Honey Do Projects…

Tracy has been complaining for weeks that my shower doesn’t get hot enough. At first, I didn’t know what to do other than call a plumber and that is expensive. I hated to get Charlie involved. Dad thought I was exaggerating when I would talk about it.

“I liked to have froze my butt off this morning,” she told me tonight. “It is like shards of ice prickling your skin.”

“I’ll see what I can do,” I replied, putting on my best mojo.

I took apart the faucet temperature and flow fixture and there was an o-ring and stopper regulating how hot the faucet water can get. It also had a plastic ring on it as well warning of too hot water. I moved it so you can get much hotter water flowing through. I put everything back together pleased with my efforts. It just took a plier and a screwdriver. The hardest part was getting the tight rubber o-ring to come off. 

“It’s fixed,” I told Tracy enthusiastically. “Be careful because it gets really hot now. If I knew it was going to be that easy to fix, I would have fixed it years ago. I have just put up with a lukewarm shower all this time.”

The shower should be hot and steamy in the morning much to Tracy’s relief and delight.

Sleepyhead…

God willing, I will be able to sleep in tomorrow morning. It is going to be so decadent. I will sleep until time to take my medications at noon.

Hazel? Is That You?

Disclaimer: My house stays pretty clean most days. I had already taken all the trash out before Charlie arrived and he still found more to bag up. You have to watch Charlie or he will throw something out that isn't trash thinking it was trash. Charlie just feels this extreme compulsion to make my living environs cleaner. Fish gotta swim and birds gotta fly as the old saying goes. Charlie was born to clean. He can clean in 10 minutes what would take me an hour.

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To set the stage, Dad was Mr. B and Charlie was Hazel.

"What do you want to eat?" my father asked and he then went on a tangent and said Charlie was flying down HWY 29 like a madman. He told me he was grabbing the "Oh! Shit!" handle.

"Just get me the number one at Taco Hell," I told my father which consists of a taco supreme and a burrito supreme.

Just enough to fill me up.

I was laying on the computer room bed with Maggie then I heard a car door shut. Maggie bolted off the bed and headed for the front door. Ah, yes, it was the dynamic duo and Maggie was beside herself.

Charlie got to cleaning after our usual pleasantries. He cleaned behind my entertainment center and then washed out my freezer and got it sparkling bright white. Next, came trash disposal and the gathering of the detritus that seems to come and live with me. He also mopped my hall by the bathroom.

Dad was getting very impatient and rolled his eyes at me. He was ready to head home and eat his now cold supper.

"That's it!" Dad said standing up in absolution. "We're headed home. You have cleaned enough. We thank you but I want to go home and eat."

Charlie looked like a kid being torn from a candy store.

"I've got to take out Andrew's trash and then we will go," Charlie told my father with a sneer.

As dad turned to walk back into the den, Charlie stuck his tongue out at my father. I had to choke back a hearty laugh.

Post Midnight Pondering...

So tomorrow night is the much vaunted Downton Abbey dinner party. Dad's got several people lined up to cook and they are bringing dishes. Planning and preparing for this has gone on for weeks now. Tomorrow dad finds out what happens to all that work. Will things go as planned?

"I feel terrible that I didn't cook anything," my mother fruitlessly told me yesterday.

My father would never dare let her cook. She hasn't cooked in years nor would my father eat what she would prepare.

Dad is cooking some kind of special ribeye roast. Sounds delicious to me. Mom said she will be sure I get a plate full of food.

I talked to Charlie on the phone last night and he thinks it was a very neat thing for my father to put together.

"If he survives!" I told Charlie laughing and he laughed back.

I will take my medications once again at around 4 pm. Mom is going to call me when my father has my medications ready. I hope to sleep until at least 3 pm. I am trying to stay up to four this morning, but it is growing harder by the minute. Edit: Well, I've just made it to 3 am.

I was fixing to lament never getting invited to these soirees, but I wouldn't go anyway. I am sure a dinner party would do a number on my social anxiety.  Just think of all that small talk, and with people I don't know. lol.  I am recovering but I am not quite that recovered just yet. Yeah, I've got it pretty good over here at Casa de Andrew.

image credit: http://www.clker.com/clipart-13480.html

Needed Clarification About Some Overblown Exaggeration...

I over exaggerated about my father and I always being in a contentious state. I wrote that post at a fever pitch in the heat of the moment. We get along pretty well in these later years -- quite well I might add. We used to couldn't stand each other five or six years ago. And no, I am not a dirty slob. I take showers every day and my house is just kind of cluttered with a heaping helping of dog hair thrown in. My hardwood floors just need a good sweeping and mopping, and the bathroom needs some elbow grease. My father's standards for cleanliness are just higher than for the average person. He expects perfection and I am an imperfect being.

image credit: http://windowsitpro.com/configuration-manager/mdt-2013-support-clarification