And thus it was that our heroine didst bathe

Gentle readers, how glad I am that I did not post last night. I would have been cranky. Cranky? Moi! How can that be? Am I not the very model of sweetness and light?

I am so long as I have running water, apparently.

Our Hero Michael, whom I love dearly and who can do no wrong, left us yesterday afternoon with a wee little predicament..

We are in the stairwell down to the basement, which is currently open to the bathroom. The wood at left is, I believe, a stud in the bathroom wall. The green stuff is the backing of the shower insert. The PIPE is one of the two that feeds the shower. There’s another just like it, just out of sight. What makes this pipe special is, there is no shut-off valve on it. Which means that if you turn on the water in the kitchen…

…to deal with the infestation of dirty dishes (they breed if left unattended), a veritable GUSH explodes out of the top of that pipe, and all over the basement steps and floor.

This is where I got cranky.

Michael, bless his heart, had gone home and immediately went out to stand in line for hours to obtain tickets for his family for the midnight opening of Harry Potter vs The Bad Guys Part 1. Not that there’s much he could have done for us last night, anyway.

Thus it was that Kevin and I went out last night to go to a Martin Sexton concert. He was playing up in White River Junction at a little place that seats about 300. O Heavenly Angels, thank you for sharing one of your own with the currently incarnated batch of peeps.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lT4pWJxKHhk

Around 2:25 in to the above version is where he cuts loose – this’ll make you glad you were born.

When we got home around 10:30 or so, Kevin used his amazing logic tools and determined that we could actually use the upstairs bathroom. Yay! And thus it was that our heroine didst bathe.

This morning, Michael got to work with his torch.

The camera couldn’t figure out what to focus on, so this is blurry.

Anyway, that’s a shut-off valve he’s installing on the pipe. The process involved little spatters of solder on the bathroom floor, which are quite pretty and now affixed to my bulletin board.

Michael completely and thoroughly redeemed himself by figuring out what to do with this problem:

The pipes to the sink faucets currently lie outside where the new vanity will be by nearly a foot. At first we thought we would either buy, or ask Michael to build, some kind of mini-me cabinet to house these pipes. But Michael realized he could re-arrange them, and have them make their ninety-degree turn (circled in the picture) as soon as they pop up through the floor from the basement. They’ll lie underneath the new flooring, and pop up into the vanity right under where the faucet itself will be. How clever is that? Very, I say. Saves us a bunch of money, too.

What did I do today? Burned fossil fuels. Someone’s gotta do it.

• bought grab bars and a new new fan/light combo
• got new water filters, since we realized we had sedimentary goo in ours.
• got a replacement headlight for Kevin’s car. As if to help me remember this particular errand, I noticed an epidemic of what I call pediddles, and Kevin calls pop-eyes, out on the road today.
• got other random household stuff.
• got a humanely, etc. raised turkey breast for T-day next week.
• vowed to make an apple pie, with an actual real crust that requires a rolling pin.

Naturally, since I expect this last one will take practice, I got enough apples for um, three or four pies.

By the time I got home, laden with goodies, Michael had left for the day and Kevin showed me around. The shower is officially In Place. Extra backing bits are in the right places for the grab bars.

The drain actually works. Tomorrow, he’ll install the faucet and shower head. And after that comes a whole lot of drywall activity. And the vanity! Let’s not forget the vanity.

Here’s it is, waiting its turn.

Time to feed the ravenous hordes, aka Charlie and Maggie.