Lately, the house issues have taken a backseat to other drama. Petty drama, yes. Funny how that doesn’t seem to matter when it’s your drama.

A thought: When it rains, it pours… and destroys the plaster that you spent the better part of a month reapplying. Metaphor? I think YES.  

My response to this situation? Avoid, avoid, avoid. Watch too many movies, spend too much time online, try to sleep, shop. Alas, the blog has been a casualty of my (not-so-healthy) tactics, and I apologize.

But moving on… let’s consider this post a tip-toe in the right direction. The power-walk to the end of the block that will (hope hope) ultimately lead to ultra marathons. Gotta set your sights unattainably high, right? If not, you won’t finish with that essential sense of dissatisfaction. And dissatisfaction is a necessary component of ambition. 

But I’m swerving off track (see where thwarted plaster repairs can lead you?). Anyway, this e-mail seemed worthwhile, so I thought I’d pass it along. I’ve had my share of experiences with bad contractors, and I know the crummy ones don’t always show up on the BBB. General rule: Caveat emptor — and make sure you ask about past projects and references. Lots of references. And just ’cause they hand over legit-seeming info on paper doesn’t mean it’s actually legit. Make the phone calls, do the leg-work. If you don’t, you – and your budget – may regret it.

Trust me on this one. 

Trust my bank account, which still says “Ouch!!”          

AVOID FLY-BY-NIGHT CONTRACTORS;

BBB OFFERS TIPS TO PREVENT A SPRING RIP-OFF

Buffalo, NY- With Spring in the air, many home owners are launching improvement plans or adding a pool. The BBB warns consumers to beware and be wise. “Every Spring the Better Business Bureau is active with inquiries and complaints for contracting businesses,” said David Polino, BBB president. “Contactors and home improvement lead our complaint rosters, landing on our top 10 list each year with nearly 2,000 consumer complaints filed in 2007.” 

Less-than-reputable or unqualified contractors have been known to breeze into town this time of year promising a variety of services at cut-rate prices. They may show up at a doorstep, advertise in local papers or deliver fliers to the home. The BBB warns homeowners to beware and to do business with someone they can trust. 

Whether a small repair project is planned, like repaving a driveway, or a more extensive project, like adding a family room, it pays to look beyond the lowest bid and really dig into the details.  Researching the reputation of a company through referrals and by checking their business history at www.bbb.org can go a long way in preventing problems.

The BBB warns consumers to be extra cautious if they’re considering a professional hire in one of these business categories that garners hundreds of complaints each and every year:

• General Contractor 
• Swimming Pool Contractor 
• Roofing  
• Paving 
• Home Improvement  
• Air Conditioning  
• Plumbing  
• Remodeling 
• Landscaping and Lawn Care

To jump-start the process of finding a trustworthy business, the BBB offers consumers a program called Request-a-Bid. Access to the program is free of charge on-line and once a brief form is completed, the BBB provides the homeowner up to 3 estimates from a BBB Accredited Businesses within their own community for consideration.  More about BBBs Request-a-Bid program can be found at www.bbb.org by clicking on the “for consumers” link.

Consumers can eliminate less-than-reputable contractors’ right from the start by considering a list of traits common to rip-off artists. The Better Business Bureau advises consumers to beware of the following signs that can indicate a contractor may not be the best choice:

• Solicits door-to-door: Be suspicious of contractors who attempt to gain business by visiting door-to-door. Good contractors do not need to drum up business by making this type of sales call – even if they’re working next door.  
• Pressures you for an immediate decision: A reputable professional will recognize that you need time to consider many factors when deciding which contractor to hire. You will want to check references; look into the contractor’s standard of work and his professional designations and affiliations; verify his insurance; check to see if he needs a license (and if so, that it is valid); get written estimates from several firms based on identical project specifications, and, contact the Better Business Bureau at bbb.org to see if there is a company file on record.  
• Asks for full payment up-front or demands only cash: Whatever the reason, never pay for the entire project upfront. Payments should be by credit card of check so that credit card statements or cancelled checks can provide proof of payment. Do not pay anything until after the first day of work, and then pay up to one-third. Make additional payments during the project contingent upon completion of a defined amount of work. Do not make the final payment or sign an affidavit of final release until you are satisfied with the work and have proof that the subcontractors and suppliers have been paid. 
• Avoids signing a contract:  Handshakes are a good idea – if they come with a contract. Even for a small job, work should not begin without a signed written contract that includes all verbal promises that were made by the contractor. Be sure that the contract includes a start and completion date, a breakdown of the cost and information about the contractor, including license number, street address and phone number. 
• Has materials left over from a previous job: Raise a red flag if a contractor shows up offering a cut-rate price on a project because they have materials left over from a recent job. This is a common ploy of fly-by-night operators or handymen who are based out-of-state and use their pick-up trucks as their place of business. 
• Asks you to get the required building permits: This could be a sign that the contractor is hoping to avoid contact with the local agency that issues such permits. Perhaps he is not licensed or registered. A competent contractor will get all the necessary permits before starting work on your project. 
• Suggests you borrow from a particular lender: Do not agree to financing through the contractor or someone they suggest. Many people have been ripped off when they agreed to use the suggested lender; sign a lot of papers in a rush; and find out later that they had agreed to a home equity loan with a very high rate, points and fees. Secure financing on your own by shopping around and comparing loan terms.

For more trustworthy information on contractor businesses, consumers can access BBB Reliability ReportsTM online, free of charge, at www.bbb.org.

# # #

About BBB
BBB is an unbiased non-profit organization that sets and upholds high standards for fair and honest business behavior. Businesses that earn BBB accreditation contractually agree and adhere to the organization’s high standards of ethical business behavior. BBB provides objective advice, free business BBB Reliability ReportsTM and charity BBB Wise Giving ReportsTM, and educational information on topics affecting marketplace trust. To further promote trust, BBB also offers complaint and dispute resolution support for consumers and businesses when there is difference in viewpoints. The first BBB was founded in 1912. Today, 126 BBBs serve communities across the U.S. and Canada, evaluating and monitoring more nearly four million local and national businesses and charities. Please visit www.bbb.org for more information about BBB.

Anyway, it was during those salad days that I launched the much-heralded, super-hyped “What Were They Thinking?” contest. (You’ve probably seen the billboards, heard the commercials. I think Willie Nelson even wrote a jingle – or maybe it was Kris Kristofferson.  Yeah, I know. Total saturation. But a girl gets used to it. At least, that’s what Kristi tells me.)

As for the contest, we had many good/awful entries, all visible here.

(Thank you — or, my condolences? – to all who submitted shots. Believe me, I feel your pain — a unique and nauseating sensation that’s sort of like chewing aluminum foil after you’ve eaten way too many Peeps.)

A few weeks back, I promised all of you, dear (more-than-three-readers), that our judging panel was in the throes of choosing a winner, and that results were on their way. Then I proceeded totally blow things off, freak-out and get overwhelmed and take a temporary ”blog nap,” so to speak. Sorry about that. (When I say blow things off, I mean blow everything off, except the stuff that would really get me in trouble, like bills and work and stuff. I’m sure this mood will pass once it warms up. Yes, boy-oh-boy I sure am, by golly!)

But baby steps, right?  

So, TODAY, I shall deliver on one promise I made, and broke – as I sit, passive-aggressively waiting for two “call-backs” and to hear, from my editor, whether a story I “pitched” will be deemed good enough for print (sort of a double-edged sword: If they like it I have to write it but I get to feel all validated; if they don’t like it, I get my feelings hurt but I don’t have to actually work on the thing. Hmmmmm. What to root for?)

But back to my topic: OUR CONTEST WINNER!

Congratulations “CG”, owner of Easter Bunny Tile Bathroom! You are the winner of our “What Were They Thinking?” contest, and a $50 gift certificate to a local hardware store. (So, CG, please send us — meaning me, searls@timesunion.com –  an e-mail, and we’ll figure out the details).

(Above: Another view of this truly baffling arrangement of pastel tiles — which we “judges” need to stop looking at right now because we’re actually starting to find it a little… oh… appealing? Or maybe we’ve just had too many Red Bulls.)

We could pick only one winner. However, we received some truly wonderful/terrible entries (25-ish in total. I say “ish,” because I…  I mean we…  suspect a few of the photos ended up in our virtual album, thus our contest, by accident. Case in point: The apples photo. Yo Thomas, what was up with that?) 

There was Big Brown Bathroom (because there really is no such thing as too many fake-louver cabinet doors):

And “Greg Brady’s Room,” because we simply can not get enough paneling:

And “Arm Rest or Cat Ledge?” As the photo’s poster commented: “We are trying to figure out why we have a half wall next to the toilet. Is there plumbing inside? Is the wall behind it for support?”   

We submit that it is a modesty panel — of the thong variety.

Visit our community album for the full tour. Try not to feel too superior as you do so. Imagine what they’ll be saying about overstuffed couches and ”suburban Baroque” in 30 years.   

PS — CG, I’ll talk to you soon.

As for “A Work In Progress,” I’m still not planning on returning full-force before mid-to-late April. But who knows? I’m terrible with schedules.

Today, I give myself THREE HAMMERS, for doing something I’d been putting off:

I felt compelled to revisit and repair all the spelling errors (including the one in the headline) within my last post (see what happens when you try to blog at 4 a.m.? I do not recommend it; and for all those preparing to chastise me for bad spelling, please be gentle.)

I also wanted to say thank you for your kind messages, and for your readership over these past — what? — six-ish months? It means — has meant? — a lot. When you live alone in a big old, drafty, half-finished house that smells way too much like cat pee (long, horrible story that is still a little too disturbing for me to openly discuss), it’s easy to get sort of… lost.    

It’s been a particularly trying week, and perhaps this hiatus decision is a too-hasty response to that (so says Stephanie, holding an ice-pack to her aching and swollen, cracked wisdom tooth, trying to finish writing the Life-Health Checkup roundup. When it rains crap, it pours crap, no?).

Who knows, maybe I will drop in a for a surprise visit before my official return, though I don’t think anything’s too official when it comes to the blogs. (Plus, I’m sure you’re all dying to hear the cat pee story. I shudder just thinking about it, and am at this very moment actively working to erase all traces of it from my mind.)

Which reminds me: We have chosen a winner for the “What Were They Thinking Contest!!” What? You were thinking I totally forgot? (OK, I did totally forget, for, like, a whole week). How about this: I’m going to ice my cheek, finish my calendar, and try to purge my brain over the weekend, after finishing a story that was due yesterday, on my laptop at home, where I can cry and ice my cheek and feel sorry for myself without inspiring scheidenfreude, concern, or pity from anyone forced to witness. (Hey, sometimes ya’ just gotta go with it.) 

BUT I PROMISE. Next week we shall post the winning photo, and present our grand prize at a gala, red carpet event, certain to draw glitterati from around the globe.

OK. That was a lie. There will be no ceremony, but there is a cool $50 gift certificate prize, that I’m pretty sure I got prior expense approval for. (As my mom used to say: ”If you don’t ask, they can’t say ’No.’ “) But really, I’m pretty sure I asked. And I’m pretty sure they didn’t say no.  

So, until then, thanks for tuning in.

And if you’re looking for a good roofer, beware a kind-seeming older gent with a slight limp and a cute-as-a-button-child on his arm. Should you have the misfortune to make his professional acquaintance, gimme a holler. 

I got a bone to pick.   

As you know, I write long. So it follows that I would be, and am, a crappy blogger in that regard.

I seem to have gotten myself into a situation that I shall describe, in a word, as overloaded. And I don’t want to short-shrift you.

I will muddle through this — see light, I expect — by late April. Then I shall return, with bells (and hammers) on. I promise.

In the meantime, should you have a good, topical house question (that I can easily answer from personal experience or otherwise), please ask.

I truly cherish you, and any e-mail that A) Is not directed blindly to every journalist in the continental U.S. and B) Is in earnest, I will try to respect with a response.

Again, my apologies. And a promise to return to regular blogging soon –once my cluster-mess of a schedule (once I can find it) again has enough space to doodle in.

Steph 

Unlike now, when I was in college I didn’t have a lot of space to work with as a goth decorator. I had to fit a lot of dark and mysterious decor into an eggshell-white-walled, small-ish room (less than 100 square feet, give or take, including a closet that was – in keeping with goth parlance — roughly the size of a coffin). Few of these decorating essentials – new wave and industrial band posters, candles, voodoo items straight from a tourist shop in The French Quarter – had a half-life that extended beyond my undergraduate tenure.

But that doesn’t mean my murkier side doesn’t still shine through in my environment, even now that I am a “grown up” and own my own home — where I can paint the walls whatever color (or medley of colors) I want. 

I’m not the only erstwhile goth whose dark roots still show. 

The above photo showcases the finished “black wall project” in the NYC apartment of my friend, Becky (nee “Bequi,” or “Bequeth,” unique, alternative spellings she favored during a younger era), with whom I grew up, and with whom (until her family moved to Richmond) I briefly shared membership in the “alternative crowd” in Berkeley Springs, WV. Of course, “crowd” is overstating things a bit. But by the standards of Berkeley Springs High School (9th-12th grade population well under 400), it fit. Strange, but a black wall looks way more Martha Stewart than it should, don’t ya think? By the way, that’s not Becky shown celebrating the new black paint job in this photo, hence the peppery “obscuring.” (And, just in case Becky’s landlord happens to stumble across this blog: I wonder how many coats of primer it takes to cover a black-painted wall…? )  

I don’t have any black walls in my house, and my Cabaret Voltaire and Bauhaus posters are probably at the bottom of some Chapel Hill-area landfill, if there’s even that much of them left. I do, however, utilize a host of other goth essentials, cleverly masquerading/re-purposed as Arts & Crafts decor. Here are just a few you’ll find scattered throughout my house: 

• Black lace, arranged as a valance
• Black, dark orange and red candles
• Vintage clothing that I cannot or will not wear, just hanging around (on the walls, or suspended from curtain rods) for no good reason (A good reason being, for instance: It won’t fit in the closet, and I respect it too much to throw it on the floor of the closet with the rest of my clothes)
• Sconces, in places they shouldn’t be
• Things that are draped (fabric, usually; sometimes broken necklaces) over other things, like lampshades
• A noticeable absence of light-colored wood
• Spiderwebs (real)
• Spiderwebs (fake)
• A silver Christmas wreath on my front door, interlaced with metallic orange wire which is decorated with metallic orange pumpkins
• A silver Christmas wreath on my front door (see above for further description), decorated with a bendy, six-inch-high, anatomically correct, plastic human skeleton
• A cow’s skull and partial backbone, sitting on my front porch (or, what’s left of them. The squirrels have been gnawing away at their edges for about four years, and the cow’s nose bone is nearly gone. I figure in a year or so I will step onto the porch to find a squirrel bounding away with the final fragment of vertebrae).
• Many well-worn Asian throw rugs  
• Goblets
• Lots of stained glass, on walls and in windows, which tends to filter any stray sunlight that might try to gain entry
• A signed Edward Gorey print

Check out this site for more tips on goth decorating - painting rooms dark colors, creating cheap-yet-stygian artwork, finding and hanging somber-colored Christmas lights, etc.

If it doesn’t succeed in darkening your room, it should at least darken your mood. (Like I need the help…)

Sure, the house is 100 years old, and the parts that haven’t been remodeled (meaning, the main floor), are still all lath and plaster. Before things like Sheetrock came around, lath (meaning: strips of slim boards) and plaster (meaning: plaster) were the materials once used to create walls. That was back when chain gangs were brought in to do construction labor and contractors wanted to make the work as complicated and Sisyphean and messy and awful as possible. I’ve heard stories about how workers who keeled over from exhaustion during this inhumane installation process were simply walled up inside the building. That was before Congress passed the Safe Plaster Workers Act of 1912 — luckily the year prior to the construction of my home. Whew. Explains the no ghosts thing.

Lath and plaster walls do not like to be messed with. They especially do not like it if you want to hang a picture and you do something silly like try to nail a nail into them. This can cause tectonic shifts in your entire house, including fractures that run from floor to ceiling. Sometimes, lath and plaster walls decide to fall apart all by themselves, though. This happened in my living room. A few years ago, in a fleeting energetic mood, I chipped off all the peeling plaster (which always ends up being more than you anticipated — chipping and chipping and chipping away, even in spots that seemed solid mere seconds before). I applied new plaster over it – even going so far as to mimic the swishy design in the old plaster.

Now, it’s happening in my kitchen, in a spot over the doorway. It started more than a year ago as a single crack, but it’s much worse now — like a boiled egg, if you dropped it while juggling. Unfortunately, the kitchen is bright orange, so the cracks (which show the white plaster beneath) are very noticeable. I’m going to have to fix them – or at least add that repair project to the long list of plaster work I’ve got ahead of me in the coming months.

But part of me sort of wants to wait it out, to see just how long it will take for an entire chunk to break entirely free and hit the floor. I’m sure I could handle that, so long as there’s nothing too creepy underneath — like spiders, or a skeleton.

Sorry, I haven’t had enough coffee and I’m trying to get pumped enough to make it through the day…

Anyway… next week, we WILL be judging, and promptly awarding Top Prize — a $50 gift certficate to a local home improvement store — to the entrant who (in our opinion) faced, or faces, the most atrocious remodeling/redecorating project. I’ve already talked to my editor about this, so there’s no more wiggle room — for me, or for you. Sigh.

On a brighter note, the gift certificate should help our winner/s kick-start their endeavor (or, if the renovations have already been done, they can reward themselves with a brand new home improvement item. I do not recommend plumber’s putty, incidentally.) 

THE DETAILS: Send us photos of the design/decor nightmares you’ve faced when moving into your new home. Post your photos HERE  If you’ve got photos of the room post-renovation, feel free to include those too.

Hey, even if you just want to check out the 22 or so photos  that are already on the site, go for it. It’s a hoot. (I can’t believe I just wrote that… but see above comment about coffee.)

For quick inspiration, here are two of the “gems” we’ve received so far. Think you can beat them? Then ENTER!!

(And by “beat them,” we don’t mean beat them with a baseball bat … though we’d really have to leave that decision up to the owners.):

Our thoughts? You should never let the Easter Bunny do your tiling.

(Above photo submitted by CG. )

Holy brown, Batman!  Other than that, we’re at a loss for words… but we’re suddenly craving a key party.

(Submitted by Leslie Roods)

(Continued from yesterday) 

…. and so it was past 2 a.m., and I called my dad.

The phone rang, and rang, and rang.

It rang enough times — what is the magic number, five rings? six? four? –  for me to enter the “second thoughts” phase. You know that threshold, which becomes even more pronounced after midnight. The point where you: 

• Suddenly realize that you are, in fact, insane and shouldn’t be calling for such a stupid reason at such a stupid hour 
• Kick yourself for not hanging up after a respectable number of unanswered rings (even though the caller ID would have busted you, and a panicked return call was inevitable)
• Hope that – please please — no one notices and the call goes to voice mail (though, again, you’re well past the point of phone call revocation. See above.) 
• Begin casting about frantically for the appropriate opening line (something like “Don’t panic!” or “Everything’s OK!” or maybe “Plumber’s putty! This is just about the plumber’s putty!”)

Finally, after forever, my dad answered, blearily. He knew it was me, thank you caller ID.

“Stephanie?” 

I opened with a broadside, a last-minute tactical decision.  

“I woke you up. I’m sorry. Everything’s OK. Really. This is no big deal. I did, didn’t I? I woke you up. God, I’m so sorry. Are you mad?” Then, a deft and calculated shift: “I thought you stayed up, like, way late. You’re supposed to be awake!!” 

My dad laughed – a sour, jagged and unsettling chuckle he reserves for situations that, in his opinion, most exquisitely communicate the unfairness of life. This laugh always makes me shiver and want to reach for my Buddy pillow (which is really more of a rag, but I shall valliantly fight the urge to digress.)

“Well, you are right,” Dad said, talking through the creepy laugh. (Hey, I just realized that my Dad hardly ever uses contractions. Interesting.) Anyway, Dad continued: “I usually am awake at this time. You are right.”

Except, he hadn’t slept at all the previous night, so had gone to bed early — midnight. It’s something that happens to him, maybe, once every few months. Figures I’d pick that night to make my stupid, petty wee hours call about plumber’s putty.

“Listen,” I said. “It’s no big deal. Forget it. Go back to sleep.”

Nope. He was up now, damage done. I had to finish what I started.

Fine. “Do you know where the plumber’s putty is?” I asked.

I won’t go into the details of the ensuing conversation, but to sum up: It involved me attempting to explain what was wrong with the drain, what plumber’s putty looked like, what I wanted to do with it, what I was doing up at 2 a.m. messing with plumbing, why I didn’t just put a bowl under the drip, and, most importantly, why I’d waited ’til the last minute to pack. 

Our Pinter-esque plumbing conversation went a little like this:

Dad: What is wrong, exactly?

Me: There’s a drip. I need something pliable to stick in the ball thing so the water doesn’t squish out when I put it back together. My travel shampoo smells like mushrooms. Gross.

Dad: Just turn off the water. Can you not do that? You should be in bed.

Me: I don’t want to contain the drip. I want to fix it. I think the water’s coming out around the ball thing that’s in the socket thing, though I may have stripped the washer thing when I unscrewed it, so that could be leaking too. Man, it totally stinks down here.

Dad: Hmm. So, you say you have a leak?  

I grabbed a flashlight and went back into the basement, the most likely spot for AWOL putty. No dice. But I did find a roll of plumber’s tape. If I had been a cartoon character, this is the point where a light bulb would have appeared over my head (which would have been really convenient, since I was in the basement workroom, site of a mangled wiring project that decommissioned the overhead lighting roughly two summers ago.)

I told Dad about the tape, and my exciting new plan, and that I’d call him back. Fifteen minutes later, I had taped the (thankfully not stripped) threads of some drain part whose proper name I do not know, and screwed in the piece with the ball-thing and the long pin-thing. I turned on the water, and crouched back down to observe.

No leak. I cupped my hand under the pipe. Bone dry. I felt around for tell-tale wetness. Nothing.

Yay!

The phone rang. My dad. I told him what I’d accomplished. He congratulated me. My guilt at waking him, and his (I am sure) annoyance at being woken, were eclipsed by our shared celebration.

I won’t go into the additional half-hour it took for him to explain to me, and me to figure out, how to re-insert the long pin thing into its proper spot. It fits into the plunger, which is riddled flute-like with a series of holes, and is held in place by the tension created by a piece of bent metal. Erg. Even thinking about it makes me all anxious and sweaty. I still can’t wrap my head around it. But moving on…

So, my leak was fixed. And it was approaching 4 a.m. I wasn’t packed, my sheets were probably still wet, and I was nowhere near ready to hit the road, or bed. 

What’s more, I now had to Lysol and Clorox the under-sink area. I did not want to come home to a stink like that, no way. I opened up the linen closet, which was cleverly hiding about about three feet from my impromptu work station on the bathroom floor. 

There, sitting smugly in front of the cleaning supplies, was my plumber’s putty…

… which, by the way, is no longer my favorite home improvement product.  Not by a long shot. (You hear that, plumber’s putty? Yup. That’s right. I’m so over you.)

**  Normally, a house project success story like this would warrant the granting of multiple hammers. But not today. I promised to start writing shorter, remember? And, clearly, I have failed — by, I’m guessing, a novella or so. 

Bad Stephanie. No hammers for you!

I opened the doors beneath the upstairs bathroom sink, in search of my travel shampoo kit… and was hit by a blast of stinky, mildewy funk so powerful that it literally brought tears to my eyes (you know how I feel about bad smells, particularly sickly-sweet mildewy ones).

Clearly, there was some kind of leak. Clearly, I was going to have to find out what was going on.

There was no way I was taking off with that kind of house issue hanging over my head. If I did, that’s all I would be able to think about for the next three days (I have a sneaking suspicion that my house waits for me to leave before it busts out with something really traumatic. Case in point: The final salvo of my long-term roof leak, that led to my decision to re-roof.)

The sink leak nightmares I envisioned: Mold spreading like an oil slick or a horror movie from the cabinet and onto the bathroom floor, up the walls, into the hall. Pressure building up, the bursting of something important and gasket-like, then the gushing of water, seeping through the kitchen ceiling, trickling down the stairs, soaking my hardwood into the mushy state of wet bread.  

So, bit by bit, wincing, nose pinched shut, scared at what I would ultimately find, I began clearing out the under-sink cabinet. This reeking junk included:

• Four broken hair-dryers and part of a broken curling iron.
• Three circle brushes for curling-while-drying-hair (the instructions neglect to mention that you must also be a multi-armed Hindu deity to achieve this effect to any noticeable degree) 
• A bulk package of Irish Spring soap, which I have never used in my life.
• Four sticks of men’s deodorant, which (again) I have never used in my life.
• Shampoos and conditioners and other hair products that had been banished from shower-side after they failed to thicken or otherwise improve my hair as promised.
• Some old dollar store cleaning products I don’t remember buying.
• A bottle of my favorite talc, which I am now afraid to use because I read that talc causes ovarian cancer.     

Once the cabinet was empty, I got a better sense of the problem. It was, indeed, a leak– one that had slowly advanced from a spot beneath the pipes to the very perimeter of the cabinet. It didn’t appear to be leaking at the moment. I cupped one palm under the elbow of the pipe and I turned on the cold water. There it was — a slow drip, pooling in my hand.  

Apparently, I’d screwed something up when I’d put the drain back together in December. And ever since then, every time I left the water running for Strange New Cat, I was creating an unholy stinky morass down below.

I disassembled the drain — the stopper and plunger — and figured out that the leak was coming from the spot where the pin attaches to the ball… that attaches to the drain stopper, so that when you lift or press the plunger up above, the drain stopper moves up or down. (Trust me, I know this sounds confusing — and I’m only guessing at the proper names. I will try to take a close-up picture and add it tonight, as a visual aid.)  

Didn’t matter that the drain apparently didn’t leak when the water wasn’t turned on above it — and, since I was leaving, there would be no one to turn the water on.

What if Strange New Cat Somehow managed to bump the faucet, and turn it on? What then?  

I had to fix it. Right that second. At  2 a.m.

For some reason, I decided that to do this I needed plumber’s putty. I should admit here that I feel about plumber’s putty the way my dad feels about caulk: That it can fix just about anything, and even if it can’t, you should go ahead and try. It’s my comfort product. The macaroni-and-cheese of the home improvement world.  Don’t ask me why I feel this way. I just do. 

Of course, I knew on some level that plumber’s putty wouldn’t solve anything. While the putty is very multi-purpose, and can plug just about anything (at least temporarily), it wasn’t appropriate for my present kind of leak. Still, I had to have it. I obsessively searched in all the likely spots – the attic and the basement, which my father had recently organized, the junk drawer and the plastic container labeled “plumbing” stacked downstairs. 

If I could just find my putty, I told myself, everything would be OK. I could move on. Pack. Sleep. But my putty, which I could have sworn I saw just a day ago, in some place really obvious, was nowhere to be found. I don’t remember exactly, but I might have even squirted out a few tears of frustration.  

It was past 2:00 a.m. now.

I called my dad.

Wait!!! Before you call me totally rude and selfish for doing this, know that since retiring, my father has become the textbook definition of a night owl. At 2:30 or 3 a.m., he is traditionally still awake, or just preparing for bed. Even when he stays with me, he stays up ’til ridiculous hours. On several nights, as I padded blearily to the bathroom at 3 or 4 a.m., I recall seeing a ribbon of light under the door of the guest bedroom, and hearing the crinkle-snap of turning magazine pages.  

On this particular night, however, Dad was not awake at his usual hours. At least, not until I called.

(To be continued, tomorrow)

I write long. It’s a problem I have. Just ask any of my editors. It’s also made blogging really, really difficult (and time consuming). Unsupervised, I tend to … oh, get sidetracked, wander off and linger enjoying the scenery, the sounds, the smells, the words. Usually, I don’t realize I’ve lost track of myself, and time, until it’s too late, and — even if I just gave up and ran for broke – I’d still get back too late to get my Life Health centerpiece in before deadline. 

I’m working on it — the writing shorter thing. But, until such time as I have mastered it, I am going to do what a friend suggested and break my longer blog posts into segments. Each will end with a cliffhanger so suspenseful your sleep may be affected.  The questions will dog you at odd, and unexpected times: Will she actually clean the kitty litter? Did she find the source of the rotten funk in her fridge, or just decide to live with it? Did she ever finish that attic? Oh, the anticipation!!   

OK. Maybe I’m overselling, just a bit. But here you go. And in the meantime, I’ll be working at writing shorter. Seriously. — S

For some reason, when I’m leaving town for a few days, I have to clean my house. Not just pick up here and there. I mean furiously, Pine-Sol-vacuum-mop-sweep-launder-everything clean. It’s so obsessive that, honestly, it’s a little scary.

But I hate returning home from a trip, tired and sore, to a total mess. Of course, I don’t have a problem at all with living on a day to day basis in a total mess, amid overflowing trash cans and piled clothes and stacks of dirty dishes that I couldn’t manage to Tetris into the dishwasher, which I haven’t gotten around to running because I haven’t gotten around to buying detergent.

Maybe it’s like that old parental warning about wearing clean underpants – because you never know what could happen. I sincerely doubt my house is going to get into an accident while I’m gone, but if it did, I wouldn’t want the burglars or the firefighters passing judgement on me or anything. Insult to injury and all that.

So I was furiously cleaning up my house last week, before a trip to West Virginia, when I went in search of my travel shampoo kit, which I keep under the sink in the upstairs bathroom. Now, there are lots of places in my house where I rarely venture unless I’ve lost something or am really, really bored. The refrigerator. The upstairs hall closet. The guest room. The linen closet. And, yes, under the upstairs sink. The last time I visited that spot was in December, when I had to disassemble the ridiculously complicated drain  so I could pull out the plunger and free a massive clog created (no doubt) by the fur of Strange New Cat.

He likes to drink from the faucet. Doesn’t matter where he is in the house, if he hears me walking up the stairs, he’s there as fast as his (clipped) toenails will carry him — in the process, he slams into walls (cats don’t corner so well at high speeds), slides into furniture, trips up the stairs. Sometimes, he even plows into my legs in his race to beat me to the bathroom, curl into the sink and lift his chin to lick the spigot, like a reclining bacchanal accepting fresh grapes from a concubine. I usually give him what he wants. Sometimes, I leave the faucet on (a low trickle) while I go about other business upstairs — getting dressed, or showering, etc.  His intrusion does make it difficult to brush my teeth, however (though he doesn’t seem to mind toothpaste swill on his head). Anyway, I blame him for my clog. 

It was about 2 a.m., the dishes and laundry were clean, and I was finally thinking about going to sleep, between my fresh, slightly damp (I’m impatient) sheets. I figured I’d throw a few things into my suitcase, then hit the sack, finish packing the following morning.

But then I opened the undersink cabinet door. Big mistake.