.   It's a slow but steady leak.  In fact, I didn't even know the toilet was leaking until I pulled the mats up to toss them in the washing machine, like I do about every other month, and saw that the mat that goes around the base of the toilet had water stains and a little mildew on the rubber backing.  Fortunately, running them through the washer cleaned the rubber backing right up.  A set of bathmats is not cheap.

Once they get the leak fixed, I can finally put the mats back down again, and not a minute too soon, either.  It's finally fooled around and gotten winter on us.  My weather widget shows that the predicted lows are going to be below freezing every night this week and the predicted low for Monday night is 16F/-9C.  That bathroom is on the north side of the house.  It does have a heater vent in the ceiling, but I keep the door closed to keep the white cat from chewing up my toilet paper (which he later barfs on the carpet).  Even though I put a vent grill in the door, it still doesn't get as good air circulation as it would if I left the door open, and that bare vinyl tile can get pretty cold in the winter time, heater vent not withstanding. It's not a large bathroom.  A large mat in front of the shower door and a smaller mat in front of the sink pretty much cover all the floor I'm likely to walk on.  Nice fuzzy fluffy mats.   That's the bathroom with the corner toilet -- it's got a triangular tank so it fits into the corner at a 45 degree angle to the wall (like I say, it's not a big bathroom).  The plumbers had a gasket to fit it, but coming up with the right washers for the bolts that hold the tank to the base is evidently tricky.  Like the man says, 'Nothing is ever simple.'

I'm not worried too much about the weather getting colder, just as long as it doesn't get below 0F/-18C.  I got the oil changed in my car this past Monday and in addition to replacing the oil and changing the oil filter, they check/change the air cleaner filter, check hydraulic fluid levels, top off the radiator and test the antifreeze.  Turns out my antifreeze is "aging out" and it's now only good to 0F/-18C.  If the weather gets really cold, that could present a problem. as I don't have a garage, just a carport.  To get more protection, they'd have to drain and flush my radiator and put in new antifreeze.  That'll be $99, please.  Thank you very much.  Don't happen to have $99 just at the moment, and won't until at least the end of December.  Last thing I need is for it to come a blue Norther and crack my engine block.  Which reminds me.  I need to head down to Walmart and get one of those styrofoam thingies to put over the outside faucet by the back door. Last winter, that pipe froze and I didn't have any water to my kitchen sink until it thawed three days later.

3:45 pm
It has now been determined that the reason the toilet is leaking is because the tank is cracked at the base.  Whether it was cracked before the plumbers started messing with it is a moot point.  It's cracked now.  They called my duplex manager, and she has authorised them to replace the toilet, if that's what it takes -- This toilet is original to the house, which was built in the early 1970's, and the chances of finding a triangular tank that will fit it are slim to none.  Now the question is, can they find a toilet that will fit into the corner with the "flange" in the floor where it is, or are they going to have to get the jackhammers in (the house is built on a solid concrete "slab" foundation) and reposition the "flange" -- I'm assuming that's the doohickie that's cemented into the floor that the toilet is bolted down to.  Thankfully, I do have another bathroom.  Once the plumbers do get everything sorted out, I'm going to have to suit up and clean the whole bathroom with something heavy duty and germicidal-- sink, toilet, floor, cabinet, counters, the whole shebang.  I don't think I'm being unreasonably paranoid.  Who knows what the plumbers were fixing before they came to my house? (Ew!)

5:00 pm
They've come up with a toilet that has a rectangular tank that will fit in the corner, so we will be spared the jackhammers.  It's a "water saver" toilet, which means it's got a smaller tank, about half the capacity of the tank on the old toilet.  It's a taller toilet than the old one, too, and they've just discovered the feeder hose that supplies water to the tank is too short to reach this tank, so one of them has kited off to get one.

The white cat and the black one have been cowering under the bed all afternoon.  I've no idea where the grey one is hiding.  Periodically, the white one or the black one will slink into the office and rub up against my feet.  All this business with the plumbers has thrown their nap schedule way off.  A while ago, the white one barfed up a hairball in the living room.  Thankfully, the hairball season is winding down.  One of the plumbers asked me earlier if I had an extra roll of paper towels.  My reply?  "I have three cats.  I have a whole package of paper towels."  Actually, I don't.  I'm down to two rolls now plus the one in the holder.  Better put paper towels on my shopping list.

5:30 pm
The plumbers have just left.  I now have a new toilet.  It's higher than the old one, and has a much smaller "footprint,"  both of which points are neither here nor there as far as I'm concerned.  So long as it performs the function it was designed for, and doesn't leak or overflow, I'm happy.

On the first day of December
The real world gave to me
One leaky toilet,
Two plumbers plumbing,
And a bathroom that's very dir-tee. . . .

I'll clean up the bathroom in a while.  Right now, the world owes me chocolate.  Fortunately, there are Hershey's Kisses in the candy dish, Christmas Kisses, wrapped in red, silver, and green foil wrappers. . .  I'll have three of each color.  Nine is a nice round number. . . .

5:40 pm
The phone rang just now and it was the Walmart eyeglasses people telling me my new  glasses are ready.  I'll go get them tomorrow afternoon, and get the faucet cover thingie while I'm there.  I had a doctor's appointment Monday at 9:45 in the morning, and after that, I went to get new glasses (they said they'd be ready Dec 5), then I got my oil changed and then went to Radio Shack and got a new watch battery.  This has been a busy week.