Thursday, June 10, 2021

tree, plumbing, and weather woes


Back before I started to make my living as an artist I had several various jobs one of which was working in a bookstore. I held that job for a year before I quit because the boss/owner wouldn't give me the raise I felt I deserved. I liked the job but the owner was a real asshole. The manager though was really nice. One day in the middle of the work day, the owner assholed me because I started straightening up one of the book racks instead of asking him what he wanted me to do and when he finished I silently walked away, got my stuff out of the back room and walked out. The manager, Sherry I think her name was, was frantic wanting to get hold of me and talk me out of quitting because she, at least, recognized my value but this was during that period of time when I didn't have a phone as I was being incommunicado with my parents. She was relieved to see me walk in the next morning hoping I still had a job because I needed that job since my then rat bastard husband was unemployed (which he was for most of our marriage).

Anyway, Sherry would drink hot coffee all day during the summer which I thought was ridiculous since it made her sweat but she claimed drinking hot coffee kept her cooler because of the sweat evaporating. I didn't believe it then and I can tell you today that it's a bunch of hogwash. Because I'm sitting here in my air conditioned house right now (well, 78˚ of air conditioning) with a small heater in the shape of a dog laying in my lap, drinking hot coffee and sweating and I do not feel cool. I feel HOT and I wish I wasn't sweating in an air conditioned house while being still.

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I finally got around to hanging the four botnica eroticas that I decided to keep for myself. Wasn't hard to decide to keep some since only one has sold in the six years since I finished this body of work so I guess, really, I'm keeping all of them, but I hung these four on the wall.



And now from the JFC Department:



We just got the last enormous branch that fell cut up and moved to the burn pile. This makes four in the last year. This one hasn't detached completely, a long not particularly stout branch that finally got too heavy at the far end.

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Rocky finally had a window open to come and replace all the cracked and shattered PVC water pipes over at the shop so that's going on today and I'll be glad to have a functioning toilet over there again. The quick job it looked like, replacing all the PVC, turned into way more work. Of course. Where the water comes into the shop on the back left corner, the pipes are galvanized and the galvanized goes all the way across above my new ceiling in my new room to where it changes to PVC to the sink in there and from there the PVC goes across the big open bay to the outdoor hose bib on the front right of the shop. So when he turned on the water to test the pipes, water started spewing out of a crack in the galvanized where it first comes into the shop. Fingers crossed that the galvanized pipe that runs across my new studio room is intact when they test the pipes again.

It's brutal over there as we've been hitting mid-90s all week. I hadn't been over there in a couple of months and the dewberry vines were out of control so I cleared them out from in front of the bay doors, well, two of them anyway before the heat and humidity made me quit.



before


after

Update: at 4 PM I told Rocky don't you want to quit for the day. No, he says, been here all day and I'm gonna finish this one section and we'll be done. Famous last words. Finally turned the water back on and it all seemed to be holding, holding, holding, and then the sound of gushing water. Turn it off turn it off!!! Apparently the pressure popped the connection to the sink off. By this time, it's 5PM and Rocky just threw up his hands. I give up. We'll finish this tomorrow. More discussion and we've decided to go ahead and just replace all the galvanized pipe that crosses above the ceiling of the studio. Of course all the galvanized pipes to the toilet and sink in the half bath over there are behind the new wall so we're hoping against hope that those are intact. No way to know until the water's been on for more than a minute. 



15 comments:

  1. Reading about the plumbing woes there reminded me when Roger worked doing carpentry for many years in Santa Cruz. He and his fellow carpenter and construction people could fix anything, but they always said, "Plumbing is the bane of my existence." I hope you get it all worked out and things stay flowing in the right way and dry in the right way.
    Love your artwork, and I hope things cool down there.

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    1. yep, it's never just one problem with plumbing.

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  2. Your art wall looks amazing! So glad you kept them.

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  3. It's always something -- and yet you still create, garden and do so much. I need some of what your taking.

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  4. I love your art wall! We have never hung anything up in our house because our lease forbids nails & we just couldn't be bothered to figure out what else we could use. Yes, we are that lazy.

    Sorry about the plumbing woes - that sounds like a major pain!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. This product line is great. I've used them a lot, and when you follow the directions, they don't hurt the paint.
      https://www.command.com/3M/en_US/command/products/

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  5. IT'S ALWAYS SOMETHING!
    Damn water pipes. Poor you. Poor Rocky. He sounds like my husband when I beg him to come inside and get cooled off. It's ridiculous working in this heat.
    Dang pecan trees. They just drop a branch whenever they feel like it.
    And I too love your wall art. Those botanicals are charming.

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  6. Plumbing is the worst. All my house worries seem to start with the sound of water dripping where it oughtn't. I hope yours gets fixed once and for all. Plumbing, that is!

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  7. It is even too hot here in Illinois so you must be roasting! I tried to work on the back bushes and lasted about an hour. I was just dripping so that's it for the day.
    Sorry for your plumbing problems.

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  8. OH My. I too am sorry for your plumbing disasters.

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  9. You know, I drink coffee every day at the same time regardless of the heat or cold. It's just my routine. One cup in early morning, one mid-morning, one early afternoon.

    In Morocco (where it gets really bloody hot, although less humid than Texas) the Moroccans drink hot tea all the time. This mystified me but they also insisted it would keep me cooler -- raising my body temperature and thus inducing sweating. I was skeptical but it's interesting how that myth exists in multiple cultures.

    The glass pieces look great on your wall! And Lord, I hope that pipe mess gets sorted out. It sounds like a nightmare.

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  10. The plumbing sounds awful. Especially the plumbing behind the new wall.

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  11. When I lived in Liberia, there were a lot of Lebanese and Indians who would drink coffee or tea in the heat, and they insisted that it was the way to go. I will say that I can't drink iced drinks in the heat any more; it's as though the contrast is just too much. Cool is ok, but cold is a shock to my system. The one custom I did adopt was sprinkling the sheets with water before I went to bed. With no AC and no fans, you'd think it wouldn't make any difference anyway, but it did. Slight, but still...

    Those botanical pieces look terrific on that wall. I like the contrast between the wood and the glass; it adds to the already substantial interest.

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  12. you have been patient with all that renovation and plumbing, I must write. I love your botanicals. They are really sexy.

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  13. You are in a plumbing disaster movie. Or maybe a series, season 5 , episode 16.
    I hope it gets sorted out.
    I love the eroticas, such subtle colours.
    When we lived in the tropics, just a few degrees south of the equator with high humidity all year round, I learned to drink tea to cool down, essentially it must be made with powdered milk and sugar and you drink it just when it has cooled down enough to not burn your tongue. At work, we were served this twice before lunch and once after by a person who was employed just to make tea and to wave a duster around occasionally. I loved watching her making the tea, lots of ceremonial this and that.

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