When Dishwashers Die A Violent Death

Sunday morning I padded into the kitchen to make tea. I noticed a dark color on the parquet flooring near a cushion mat at the sink.

Upon removing the mat, we found that the dishwasher had leaked badly. Perhaps it has been leaking for sometime, I don't know. If so, I never noticed the water. I have someone who helps me with the mopping once a month and she said she hadn't noticed anything out of the ordinary there last month. So maybe it has only been leaking a week or so. I have no way to know.

My husband and nephew yanked the dishwasher out of the wall and carried it outside.

I called the insurance company to see if our policy covered this type of thing. It does. Boy, do they move fast when you tell them you're allergic to mold.

Where the dishwasher sat. See the dark colored wood? Damaged wood.

The water went to the sides of the dishwasher, and up the cabinets.

This was the worse damage to the floor.

This doesn't look so good either. That's the side of the kitchen cabinet.

What to do?

This is the bottom of the dishwasher. My husband said this is the pump casing and it split apart.

By 4:30 Monday, a "mitigation team" was out here and they determined all that wood had to come up. ::sniff:: My beautiful parquet floor.

Because the glue was wet (and 30 years old), it came up fairly easily.

This damage is troubling, to say the least.

I kept this floor looking nice for 30 years. They last if you take care of them.

Now I don't know what happens next. The insurance company will decide my floor's fate, I suppose.

The "mitigation" guy said he was going to recommend that the entire floor be replaced. This flooring is no longer available so there is no way we can match it up. Unfortunately the flooring runs into the dining room area as well. We have an open floor concept (we were ahead of our time apparently when we built in 1987) and so the dining room and kitchen run together. That is why there was parquet in the kitchen to begin with.

This looks like the beginning of a very long process.

You Have the Wrong Narrative

Last night I dreamed I was in a crumbling city, a world falling to pieces.

A crew of people were with me, but I'm not sure who they were. Warriors of some kind, I think (maybe my imaginary friends from The Elder Scrolls: Skyrim). They went around the corner and stopped.

I moved forward and went from apocalypse to Alice in Wonderland, a colorful corner of the world's ending where a woman named Jaquelyne (she spelled it for me twice) wearing a tailored suit with leggings and a top hat, brought me up short.

"You have the wrong narrative," she said.

"I know what a narrative is," I replied. "I'm a writer."

"You have the wrong narrative," she said again.

"What's wrong with it?" I wanted to know. I looked around but I was alone now. My warriors had vanished.

"You have the wrong narrative."

She kept repeating this, twirling around, producing a cane from somewhere and doing a little two-step.

"You have the wrong narrative."

Then, in the way of dreams, I found I was at a baptism. My father came in dressed in a blue robe and said he was Elvis. He was followed by lots of other people in blue robes, and someone handed me one and told me to put it on.

"I don't want to wear this," I said.

The woman with the top hat popped back into my dream.

"You have the wrong narrative," she said, and then danced away, twirling her cane.

Sunday Stealing

Sunday Stealing

1. First thing you wash in the shower?

A. My face. I save my ass for last.

2. What colour is your favourite hoodie?

A. I don't wear hoodies.

3. Would you kiss the last person you kissed again?

A. Yes, since that was my husband.

4. Do you plan outfits?

A. Not usually.

5. How are you feeling RIGHT now?

A. I'm mad, upset, and frustrated because my dishwasher for well over a month has apparently been seeping water into the kitchen cabinets and under the parquet flooring (hardwood flooring) and now we have major water damage that I just discovered when I was making tea at 7:15 a.m.

6. What’s the closest thing to you that's red?

A. A paperback Webster's dictionary.

7. Tell me about the last dream you remember having?

A. I dreamed last night that I was trying to explain to someone what a guitalele is and why I was playing it.

8. Did you meet anybody new today?

A. I met the Lowe's delivery people when they brought out the new dishwasher (I had already known I needed to replace the dishwasher, I just didn't know it was leaking all over everything. So it had already been ordered.)

9. What are you craving right now?

A. Chocolate.

10. Do you floss?

A. Yes.

11. What comes to mind when I say cabbage?

A. Soup.

12. Are you emotional?

A. Terribly so. And these questions are making me cry so much that my keyboard is going to break because it is now waterlogged like my kitchen floor.

13. Have you ever counted to 1,000?

A. Yes.

14. Do you bite into your ice cream or just lick it?

A. I don't eat ice cream. I eat frozen yogurt but I like it a little melted.

15. Do you like your hair?

A. It's okay. I call it "soft white" like a GE light bulb.

16. Do you like yourself?

A. No, and as far as I know I never have.

17. Would you go out to eat with George W. Bush?

A. If he was paying.

18. What are you listening to right now?

A. The sound of the fans in the kitchen as we try to dry out the wet floor and cabinets, the sound of my fingers on the keys of my computer keyboard as I answer this, and the sound of my tears falling because I'm so terribly emotional a la question #12.

19. Are your parents strict?

A. I am too old for that to matter anymore.

20. Would you go sky diving?

A. Yes, preferably without a parachute.

21. Do you like cottage cheese?

A. No.

22. Have you ever met a celebrity?

A. I've met a lot of politicians who are famous, so I suppose so.

23. Do you rent movies often?

A. I didn't know anybody rented movies anymore.

24. Is there anything sparkly in the room you're in?

A. I am not into sparkly. I don't think there's anything sparkly in my house.

25. How many countries have you visited?

A. Four.

26. Have you made a prank phone call?

A. Yes, when I was young.

27. Ever been on a train?

A. Yes.

28. Brown or white eggs?

A. I don't care.

29. Do you have a cell-phone?

A. Yes. Were these questions written in 1989 or something?

30. Do you use Chap Stick?

A. I use Burt's Bee Lip Moisturizer.

__________

I encourage you to visit other participants in Sunday Stealing posts and leave a comment. Cheers to all us thieves who love memes, however we come by them.

Saturday 9: Along Comes a Friend

Saturday 9: Along Comes a Friend (Theme from Kate and Allie) (1984)

Unfamiliar with this week's tune? Hear it here.

1) This week's song is the theme from Kate and Allie, a sitcom that ran from 1984 to 1989. Were you a fan?

A. I watched it and enjoyed it.

2) The show was about two divorced women who live and raise their children together. Were you ever a single parent? Were you raised by a single parent?

A. I have never been a parent and my parents were together when I was a child.

3) Allie is proud that she can make a perfect cup of coffee: "Just the essence of the bean. No acidity." Kate is proud that she can belch the alphabet. What are you proud of?

A. I am proud of my college degrees and my body of writing. It may not be a novel but I have published thousands of articles.

4) Kate and Allie share half of a duplex in Greenwich Village. Many episodes had them doing laundry in the basement. Where are your washer and dryer?

A. They are off the kitchen.

5) Kate was played by Susan St. James. She was familiar to viewers as the "wife" in McMillan and Wife. Without looking it up, do you know who played McMillan?

A. I have no idea. I never watched the show.

6) Allie was played by Jane Curtin. She was one of three women in the original Saturday Night Live cast. Without looking it up, can you name the other two?

A. Gildna Radner and . . . I guess I don't know. I'm not even sure about Radner. This does not surprise me because I did not watch much of SNL.

7) On the set, Jane Curtin ran a poker game for the cast and crew. Do you think winning at poker takes more luck or skill?

A. Winning at anything takes skill.

8) The Kate & Allie theme was cowritten and sung by John Lefler. Years later, Mr. Lefler wrote the theme for the Pokemon show. Is anyone in your life into Pokemon?

A. Nope. I tried to download the Pokemon Go app when I first went crazy and bought a smart phone back in September, but I couldn't get it to work. So much for that.

9) Random question: What's the last thing you whispered?

A. When my husband and I were at Cracker Barrell a while back, there was guy sitting next to us who looked like Glenn on Swamp People, and I leaned over and whispered, "That's Glenn on Swamp People finally getting his first date" into my husband's ear. (The last episodes of the season showed Glenn getting dressed up, trimming his hair, and attempting to go on his first date (he did not succeed because he wore no shoes and the restaurant wouldn't let him in.).) My husband laughed.

_____________
I encourage you to visit other participants in Saturday 9 posts and leave a comment. Because there are no rules, it is your choice. Saturday 9 players hate rules. We love memes, however.

Testing A Post

This is a test post.

Not exactly a post.

I Got the Blogger Blues

For the last two months or so, my blog has not been working properly.

Neither has many other people's. This apparently came about as something to do with changes made to adhere to European Union requirements or some such. I don't know.

Anyway, it used to be that people would comment on my blog and I'd get an email notification that they'd comment. Unless the blogger comment was a "no reply" comment, I could email the person directly and we could, and frequently did, carry on a conversation between just the two of us.

The emails stopped coming.

The notifications that I have posted a blog have also stopped. I used to receive a notification every time I posted a blog and that was good, because sometimes I prepare these things days in advance and I would set them to post at various days and times. Seeing the email let me know the blog post had appeared as it was supposed to. *Update* A Miracle! This blog post appeared in my email!

None of this stuff works now. I have made all the changes I've found on the blogger forum. Nothing made a difference.

Finally yesterday I left a post on the forum asking for help. So far, nothing, but I honestly don't expect anything different.

I try now to remember to check my blog more frequently for comments, but after over 10 years of receiving email comments it is taking time to make that a habit.

Wordpress in the past did not impress me when I tried it, but it may be time to start looking for another blogging venue. I hate to do that because I really love this blog. I've put vast amounts of time into it and worked hard on it and while it certainly isn't the most-read blog out there, I do have some readers.

Blogger has been easy and worked well. I don't know why big companies always have to mess stuff up and simply can't leave well enough alone. I know change is the only thing you can count on, and this blog is free, so I really can't complain too much. I also know, though, that my blog, like countless others, brings traffic to google and since I have a few google ads on my blog, there is a small bit of cashflow (very small, but still something).

I am not going anywhere - yet. I am trying to learn to live with this particular problem and hoping that it somehow magically fixes itself (sometimes that does happen with technological concerns). In the meantime, if you have experienced this problem and found a fix, feel free to leave it in my comment section.

Hopefully I will remember to check back here and I'll see it, since I am no longer notified of comments.

Thursday Thirteen

Tips for sorting out your news:

1. Avoid websites that end in “lo” ex: Newslo (Newslo is now found at Politicops.com). These sites take pieces of accurate information and then package that information with false or misleading “facts” (sometimes for the purposes of satire or comedy).

2. Watch out for common news websites that end in “.com.co” as they are often fake versions of real news sources (remember: this is also the domain for Colombia!)

3. Watch out if known/reputable news sites are not also reporting on the story. Sometimes lack of coverage is the result of corporate media bias and other factors, but there should typically be more than one source reporting on a topic or event.

4. Odd domain names generally equal odd and rarely truthful news.

5. Lack of author attribution may, but not always, signify that the news story is suspect and requires verification.

6. Some news organizations let bloggers post under the banner of particular news brands; however, many of these posts do not go through the same editing process (ex: BuzzFeed Community Posts, Kinja blogs, Forbes blogs).

7. Check the “About Us” tab on websites or look up the website on Snopes or Wikipedia for more information about the source.

8. Bad web design and use of ALL CAPS can also be a sign that the source you’re looking at should be verified and/or read in conjunction with other sources.

9. If the story makes you REALLY ANGRY it’s probably a good idea to keep reading about the topic via other sources to make sure the story you read wasn’t purposefully trying to make you angry (with potentially misleading or false information) in order to generate shares and ad revenue.

10. It’s always best to read multiple sources of information to get a variety of viewpoints and media frames. Sources such as The Daily Kos, The Huffington Post, and Fox News vacillate between providing important, legitimate, problematic, and/or hyperbolic news coverage, requiring readers and viewers to verify and contextualize information with other sources.

11. Look at the quotes in a story, or rather, look at the lack of quotes. Most publications have multiple sources in each story who are professionals and have expertise in the fields they talk about. If it's a serious or controversial issue, there are more likely to be quotes — and lots of them. Look for professors or other academics who can speak to the research they've done. And if they are talking about research, look up those studies.

12. See who said the quotes, and what they said. Are they a reputable source with a title that you can verify through a quick Google search? Say you're looking at a story and it says President Obama said he wanted to take everyone's guns away. And then there's a quote. Obama is an official who has almost everything he says recorded and archived. There are transcripts for pretty much any address or speech he has given. Google those quotes. See what the speech was about, who he was addressing and when it happened. Even if he did an exclusive interview with a publication, that same quote will be referenced in other stories, saying he said it while talking to the original publication.

13. For more tips on analyzing the credibility and reliability of sources, please check out School Library Journal (they also provide an extensive list of media literacy resources) and the Digital Resource Center.

Tips from NPR and this recommended resource.

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Thursday Thirteen is played by lots of people; there is a list here if you want to read other Thursday Thirteens and/or play along. I've been playing for a while and this is my 563rd time to do a list of 13 on a Thursday. Or so sayth the Blogger counter, anyway.

The Ring Wraiths Chase Frodo

Colored Pencil

When You're So Mad You Could Just Spit

Today I am angry.

This is how angry I am.

Spit. Spit. Spit. Spit. Hooey. Spit. Spit. Spit. Spit. Spit. Hooey. Spit. Spit. Spit. Spit. Hooey.

Somewhere in there, there should be lots of curse words, like !*&$(#%*#)(_#%*()#*()#%*)(!@*()#%*()!*()$)(*#%*()!*()!@*()$!@$)*(*()$@)(#_)!@#*()$()*#!$*)($

And then more spitting.

Sunday Stealing

From Sunday Stealing

1. What color is your watch?

A. Silver and gold.

2. What do you think of when you think of Australia?

A. Kangaroos

3. Ever ridden on a roller coaster?

A. Yes. The Shooting Star, at Lakeside Amusement Park, in Salem, VA.

4. Birthstone?

A. Pearl, Alexandrite, and Moonstone

5. Do you go in at a fast food place or just hit the drive through?

A. I do both. Just not at the same time.

6. Do you have any friends on facebook that you actually hate?

A. No.

7. Do you have a dog?

A. Not anymore.

8. Last person you talked to on the phone?

A. My friend Teresa.

9. Have you met anyone famous?

A. I have many lots of famous people, mostly politicians. In my work as a news reporter I met many Virginia governors, senators, congressmen, and local representatives.

10. Any plans today?

A. Depends on the weather.

11. From whom did you get this?

A. I got it at Sunday Stealing.

12. Are you happy?

A. No.

13. Where are you right now?

A. In my office in front of my desktop, writing the answers to these questions. Where else would I be?

14. Biggest annoyance in your life right now?

A. Stupidity.

15. Last song listened to?

A. Happy, by Pharell Williams

16. Last movie you saw?

A. It has been so long since I watched a movie on TV I don't remember.

17. Are you allergic to anything?

A. Pretty much everything. Grass, pollens, animals, scents of all types, cigarette smoke, perfumes.

18. Favorite pair of shoes you wear all the time?

A. My Apex X826X sneakers.

19. Are you jealous of anyone?

A. No.

20. Are you married?

A. Yes.

21. Is anyone jealous of you?

A. I have no idea. I can't imagine why someone would be. If someone is, then said person doesn't know the whole story. That is why I try not to be jealous if anyone. I don't know the person's whole story.

22. What time is it?

A. Miller time.

23. Do any of your friends have children?

A. Yes.

24. Do you eat healthy?

A. I try but I am not the most successful healthy eater ever.

25. What do you usually do during the day?

A. I do laundry, I blog, I read, I play the guitar, I write other things, I do housework, I fix dinner, I go to the grocery store or run errands, I do the accounting for our various little cottage industries.

26. Do you hate anyone right now?

A. No. There are people out there I'd rather not be around, but I don't hate them.

27. Do you use the word 'hello' daily?

A. Yes.

28. How many kids do you want when you're older?

A. I'm too old to have kids.

29. How old will you be turning on your next birthday?

A. The same age my mother was when she died.

30. Have you ever been to Six Flags?

A. No.

31. How did you get one of your scars?

A. I have a scar on my hand that happened when I hit my hand on the corner of a filing cabinet in the county circuit court clerk's office, and then I bled all over documents for something I was researching. My DNA is forever locked up in the local county courthouse on some innocuous piece of paper.
__________

I encourage you to visit other participants in Sunday Stealing posts and leave a comment. Cheers to all us thieves who love memes, however we come by them.

Saturday 9: Love Is All Around

Saturday 9: Love Is All Around (1970)

Unfamiliar with this week's tune? Hear it here.

1) This week's song is the theme from The Mary Tyler Moore Show, a sitcom that originally aired from 1970 to 1977. Were you a fan?

A. I was aged 7 to 13 then and it came on a TV channel we could not receive. I watched it a few times when I visited my grandmother (who lived in a less rural area) but I never saw enough of it to know if I would be or would have been a fan.

2) The song tells us that Mary Richards can turn the world on with her smile. Yet the real-life Mary Tyler Moore said she was uncomfortable with her "wide mouth." If you could improve on one of your facial features, which would you choose?

A. I have a scar above my upper lip that I wouldn't mind never seeing again.

3) We also hear that Mary can "take a nothing day and suddenly make it all seem worthwhile." What do you think makes a day "a nothing day?"

A. A nothing day would be a day where nothing worth talking about happens. Same ol' same ol'.

4) Mary works in the newsroom at WJM. Her desk is neat as a pin. Are you neat? Or do you lean to the sloppy side?

A. I suppose I lean on the sloppy side because I am a piler, not a filer. I have fits of cleaning up my office but I always seem to find things better when they are in piles.

5) Mary's best friend, Rhoda, worked as a window dresser at Hempel's department store. What department store did you most recently shop at? What did you buy?

A. I was last at Lowe's and I bought a new dishwasher. That's not a department store but I can't recall when I was last in a department store.

6) Mary Richards lived in Minneapolis. What city is nearest to where you are right now?

A. Roanoke, Virginia.

7) Originally the part of Mary Richards was written as a divorcee, but in 1970, there were no TV shows that centered around a divorced woman. Think about the women in your life. Are most of them married, divorced, single or widowed?

A. Most of my friends are married.

8) The MTM production company logo featured a mewing kitten. The cat was found in a Minneapolis shelter, and, after her sequence was shot, she was adopted by a crew member who named her Mimsie. What's the name of the last cat -- or dog or hamster or rabbit -- that you petted?

A. I don't pet animals. I am highly allergic to them - like go to bed for a month with near-pneumonia allergic - so I stay away from them all.

9) Random question -- Would you rather have a job that kept you seated on your fanny or standing on your feet?

A. I have always had jobs that utilized computers and typing and such, so I guess on my fanny. Standing makes my back hurt now.
_____________
I encourage you to visit other participants in Saturday 9 posts and leave a comment. Because there are no rules, it is your choice. Saturday 9 players hate rules. We love memes, however.

My Little Guitalele

A while back on a whim I purchased a soprano ukulele. It was overpriced and it wouldn't stay in tune and it took me all of like an hour to figure out how to play it.

Basically a ukulele is the first four strings of a guitar at the 5th fret. So you're using the same chord configurations for a guitar if you had a capo at the 5th fret and were only using the first four strings. Easy peasy, except for trying to remember that G is really C and so on.

I told my husband that if I were still fiddling with the ukulele in a month, I would buy a better instrument.

The month came and I started looking around for a better ukulele. During my search, I discovered that there is a six-string instrument called a guitalele. It's basically a guitar except tuned at, again, the 5th fret. So your strings are running A to A instead of E to E.

Only one local store had a guitalele listed in its inventory, and when I called it actually wasn't there, so I couldn't see if I would really like one. I listened to several different brands online and decided the one that sounded the best to me was a Gretch (G9126) guitalele. You can here what I heard at this link.

Anyway, I ordered one.

Here is my little Gretch guitalele with my Taylor GS Mini guitar. The guitar is smaller than a parlor-sized guitar, so the guitalele is much smaller than a big ol' dreadnaught guitar or even a regular parlor-sized guitar.

These call these guitaleles "travel guitars" because they are so small that they can be stowed away very easily. Great for taking on vacation, for example.

The Gretch guitalele has a flat fretboard, much like the fretboard on my Takamine classical guitar. Since I play alone and not with anyone, I haven't had to worry about transposing and I simply pick it up and play it like a guitar. The only issue is my singing - I generally sing in D or A which means if I play in D or A then I'm not in the right key; I need to drop D back to A and A up C or something like that.

The overpriced ukulele, meanwhile, is scheduled to become a wall decoration.

Thursday Thirteen

Here is a list of some of my favorite Disney movies:

1. Snow White & the Seven Dwarfs (1937)

2. Cinderella (1950)

3. Alice in Wonderland (1951)

4. One Hundred and One Dalmatians (1961)

5. The Parent Trap (1961)

6. The Jungle Book (1967)

7. The Fox and the Hound (1981)

8. Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988)

9. Beauty and the Beast (1991)

10. Aladdin (1992)

11. Hocus Pocus (1993)

12. The Santa Clause (1994)

13. Toy Story (1995)

Extra: Finding Nemo (2003)

To be honest, I was surprised at the long list of Disney movies that I have not seen. Nor are they movies I particularly want to go out of my way to see. I've seen some that I did not put on this list, like the Herbie the Love Bug movies, the Pirates of the Caribbean movies, the Benjii movies, the Witch Mountain movies, and The Chronicles of Narnia movies. These are not bad movies but they are not favorites.

Disney for me brings back memories of Sunday evenings watching The Wonderful World of Disney on the TV with my grandparents. I remember Tinkerbell and the words "in color" being prominent at the time. I remember that more than the movies.

What does Disney mean to you?

______________

Thursday Thirteen is played by lots of people; there is a list here if you want to read other Thursday Thirteens and/or play along. I've been playing for a while and this is my 562nd time to do a list of 13 on a Thursday. Or so sayth the Blogger counter, anyway.

Silly Rabbit

Sunday Stealing

Sunday Stealing

1. Do you like pie?

A. I only like certain kinds of pie, and I never eat pie crust unless it is graham cracker crust. I only eat the pie innards (and they are usually chocolate or lemon and never, ever coconut).

2. Italian or Mexican?

A. Neither. Both are hard on my ulcers.

3. Can you bake? If so, what are your favorite things to bake?

A. I can bake in the kitchen, mix the stuff in a pan, throw it in the oven like any girl can, 'cause I'm a WOMAN, W-O-M-A-N. I like to bake brownies and an occasional cake. However, we're both overweight so I don't do it often.

4. Do you use cook books or do you try to find recipes online?

A. Both.

5. Do you own a Kitchen Aid mixer?

A. Yes. My husband bought me one a few years ago when I was making cookies and my hand mixer started smoking.

6. Ever cooked a meal for more than 15 people at one time?

A. No, and I have no desire to do that, either.

7. Do you like hospital food?

A. If the choice is eating hospital food and starving, then yes.

8. Favorite fast food restaurant?

A. I don't eat fast food much. I suppose Wendy's if I must.

9. Any picky eaters in your family?

A. Me. And my husband has had his diet whittled down considerably due to blood pressure and gout.

10. Soda or Tea?

A. Tea.

11. Hot chocolate?

A. Oh yes, please.

12. Favorite holiday dish?

A. Chocolate lush, which is a secret family recipe that was passed down from my grandmother.

13. What is the most tasteful strangest looking thing you have ever tasted?

A. Escargo, I suppose.

14. Fries or tater tots?

A. Neither.

15. Do you like cheese? If so what kind?

A. Yes. I like cheddar and goat cheese.

16. Home made or can soup?

A. Either one but mostly we eat canned soup because I am not a cook.

17. Do you like to eat out?

A. Yes.

18. What kind of food is popular where you are? (Like in Alaska it is seafood.)

A. Apparently pizza. There are 15 pizza places in my county, which has 33,000 or so people in it. That's a pizza place for every 2,200 people (and babies don't eat pizza).

19. Do you like cotton candy?

A. I love cotton candy.

20. Turkey or Chicken?

A. Chicken.

21. Hamburger or tuna helper?

A. Neither.

22. Raw or cooked veggies?

A. Cooked.

23. Do you like salad? If so, what is your favorite kind of salad?

A. The kind with lettuce, goobers, and dressing. (Goobers are what we call anything other than lettuce, like radishes, carrots, bacon bits, etc.)

24. Favorite pizza topping?

A. Cheese.

25. Do you like meat loaf?

A. Depends on the meat loaf and whether or not it has onions in it, but on the whole, yes.

__________

I encourage you to visit other participants in Sunday Stealing posts and leave a comment. Cheers to all us thieves who love memes, however we come by them.