Americanuck

We’d been seeing small amounts of water collecting underneath the kitchen sink for a little while now. Err or should I say it was small amounts at first. At first it was a little bit of dribbles and we thought it was the hole where the old faucet’s vegetable sprayer used to be. Then we thought it was that AND the new faucet’s base not being properly flush with the warped old sink.

It didn’t explain why last weekend there was quite a bit more water and I hadn’t run the sink much that day in order to have splashed that much water up where it would leak out. I mentioned to Tom that the only thing that had run that day was the dishwasher. We both felt the pipes under the sink but couldn’t find anything that was wet that wasn’t in the vicinity of where the puddle was. Maybe it was just a puddle that had slowly grown over a few or so? With a new plug for the hole and some clear caulking from ‘Home Despot’ we thought we were good.

Not so much.

Tom wearing his “freaked out for the sake of the camera” face

Tom calls me today saying the mystery of where the water was coming from was solved saying the pipe that fed from the dishwasher into the drain was gushing. So as I panic and come running he downgrades the gushing to dribbling. (Drama Queen) The dishwasher was in the middle of the wash cycle so he sacrificed some of his ‘play shirts’ and let them soak up the gushing dribbles and let it finish.

I took some action photos while it was finishing it’s rinse cycle.

Action shot of the dribble

The crack in the pipe leading to the drain from the dishwasher

It does look like quite the crack in the pipe though. I guess we are lucky he found it before it broke the whole way.

Guess what he’s going to be doing on his days off?

The cats were fascinated by the show.

Oh please, what am I saying? They would be fascinated by nothing in a cupboard as long as the door is open. Why can’t animals resist going into normally ‘forbidden’ areas?

We then get a bit of a mini-scare when Tom exiting the bathroom asks me to check if the hot water tank is leaking saying he wasn’t trying to be a Sean but that he had to keep turning up the hot water as he finished his shower. Did I mention this is the NEW tank we’re talking about here?

I ran in to check and phew, no leaks. I felt the hot water pipe and it was just kind of luke-warm. We then spent a while trying to find the receipt for the hot water tank just in case I had to call the company that replaced it to get over here. Tom had to leave to go to work so I kept looking myself and found it. We decided to wait a while to see if the tank filled up again and thank goodness it did. Chaining my OCD tendencies not to keep checking was hard but I was good and left it a few hours before I ran the water.

Not sure what used up all of the hot water, the Boy must have taken an extra long/hot shower or something. Eeep don’t want to know…

We celebrated the wonderful occasion of Tom’s birth last night. We have a family tradition that the birthday boy (or girl) gets the dinner of their choice and Tom’s choice was the O.G. He hesitated at first asking if it was too soon for Olive Garden to which I answered that it’s never too soon for Olive Garden! Pshhhh please!

Of course Sean was majorly bummed that he wasn’t able to go being that he was supposed to be at his Father’s that night but I pointed out he doesn’t miss many dinners out and sometimes it’s nice for us to have a date night with just the two of us.

Tom had a new dish called Chicken Roma and I had my newer-ish seafood pasta. It’s no Crab and shrimp tortellini but since they saw fit to delete it from the menu I guess it’s not bad for a back up. (no I’m not bitter, nope nope!)

We had a great time and left good and stuffed I tell ya.

When we got home Tom opened his gifts.

One of the many things I love about Tom is he makes the opening of presents an occasion. Me? I tear into presents with all the finesse of jackals on a fresh kill. Tom? Each bit drawn out and gamely posing for pictures from my slow-ass camera at each stage of the giftage.

Getting misty reading my mushy card

Classic Tom face

Die Hard 1&2 and Fallen

I’m not a fan of Bruce Willis but Tom can always watch the Die Hard movies with Sean. They have their male bonding nights when I’m at a work dinner or something and they watch all the movies that I hate (Young Frankenstein leaps to mind) so it’s a win-win. I do like Fallen though.

I also picked up a professional clipper set for Tom. He’d added it to his Xmas list so I kind of pilfered from that. Just means he will need to add another to replace it along with a bunch more (hint hint Hon) so I have a pool of things to get ideas from. Of course during my Birthday shopping I came up with a few ideas that he WON’T know about so a-hah!

The rest of the photos are here on Flickr .

We topped off the evening with a cocktail (or two) all and all a really nice evening.

(WARNING SLIGHT MUSH AHEAD)

Thank you for being born Hon. I love you with all my heart. Happy Birthday!!

*KISSSSS*

On the way home tonight I watched a girl make the mistake of making eye contact with a weirdo on the train. At first I thought maybe she knew him but then I realized he started the talking she just kind of played along being nice. She tries making idle conversation with him and he managed to turn every innocuous thing she say into something suggestive. I think the winner though had to be this one:

Her: I can’t wait until the rapid transit is finished between the airport and downtown, then you can go all the way round Richmond and back downtown.

Him: Hey I loved to go all the way with you. I can’t help it I speak my mind.

There was a moment of uncomfortable silence and then she got off the next stop (whether planned or not I don’t know). She decides to say bye to him and say see you around have a nice day.

He tells her he wished he could see her around and “I love you!” and grabs and kisses her hand.

Then the freak sits next to me turns and smiles. I glower at him and put my nose back in my book.

He makes cooing noises like a pigeon until the next stop and finally gets off.

I so love taking public transit.

Last night they aired “The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown” to my great delight. I hadn’t seen “The Great Pumpkin..” in a few years and while watching it I realized that the same thought occurred to me now, that did when I was a kid but of course more from the perspective of a parent… Where the heck were Lucy and Linus’ parents? I mean seriously. Lucy wakes up at four am and realizes her crazy little brother is still out in the pumpkin patch freezing so SHE goes and gets him and tucks him into bed. Nobody called cartoon child welfare services?

Hallowe’en was always my favourite ‘holiday’, and still is even though the way we celebrate it has diminished some over the years. I mean the kids don’t trick or treat anymore, we don’t go to Hallwe’en house parties these days, private fireworks are banned in our city now and we don’t have a house to decorate and entertain any of the small goblins that may visit.

The last few years Hallowe’en tradition has shrunk to going to get Tim Horton’s coffee and hot chocolate (depending who you are) which used to be the staple of those of us walking around outside while the Trick or Treater was doing their thing.

Summers here can last well into October some years and then the hammer falls. It goes from hot to mild to COLD almost in the blink of an eye when that happens. Some years walking around outside Hallowe’en night meant freezing your butt off, some years it was just, well, crisp. Those years were my favourites because I do love fall and the crunching of leaves under your feet while you walk, I’m not so big on slipping on frozen or wet leaves, but that’s just me.

When the kids were small I had so much fun dressing them up. Chris allowed me a bit more freedom on the creative side.

Despite my hate for clowns, Chris wanted to be one… so I made him a clown. Hard to be scared of a face that cute though anyway.

The genius that I was, I used that spray on hair colour from a can to darken his then blonde hair, THEN I put in my Dad’s hair cream. Not so smart because the grease in that stuff picked up the colour on his hair and spread it EVERYWHERE. The collar of his costume, his car seat, his coat. Oy!

When he went to school wearing this costume his teacher was horrified. That made me so proud gotta love it when you freak out a teacher.

The first year Sean was interested in dressing up (he was a year and a half old), damn he was a cute little bee. I dressed him as a bee twice. Chris wanted to be a Ninja that year so no makeup was required (sigh)

Sean, once he got older demanded to wear masks and wouldn’t hear of me putting any kind of makeup on his face, at least after I tried to make him ‘cute’ and he wanted to be scary. At each house we went to when everyone said “Oh what a cute pumpkin you are!” He would answer back.. “I’m not a cute pumpkin, I’m a KILLER PUMPKIN!!!!” The folks at the door would look at me and clear their throats and I would just smile sheepishly. Yeah, that’s my boy.

I’ve been feeling all kinds of nasty since last week. That cold that I didn’t think was so bad later became one hellacious bitch of a cold, or flu?. Whatever. It knocked me on my ass. It totally sucks to have such a violent cough that you have to practically cross your legs so you don’t pee a little, or feel like you have to shove your eyeballs back into their sockets or hold the top of your head on . I spent two days in bed moping, one for being sick in the first place, two for losing my voice which totally takes the amps out of any ‘direction’ (read: nagging) that I give the kids. I mean ‘Go clean up your room’ coming out as a tiny squeak isn’t really that commanding even with an extended arm and pointed finger.

To give them credit though, they’ve been concerned and keep asking if I’m ok. They both know my lousy history of illness and my tendency to escalate to pneumonia (and not the nice ‘walking’ kind). I mean I had bacterial pneumonia four times. My doctor who has since retired gave me credit for recognising it and coming in for my super anti-biotics, you know those one pill a day jobbies. I figure I’m royally screwed come some kind of bio-warfare because any antidote I’m sure I’ve already taken and will be completely immune to. My mother used to call the doctor and get me a ’scrip for the sniffles and my childhood doc would hand them out like candy. Certain pills don’t work on my anymore. Awesome!

Do I sound sorry for myself? I am, and that’s really not like me. Generally I’m a.. what’s Tom call me?.. A ‘Viking’, soldiering on, shrugging off any illness. Not so much at the moment. It really got me, perhaps a sign of getting older or maybe getting smarter. Not sure which at the moment. I took a couple of sick days and really probably should have taken more but I had stuff to do that needed doing. Maybe I’m still a little bit Viking.