Friday, December 04, 2009

Snow in Houston a Possibility Today


I know, folks from up north are laughing; but the possibility of Houston getting a couple of inches of snow is big news around here. We can handle an occasional hurricane or tornado; but my goodness, snow? The chance of white stuff falling from the air, it doesn’t even have to stick to the ground to be news worthy ; it’s something that will shut the whole city down.

I was at the local Home Depot yesterday and bought a heater to put out in the garage for our Hobo Kitties , wouldn’t feel right letting them suffer and they’re not comfortable about entering the wash room area where it would be even better for them. And anyway, even if the Hobo Kitties did figure out that the laundry room was better, what about their friend, Peppe Le Pew ?

While at the hardware store I found a replacement piece of shiny bright chrome metal to cover up the overflow safety slot where the old one had been, my plumber’s lingo lacks correct terminology; but I’m getting ahead of myself again. The other day Lucy pointed out that the lever cover, the one in the tub that’s supposed to make it possible to take a bath, the one that keeps the water from going down the hole at the bottom of the tub; but that hasn’t worked since the day we bought the house. Where was I, that cover plate thingy was hanging down and looked pretty ugly. It’s one of those oxymorons, a pretty ugly piece of metal that at one time was shiny chrome and covered the workings, the workings that didn’t work, so we use one of those rubber plugs that only cost a dollar instead of having a plumber come out to fix and takes a mortgage payment for two hours work.

I’d fixed the “cover plate thingy” the other day, some real “jury rigging” if I do say so myself. The steel screws that held the cover plate to the tub had rusted clean off were not coming out so I used an “easy out” on what was left. I took the broken toggle and cover out to the garage, drilled a hole on the broken end of the toggle and put it back together using a flat washer, made from an old GM door lock pawl cut to size with a Dremmel Tool, a flat washer, one that actually was made to be a flat washer and separated it with a spring, cut to size, from my box of old parts that can never be thrown away because they are perfect for jobs requiring imagination and motivation, all held together with a cotter pin, the original cotter pin that was on the back of the broken tub thingy and wasn’t hooked up to the rod thingy because the toggle was broken. I buffed the old pitted surface of what used to be a shiny chrome cover, it still looked less than appealing; but good enough to cover a hole in the side of my tub for a day or so.

Since we now have a brand new chrome tub cover thingy, I may hang the refurbished tub cover thingy on the Christmas tree as an ornament; as much effort as went into it deserves a place on the tree, right next to the broken door handle assembly from a Mazda 626 we used to own. Now and then I write about various Christmas ornaments and how they came to be important to us. America is where the impossible happens on a regular basis; imagine, it might snow this afternoon in Houston.

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