Ramblings from the Gryphon Rose

Monday, December 10, 2007

Ups and Downs—Mostly Ups

Well, most of my weekend rocked.

Friday we gamed. Whee! It had been ages since we’d actually played, so it was nice to get back to it. And we basically wrapped up the first Supernatural story arc—and have a lead-in for the next one. Heh heh.

Saturday we had waterworks. Ugh. We’d noticed a leak under the bathroom sink earlier in the week so I called the plumber and they sent someone out (they asked if I wanted to wait until Monday, which would cost less, but I decided I’d rather have it dealt with while I was home). He took a look, said “yep, it’s your [insert plumbing term here]. No problem.” I’d also asked them to check the drips in the bathtub and the shower—both annoying, both there since we bought the house, neither a major issue—and also asked the plumber if he could actually set the sink flush to the wall (it was out about two inches, and couldn’t simply be shoved back because of the pipes). He said, “Oh, sure. I’ll just need to offset the pipe here” and pointed to show me exactly where. His finger grazed the pipe in question—and it burst. No, I’m not kidding. One minute, steady leak. The next—Boom! Water spraying everywhere!

So he and I go racing downstairs for the water main—past a very confused and amused jendaby. By the time we made it down there, shoved the chair out of the way, opened the utility closet and shut down the water, there was half an inch of water covering the bathroom floor—and water pouring from the living room ceiling. Which is actually a good thing—that was water that had spilled behind the sink and down along the radiator pipe, and if not for pre-existing cracks in the ceiling it might have sat there and rotted beams and such. Instead it drained out. But it meant us scrambling to set up towels and bowls to catch it all, and of course confusing the hell out of my son and the cat (our daughter was not feeling well, and was curled up in the basement watching a DVD and sipping ice water).

The plumber was great, though. Fixing the sink only took him about ten minutes—and it would have burst soon regardless, so definitely better it happened while he was right there. Fixing the bathtub (original fixtures, original washers, now nonexistent) took even less time. Fixing the shower took the longest because the plumbing was original and had never been touched so he had to literally chisel the faucet pipes out of the tiles so he could replace them. But now we have nice new pieces in the shower, new pipes under the sink, and no drips or leaks anywhere. Yay!

The rest of Saturday afternoon was fine—my daughter and son were both cranky, her because she wasn’t feeling well and him just because. After dinner and of course Hanukkah candles we left the kids in deltagrl’s able hands and jendaby and I headed into the city.

First stop was feiran’s birthday dinner. That was great—we had excellent food and a great time. Then we all headed to the subway together and took the train together for a few stops. jendaby and I split off at Times Square to catch the 7 over to Grand Central, and from there we walked to our next destination: our friend Tom’s birthday celebration.

That was also excellent. It was in a bar called the Overlook, and they had the whole upper floor for it—really nice place, very cool, and the bartenders and wait staff were excellent. We hung out and caught up with not only Tom but our friends Scott and Jon, neither of whom we’d seen in years. And then we briefly caught up with our friend Nick on the way out as well. Much fun, and really nice to see some good friends. We took a cab back home—easy enough at the hour—and then toddled off to bed.

Sunday was good. I got up around 9 or so and took the kids downstairs to let jendaby sleep a little more. She came down around 11 and we hung out for a bit before I hit the road to go grocery shopping. The kids were much better that night, and after they went to bed jendaby and I checked email and hung out and watched some Sarah Jane Adventures and chilled a bit. Then I went up and collapsed.

So, all in all a really nice weekend, with lots of friends and lots of snuggling. The only downsides were my daughter not feeling well—and she’s doing better—and the plumbing, which could have been worse and is now all nice and fixed.

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

<< Home