12:25 am - Windows and Weather; Windows and Money; Lights and Lessons; Plumbing and Problems
This morning I fell asleep later than I wanted to, and slept for less time than I really needed, but without intense chemical assistance this time -- here's hoping that my legs stay calm enough tonight to do that again.
A thunderstorm blew in, and cooled the house quite a bit before the rain started, which was good -- all too often lately, the rain-going-sideways phase has come before the temperature drop, meaning I close the windows and the house gets even more muggy, without the benefit of cooler outside air. This time the temperature drop and the rainfall came in the proper order. *whew* Though it did get kinda muggy when the post-storm humidity increase more than made up for the temperature drop, sunset started to set things right again.
I had a lot to do, but wanted to go be social anyhow, since I was feeling more human than usual (yay sleep), but I wound up having enough spoons to either make myself fit for the company of others or to get myself out the door at a useful hour, so I wound up showered and dressed and trying to figure out why it was suddenly ninety minutes later than I would've had to leave the house to go to movie night. Bleah. Back to the to-do list after all.
Maybe I can dredge up enough spoons to deal with replacing the bedsheets before I crash.
I tried to make a video this afternoon. The storm clouds had already rolled in, so I'd lost daylight. So I wound up trying to do it with hot lights ... well, one hot light -- I found a halogen floodlamp bulb left over from an old project I never got around to finishing, and stuck it in a table lamp resting on its side. Lessons: hot lights are hot even when it's just one and not a whole theatre-ceiling full (this'd be a good winter project); and I need more lights, and stands and reflectors. Need 'em for still photography too, but was kinda hoping to eventually wind up with studio strobes with less-hot modelling lights in 'em, rather than constantly-on hot lamps. How long until LED studio lights go through enough generations for the first models to start showing up as hand-me-downs? Eight years? Fifteen? Another lesson: scratch out at least an outline of a script, dammit. And double-check the audio before hitting the record button. Oh: and get either a nice, lightweight camcorder or a big-ass tripod capable of properly handling an old video camera.
*sigh* In the why-I-shouldn't-have-people-over column, there's the toilet problem. What I thought was a simple flapper-valve replacement turned out not to be a leaking flapper valve making it run constantly after all. No, the fitting on the underside of the tank where the inlet pipe connects is leaking, and the constantly running sound was the fill pipe trying to replace the water that was dripping onto the floor, running under various things, and when the leak got bigger, eventually making a womdigious puddle that couldn't be mistaken for spillage from the bucket that catches the leak from the hot-water feed to the shower. I'd thought the towels on the floor were too wet too often, but it wasn't until the toilet leak got worse that it became clear. Feh.
I haven't managed to have any effect on it in my attempts so far, and sticking a plastic container under it only worked for a day and a half, after which the leak sped up too much for that to be manageable ... so I've mostly turned off the water going to the toilet (guess what -- the shut-off valve doesn't shut all the way off ... hypothetical if-I-played-the-lottery winnings might be well spend just having a plumber replace every single valve of unknown age as a preventative measure) and propped up the float arm to close the fill-valve in the tank, and I'm flushing the toilet by filling a bucket from the bathtub and dumping that right into the bowl, until I can figure out how to fix the leak for real, or give up on doing it myself and recruit help.
I feel so primitive. It's one thing to go with reduced technology and convenience when camping or doing an SCA event; it's another matter when it's because one's home is falling apart.
I'm tempted to wait for it to get nice and dry and then just encase the whole fitting in a big ol' blob o' caulk. But that would probably just make the proper repair nearly impossible for plumbing-enclued people at some future date, wouldn't it?
I didn't get out to be social, alas, but I did make it as far as a grocery store. I picked one with an ATM from my credit union, so I could check my available balance before shopping, so I'd know whether the deposit had cleared. But they'd had a power outage earlier, and the Diebold (hack - ptui!) ATM had not rebooted correctly:
Oy vey. I did try pressing buttons just in case any of the front panel switches were mapped to the Windows keyboard enter key. No luck.
So I grabbed just a couple of urgent items and went to the checkout to see whether my card would work or not. It did, so I also bought gas on the way home. (That was the other question mark WRT my being social tonight -- not being sure whether I could buy the gas I'd need to get there or not.)
So. It was a day. With any luck, tomorrow will be another. (Well, subjective-tomorrow, since I took long enough finishing this that subjective-tomorrow is already calendar-today. But you know what I mean.)
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