Bathroom maintenance: swim suit recommended

We got internet to the new apartment today! Well, to be more accurate, I got the password for my neighbour's wireless.

 I will use this as my excuse for not updating my blog for the past two weeks. It's at least 80% valid as an excuse, though I could probably come up with a better one if I thought about it for a while.

 So... some things have happened in the past couple of weeks. First of all, we got electricity and were able to move in last weekend. I unpacked about a third of my boxes and pushed the rest against the walls of my room, where they have remained untouched until this present moment.

 Moving is kind of exhausting, especially when things don't work right away. First of all our oven/stove was pathetic. We tried to clean it but it still took me more than an hour and a half to bake something that should have taken 15 minutes. I then made pancakes and it took about 3 minutes per cake. At that rate, my evenings were largely consumed by preparing supper. Martio took another swipe at the stove on Tuesday, using a needle to dig around in the small holes, and it seems to have improved since then.

 Meanwhile our washing machine was sitting in the bathroom with a 3/4" hose fitting. Unfortunately the adapter on the pipe in the wall was 1/2". Martio brought home a wrench on Tuesday. He didn't realize that you normally need two. So the next night I brought home another wrench- but then he informed me that he had returned the first wrench the same morning. It turned out I had brought back the exact same wrench and we still only had one!

Thursday night we finally had two wrenches. I took a look at the pipes in the bathroom, summoned up my two summers of pneumatic assembly experience, and dove in. Unfortunately the parts used here aren't exactly the same quality as what we had back in the states. I remember, many times in the states, being afraid that I was going to break a tiny little piece as I applied leverage on it with a massive wrench. In two summers, I never broke a thing.

 So when I attacked the healthy-sized pipes in our bathroom with relatively small and harmless-looking wrenches, I was quite confident that I was safe. WRONG-O! The sealer used here in place of teflon tape does a rotten job of sealing until it has finally aged long enough to sort of rot into place. Then it doesn't want to budge. I carefully applied more and more force. Then, POW! the shut-off valve shattered into three pieces and a jet of water spewed out across our bathroom. I (very calmly) yelled to Martio that I was creating a swimming pool in our bathroom and he ran out into the hallway and closed our water main.

 We stood in our new pond, looking at the pipe hanging from the wall. Until that jagged end was plugged somehow we couldn't turn the water back on. That was really bad because it was 9:00 at night, we hadn't yet eaten supper, I was dripping with sweat, and I was supposed to be driving some coworkers to the airport in half an hour!

We studied the pieces that were left. To my amazement, we realised that we could connect the washing machine directly to the wall if only we could loosen the right pieces and then put them back together correctly. I had examined the mish-mash of adaptors the day before and come to the conclusion that no matter what we took apart, we would need to run to the hardware store to finish the job. Removing the shut-off valve from the equation had opened up some new options. I v e r y carefully unscrewed the necessary parts while Martio ran next door to our neighbour, who fortunately had informed us at an earlier date of his secret stash of teflon tape.

 When Martio came back I wound the pieces with teflon, tightened them up, and then Martio turned on the water mains. Hmm.... we already had one shower in the bathroom. We didn't really need a second one. After studying the arrangement we realised that, for whatever reason, the rubber seal on the washer adapter wasn't fitting tightly against the source pipe. Easy fix! Martio ran into his bedroom and came back with an old bicycle tire. He cut out a circle with his leatherman and then punched a hole in the middle of it. We inserted that into the washer end, I re-tefloned all the connections, and tightened it up. Martio turned on the water mains, and PRESTO! No leaks.

 It was then, and only then, that Martio confessed to me that in moving the washing machine away from the wall to get at the pipes he had accidentally ripped the power outlet out of the wall and it was no longer working. Sigh. Still no washing machine.

 But at least we had water again. I took a quick shower and my coworkers had the decency to be half an hour late, which gave me time to scarf down supper.

 That was Thursday night. Part of it, anyway. The rest of the week felt similar, even if it wasn't as dramatic.

So today I have spent most of the day laying around, sleeping, and reading "Me, Myself, & Bob," which I would highly recommend. The washing machine still doesn't work. Nor does the fourth burner on the stove. And maybe not the oven. But we have internet! One thing at a time is enough for me right now.