A Rainy Day and Monday wouldn’t bring ME down!

It was another hot, dry day here in Redford. But, at least we had electricity to run our air conditioners, fans, fridges, and stoplights, unlike some 5+ million people out east!

I did get a call and an apology from the Furniture Restoration Store at 9:00 AM. The guy said he came into work today, saw the rocker and thought, “Damn, I forgot to take that with me on Saturday.” So, he said he’d bring it over Tuesday night.

Remember the start of the plumbing story on Sunday? Well, when I said I took apart the faucet, I only took off the cold water one. So, now that I knew what I had to do to fix it, I tried to get off the hot water one at lunchtime today and the damn thing wouldn’t budge!

Frustrated, I gave up and went back to work. But after work, I went back to it. I used every wrench and socket I had but, because it was brass, all I was doing was chewing up the hex of the part I needed to get off. I finally gave up and decided I’d have to call a plumber.

After I watched the NBC Nightly News, I got mad at myself for giving up and tried yet another time and, by God, the thing started to turn! Since it’s so chewed up, I know I’ll have to go back to Duke’s Hardware anyway, so I also took off the diverter (you know, the spigot that either fills your tub or directs the water up to the shower head) because it dribbles when using the shower. The guy at Home Depot warned me not to try and remove it myself because only a plumber could do it, but the old man at Duke’s said there was a washer in it that must have gone bad and it shouldn’t be that difficult to get off.

I managed to hurt my back doing it, but I did get it off. I put everything together in a bag so I can make a run to Duke’s (hopefully tomorrow at lunchtime) and spend a small fortune on more new parts. I took a photo for you.

Since I had done all that I could and it was already 7:30 PM, I thought I would quit for the night after I took the trash out to the road. I noticed I should trim a bush out in front, but it was still too hot tonight.

When I was walking back in the kitchen, I went over to the table to get the mail off it and felt “something” under one of the tiles (I just had my socks on). Damn! And, I tried to be so careful! If I just leave it, sooner or later, whatever’s under that tile will crack it from people walking on it.

So, I got down on my knees and felt around. You could only see it at a certain angle, but you could feel a little bump near one corner of a tile. I thought I’d have to replace the whole tile, so I took the razor knife and cut through the sealer all around the edges of it. The painter’s knife was too thick to get into the seam, (I put those puppies in tight!) so I ended up using a clean metal putty knife to pry up the edge.

I started to use the painter’s knife to pry the whole tile up when I saw a small pebble, stuck to the bottom of the tile. It was smaller than, say, a piece of aquarium gravel but it was definitely there. Since I only had about two inches of the corner up, I just scraped the pebble off with the putty knife and then pressed the tile back down. I tapped it all around the edges that I had pulled up with a rubber hammer to make sure the glue was fully in contact with the old flooring again.

Then I got out the sealer and the Wet Jet with a dry pad and sealed the tile all around the edges again. I went out to a nine square tile area so it (hopefully) won’t be so obvious. I set a chair at the edge of the square to remind myself not to walk on it during the night, turned the kitchen light fan on low to help it dry and then (finally) made my dinner.

I warmed up two of the chicken breasts I froze from the potluck (I had thawed them out overnight). I ate them on buns with salt and mayonnaise for dinner.

I watched the taped Longmire show I missed on Sunday night. It was excellent, as always. Then I set the alarm, turned off the TV, lights and went to bed.