Broken Dictionaries

Was there a recall on dictionaries that i missed...?
i don't think so, but i thought i'd ask before i begin my latest diatribe.

Now the reason i ask is have y'all ever had an understanding of a word, term, phrase and then someone else challenges your understanding? i know battles have been waged over a misconstrued conversation, but i'm talking super simple words, such as "tomorrow."

Hmmm, last time i checked, tomorrow meant the day following the present day. Let's consult my trusty dictionary, which literally resides at my right elbow at my desk:
Tomorrow: noun - 1. The day following today. 2. The near future.
adverb - On or for the day following today.

Okay, so "near future" is a secondary definition. How do i quantify that? i mean "near future" is kinda relative. In terms of the universe the "near future" is my birth & death. To a toddler, the "near future" is within 30 seconds. Hmm. So to an adult male i guess tomorrow lies somewhere in-between the two... Damn dictionary. It was supposed to be on my side!

That said, the common usage of "tomorrow" is within a 24-hour period, and the person utilizing this term ain't no walking dictionary, so i think my definition is solid.

PS: Sorry for all the quotation marks.

LAST Thursdah -

Okay, so plumbing saga aside, i had myself a nice little Thursday planned... We were going to go see Mr. Damien Rice & pretty lady bird sing at the Greek, wheee!
Uhm, no, not quite.

So i pick up sassy-pants & i stop at a gas station 'cause i'm low on gas. i give the clerk $15 and go pump gas,. I get back in the car & we're driving and my gas light turns on. Hmmm. Well, i probably just forgot to close the gas cap all the way, my Mom has mentioned this issue with this truck-y before, no problem.

We get to the Greek & icky stack parking. I twist the cap on & we are off to trek up the hill. As we enter the rod-iron gates, i hear the trickling of "f*** you" (Rootless Tree, effing beautiful song about the anguish of breaking up with someone. Have Kleenex on standby, seriously, no joking, it's devastating. This version is acoustic & 100 times better than the album's version.).

It's just after 8 pm & the main event has started, sheesh! Rootless Tree, AKA the "Eff you song" was the mascot for the evening & our new mantra. Please don't be offended if we start sing-screaming this lyric, nothing to be alarmed about, just the usual crazy.

We scurry to our seats. Pretty cool set, bare with a couple chandeliers hanging & stark lighting. Mr. Rice sings. And sings. And sings. By himself. Uhm, where's Lisa Hannigan, people? This is killing mommy. His voice is rough & grating... By 9:15 pm, stage-fright or no stage-fright, Lisa isn't coming... (when we saw them perform when they first broke-out, she hid in the shadows singing).

So a 2 & 1/2 hour show... which for about an hour i folded a gum wrapper into various shapes. At one point we were chatting close together as not to disturb our fellow listeners with our mocking of the eye-closed prodigy groaning on stage and the woman behind me taps me on the shoulder to tell me she can't see if i lean over... Uhm, yeah.

The high-light was his encore story & rendition of "Cheers darlin'" it's a bit long, 10 minutes, but it's rather awesome. There are lots of versions of it online, during our show he drank an entire bottle of wine & smoked at least 2 cigs & ended with snow falling on the stage as he walked offstage. It was like a little play. A tad dramatic, but kinda great. He had this whole thing about "his elbow touched hers & she pushed back" or so he thought... And how magical the first time elbows meet can be...

Let's see... we leave the Greek sad & disappointed that the lovely Lisa Hannigan has left the band.
We get in the car & the gas light is still on. Great, one other thing i managed to break.

We go to Fred 62, i have a scary soup but the Hippie Sandwich did not disappoint.

We head home. Tired, cold & saddened that what made the music of Damien Rice has been greatly diminished.
We're on the 10 heading West & right before Fairfax, i detect a problem. Car is winding down. We need gas. There isn't anything on Fairfax...

We make it to the La Cienga exit, over Cadillac but then we're stopped at the light at La Cienga. The gas station is just across the street & the car dies. Sassy-pants & i look at each other, wordlessly remove our respective scarves (each getting tangled naturally) and we leap outta the car.

I pop it in neutral, she runs to the back & we start pushing. And pushing. I thought we were just going to the side, but there's a break in traffic so we go for it, like we're an unwieldy 2 year old, we huff & puff across the 6-lane street via the crosswalk. There's a guy standing on the street and Sassy starts yelling "you're just going to stand there & let 2 girls push a truck across the street?!" and brow beats him verbally into helping us. She's so pissed, she doesn't even thank him.

There's a dip & we're in the gas station picking up speed and i'm able to pull the car back & put the break on. The closest pump is Super-Special Gas, but i don't care, anything will do. I go to plug the nozzle in & i'm about 1/2 a foot short. We push once again & fill up the green-machine.

We get in the car & drive away (not after being solicited by a gent raising funds for vets) and we immediately start laughing. I mean REALLY laughing. Laughing so that my stomach ached & i was crying. Yes, while driving... not so smart, but by this time it was 12:30 am & no one was on the road.

In case you were wondering & have made it to the end of this story, no, the Greek theater is not 40 miles away. When i stopped for gas at the beginning of the story, i neglected to actually put the gas into my car. Yeah. Can we say i've been a bit outta-my-mind lately? The good news is that as of Tuesday, my backyard is back in one piece & i can use all water related facilities to their fullest capabilities.

Tales of a plumbing disaster --

Hello, my friends. I don't even know where to begin. The last 48 hours have been amazing. So, i'm compelled to share with you the details of my experiences, as i believe y'all will find them humorous and maybe instructional... This is only the plumbing disaster. i'm not even going into what happened Thursday night yet, that's another post, 'cause this one is already a monster.

Wednesday 8:30 AM: I'm just about ready to go to work, almost. i flush the toilet & instead of going down it comes up & over the bowl & won't stop. Slippers are flung off behind me & bail-out mode commences . i use my big tea mug (with still plenty of tea in it) to bail into the bathtub. After about 2 minutes it stops. Jack is barking and trying to get in, past the towel brigade i threw down on the ground & is already soaked through. I grab more towels and begin plunging. I flush again & the waterfall begins once again. Bail out mode & then everything is in about 1 inch of water & we're at a stopping point.

Next step: Call my best gal & she is on the way with a hefty plunger (wooden handle & all, see pic!) within 10 minutes. I call work & say there's been a delay, hopefully in by 11 am [ahh, little did i know i meant 11 am Monday morning]. Heavy-duty plunging begins (see pic). No love. The toilet is still unhappy, but only water now & my tea mug will never be the same.

Next step: Call in reinforments. Luckily, my gal has a good friend who is a plumber. We call Craig & he tells us to just plunge it.... Uhm, Craig, we're straddling toilets here, it ain't working. He comes over & thinks we need to snake it.

12 PM: Call some snake guys, total creeps & won't do it, 'cause there is no clean out [A "clean out" is a supplemental outpost for icky things to come away from your house... so your sink doesn't overflow, it goes through the clean-out. Each drain should have one.] The house had a clean-out for every other #$)%? drain, but not one for the toilet, of course.

2 PM: Craig comes back with reinforcements & they crawl under the house & dig a bit to make a clean-out, yeah!

3:45 PM: The clean-out is ready. The large snake only goes about 5 feet & then nothing. After several tries, Craig returns with a smaller snake. It goes about 8 feet & comes back with icky roots, upon roots & sludge & a rag (?!?). Craig reports that he's never not been able to get this small snake through. Naturally, my situation breaks that trend. We're gonna have to dig & we think we have to dig IN the garage. That's right, the concrete slabbed garage. i call my tenant to let him know he needs his cars outta the garage by 8am. oh, and don't use the toliet or shower. NICE.

Thursday, 8 AM: Measure out where the issue is. Now, sewer lines are generally laid in the street, each edifice is responsible for their own sewer line & the connection to the main line. It appears that my casa is no exception, there's a man-hole just past my house. We determine the line isn't in the garage, but right outside it, hurrah! Hole #1 is begun about 5 feet from the clean-out. Jack-hammering through brick, mortar & concrete. Dig through hard packed dirt & roots.

10:30 AM: And dig. Dig for over five feet down, nothing. NO PIPE. Sh*t. So now we have to make a hole right outside the under-the house access, where we KNOW the pipe is. And dig...

2 PM: And dig. 6 feet down & there's a pipe, a sewer pipe, awesome. More digging & we cut a piece of the pipe out & get the camera scope through. Not a root problem. A cracked pipe with metal jutting out, obstructing about half the pipe. Of course the camera won't go any further. We know we're going to replace this section of pipe, but we can't see past to see if that is it. Also, the pipe is going out, perpendicular from the house...

3 PM: We have to dig another hole. This one is about 4 feet South of hole #2. This one is about 8 feet deep. This concludes Thursday.

Friday 8 AM: 8 foot hole, needs to be dug out underneath from the pipe. We've found where the laundry meets the sewer, right before the city line... very odd, very cruddy & deteriorated. Another joint is unearthed & it is completely clogged with roots. Are we having fun yet, or what?

10 AM: We've cut the pipe & are camera scoping and there is this weird section that the camera can't get through. Cut into the pipe and a section has the top half of it collapsed into itself with muck stuck in it. The whole old cruddy sewer line is broken-up & removed.

1:30 PM: We're camera scoping again & we've snuck a water hose down the entire length of the tunnel & guess what?!? We get ALL THE WAY TO THE CITY LINE. No way. And the city line is running great, i see where my neighbor's lines funnel in & everything is running swimmingly.

2 PM: Game plan: Replace the main line & hook it all up in 1.5 hours. Now we have to trench out a whole section to re-pipe the laundry's drain, that will happen tomorrow. Restore the backyard will begin Monday.

4 PM: I can flush the toilet! The rest has to wait, because why? oh, it starts RAINING. And it is still raining. Great.

For other pics of this event, check out Craig's website (yup, my problem is already emblematic for drain replacements, apparently. The first 2 aren't me, but the rest certainly are. Have your dirt pile over here, your-- Yeah, i'm channeling Money Pit).

Oh, Jack ~ More mis-adventures of a puppy bladder

Just when i though carbon wee-wee pads had saved the day, Jack's bladder strikes again! This time on a pal's shirt, shorts & a pillow. YUM.

So i think this is just Jack staking his territory a bit & letting everyone know he shall not be ignored... And in his defense 1) the back-door wasn't open and 2) the bathroom door was closed; but usually that just leaves the hall or the living room as fair game. Not the far corner of my bedroom where unsuspecting articles of clothing got drenched in puppy pee. I just hope this isn't a new trend....