The Sounds of Silence

Stacked firewood

Well… I’m still waiting.

At first I was patiently waiting. Then I was impatiently waiting. Now, I wear earplugs and curse a lot.

When you live where people have cabins, weekends are noisy. I don’t mind that. But it’s the Monday through Friday noise that’s disrupting my mind and soul. If it’s not chain-saws, it’s hammering, men talking (or yelling), cement pumpers, power tools and large trucks.  And that’s just today.

Some days (like today), when it gets really loud and goes on for an hour or more, I let Big Yellow loose. Might as well do housework, if I can’t think well enough to work on my novel. I swap out earplugs for iPod ear-buds and play soothing music to myself. Or hard-assed rock and roll, depending. Even with my ears full of music I can’t take a nap. Along with the headache, no nap makes me, shall we say “grumpy”?

And I hate it when the phone rings and it’s for hubby. This means I have to get my grubby shoes on, go out to the yard, or wherever he is, and wait for a pause in the saw, so I can get his attention and give him the handset.  You won’t hear any feminine voices singing out the window – “honey, the phone’s for you”.  He has very high quality earplugs that can block out everything, including wifely hollering.

There is a chance the autumn firewood cutting will stop this week. Then we should have enough stacked for the winter (please God, let 8 cords be enough!), and maybe, get some quiet around here. Until hubby and friend continue building shelves for the shop. Or whatever noise-making project they think up next.

Thank goodness NaNoWriMo does not begin until November.  I want to finish the draft of the dusty novel I started in 1991, before I get involved with another one.  Wish me luck on that idea  – Ha!
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photo credit: premasagar via photopin cc

It’s In The Mail

Posting by email feels something like publishing an article that your editor has not previewed. My email program does spell check, and I double-check things before I hit the “Send” button with any email.

But this is different.

Maybe I don’t believe it will look how I want it to. Can I really trust using shortcodes or a secret address? I bet this is just the most boring post ever written, but in the spirit of the challenge, so what? I’m learning to post via email, so I can blog while on the road. Not while I am driving, however.

The only thing worse than a boring post, is a long boring post, so I’m signing off!

J

When Sh*t Does NOT Roll Downhill

Caution: If you have a weak stomach, you may want to pass on this post…

I used to think that the saying: “Sh*t rolls downhill” was true in real life, just like it was in the corporate world.

I was wrong.

Because we live up in the mountains, I assumed our sh*t would roll downhill. Given that we live near the top of a mountain, and the law of gravity was on our side, I thought it was safe to flush the toilet.

Here I go, learning something newagain.  I only pass along this knowledge  to you, dear readers, so you are not taken by surprise like I was. Graphic images will not be used (like I had a camera at the time – Ha!)

OK. New homes have all the latest fixtures, they get inspected, during construction, to make sure they conform to all the current building, energy and environmental codes.  Even toilets have to “be up to code”  these days.  Gone are the normal commodes with nice round seats. Say hello to the larger bullet shaped toilets. These are the new environment-friendly and up-to-code potty’s, that don’t use much water.

I will agree that they do not use much water. But, they need to.

The long bullet shape means (pardon my potty talk), that you are now pooping on porcelain and not into water.  AND… because the “low-water flow” flush system cannot dislodge a turd from a level porcelain surface… it just stays there. I repeat – it just stays there. Looking at you. Probably thinking “neener-neener”.

Now, what do you do?

Another flush pushes the turd slightly, and it now creeps slowly toward the hole. When the flush finishes, there is now a turd partway down, plugging up the works, so the 3rd flush almost over-flows turdy water on the floor. You dare not flush again.

So, you stand there stunned, waiting for the water to recede, hoping against hope that the offending turd will disappear (roll downhill) and another flush will get you that sparkling water you started with. Well, you can hope all you want, but it ain’t gonna happen that way.

That 3rd flush takes 12 minutes to trickle down, and the bullet bowl now has a chunky brown lining, and no water.

Lovely.

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, it has come down to the Turd vs. You.  The 4th flush, rapidly accompanied by plunger-humping the toilet bowl, does not go well. The plunger is better at sucking up water than forcing it down the tiny hole. Now you have a whole bowl full of you-know-what AND a poopy plunger to match.

You realize that you are going to have to plunger-hump this stupid bowl  while it’s full of you-know-what, and you are NOT happy. This activity was not on your to-do list for the day. Determined to prevail over this situation (and to hide this embarrassment from your spouse who is due home any minute now), you continue on with this crappy (pun intended) job.

You start plunging very gently, very carefully. The last thing you need is to splash you-know-what all over yourself because that might send you over the edge. After a dozen plunges you figure out that you need to plunge backwards; at a 30 degree angle towards you, instead of away from you, because the bullet bowl’s stupid hole is backwards.

Progress is in the making, and the poop-water in the bowl goes down at last. The 5th flush (along with more backward plunging) goes well, and the 6th flush is accomplished, un-assisted, like the whole thing never happened.

Whew! You vow to never do that again. Then it hits you that all you did was poop, into your very own toilet.  By definition, a toilet is the place for you to do what you did, and the toilet is supposed to take care of whatever you do, in an efficient way.

At least they used to, before they were brought up to code.  😦