cans and axes

The last event of our holiday schedule was a visit from my sister, her fiancé Justin, and Linus the Greyhound. They are the first overnight visitors we've had since we moved in! We had a real bed for them to sleep in, and a real table to eat at and everything.

Of course you know what's coming. There was a hitch. There is always a hitch. About an hour after they arrived, our toilet decided to give its last hurrah. We had known this might happen before we'd had a chance to replace the toilet; I just didn't think it would happen as soon as guests arrived. I am certain the toilet is at least fifty years old, and it does/did have its share of quirks. Sometimes, in the middle of the night, it flushed for no reason. It seemed to run for longer than it needed to after being flushed, but if you took the lid off to pull on the float to make it stop, you were confronted with something very magical: there is no float. We have no idea what sort of mechanism assisted this toilet in deciding when to stop refilling the tank.

So our company arrived. The toilet was, at some point, put to use. It ran.

It continued to run.

We started to talk about how long it's been running, gee.

Justin jumped up and said "I'll have a look!" and I promptly followed him up the stairs to witness his reaction when he discovered the lack of a float. We stared into the tank for a while. We jiggled all the bits and pieces, and the toilet continued to pour fresh clean water into the town's sewer system.

We finally had to resort to turning off the water supply to the toilet. Although we turned it on a few more times later on and messed around with the toilet, it was determined to run for all it was worth and go out with a bang. The much less conveniently located downstairs toilet became the hero of the week.

So my sister and I walked downtown with the dogs the next morning. I bought a part that had a chance of fixing the toilet at least temporarily, and I also got a list of important names: first, a good plumber, and second, a dude that will install new windows and siding on my house.

When we got home we discovered that the new part did not work, because the part it was to replace had been cemented to the toilet. The toilet has, at long last, permanently crapped out. A gentleman will be arriving within the next few business days to replace our old-fashioned toilet with no float (and with a tank that seems to hold about eight gallons of water) with a modern low-flow toilet.

Progress, folks.

I also called the windows and siding guy and he showed up to take a quick look at our house and to talk about a few details. The scary thing about starting this kind of stuff is that we will no longer be debt free. We spent all our money paying for this house outright, so our savings are tapped. In order to start these somewhat pricey renovations we will have to spend more money than we currently have, which is not an idea we're in love with.

We will do it anyway, for a ton of reasons I will not bore you with. On to the interesting stuff:

Like I said before the toilet story took over, my sister visited!

Justin had brought his guitar with him so he and Mark sat down and started jamming. Kim and I are both able to sing (and I actually think we sound a lot alike) so soon enough everyone was singing and playing and it was a whole lotta fun.


They seemed to really like our house. They are currently renting in Kingston, Ontario but will be moving to Hicksville, Northern Ontario soon and I'm quite interested to see what sort of place they end up buying. Somehow I don't think they'll go through the hassles that we did before we bought this place.

So they stayed with us for a few days before heading back to Ontario, and that is officially the last of our holiday events.


Bring on the January blahs!!