Tile Man Extraordinaire

Here is Shaun.  He did all the tile work and is finishing up the last of it.  What a great job!

Almost Done!

Well, yesterday I wrote up the whole story of the possessed toilet and went to post it and POOF!  It disappeared.  Sigh.....  Why Me?  You know, it's been such a rough remodel that my wine now starts rattling the second I walk into the bathroom.  :D

BUT!  Good news!  All possessions appear to have given up the ghost.  Pun intended.  :)  Shaun is in there, right this second, industriously grouting his little heart out.  Want a sneak preview?

It's going to be gorgeous!  See where I took off an old handle?  I still have to reshine the cabinets and install the new hardware.  What fun!

I do believe all the traumas will have been worth it.  :D

I took a picture of Shaun.  I have to download it.  :)

Faux Cinnabar

Don't you just love cinnabar?  That toxic mercury laden gorgeous stuff?  Well, thank God for polymer clay and it's ability to mimic just about anything.  I have been messing with faux cinnabar.  Here are some pictures of things I made.  Rats, I have another cool focal but I don't seem to have a picture.  Sigh.....  I guess I better go take one as all the cinnabar stuff is going into my shops for sale.  Well, not the pen.  That's going to Russell.  :D

The pen is for my good pal in Buffalo.  I'm overjoyed at how it came out.  And thrilled with the beads, too!  What do you think?  And isn't this fat "cigar" pen JUST the thing for men?  I love it!

New Beads

WOW!  THREE posts in one day!  Must be some kind of record for me.  I have been making beads and cool clasps to sell.  Here are a couple pictures.  Thanks for looking!

Alaska and Aliens

Now, as a respite from awful plumbing things, I went to my Alaskan clay pal Melissa's site( look over there>>>>>> she is Butterscotch Grove) and bought the cutest little alien necklace.  Maybe it will ward off any more terrible disasters.  Here is a picture of it with my favorite magnet my Hunnibunni bought me years ago.

In my package from Mel is this cool stand which The Bruce immediately appropriated.  He took one look at it and took over.  Here he is deciding if he'll fit on it then giving it a big smooch because now HE has a better stand than Bhaltair. Have I mentioned what a PILL The Bruce is?  You can see the little pill smirking.  :D

The Last Straw

Ok, I've had it.  As you all know, fron reading the last few days, we have everything on hold until 2 things happen.  One, a miracle occurs and pipe fitters arrive.  Can we say FAT CHANCE? And, two, the arrival of the faucet to replace the possessed one.

Yesterday the guy arrives at our door with a heavy envelope.  Hunnibunni says, It's our new faucet!  Hooray!  Something has finally gone right!  HAH!  :(  I tear open the package and...WHAT IS THIS HOLE???  There is a HOLE in the faucet!  Price Pfister's doofs have sent us the wrong faucet.  Yep.  The wrong faucet.  They sent us a SINK faucet.  The hole is where the pull up thingy goes. You know?  To open and close a SINK drain?  Man.  I don'y know whether to laugh or cry.  I need a TUB faucet.  Sigh.  I hear my wine shouting already.

I toddle off and call Steve the plumbing guru.  He says, oh no, Maureen!  They sent you the wrong faucet.  Ya think?  :(  So I ask him, Oh Favoritest Plumbing Guru, what should we do?  He asks how the possessed one has been acting.  It's been perfect so Steve says, go ahead and use that one then.  He will call Monday to give a date when Marc can return with our new toilet.  No, I don't EVEN want to think what can go wrong with that.  Let's just pretend all will be well, ok?

I head to the fridge.  I am not messing around any more.  I want my wine!  Been a tough week, yanno?  :D

The Ongoing Nightmare

So, I trots out to the lobby today thinking I will track down The Creep and beard him in his den to find out what is happening with the leaky pipe.  I walk out the door and there he is, standing there.  I say, Hi, Creep!  JUST the guy I'm looking for.  (big smile)  The Creep's natural expression is of the lemon sucking variety so I can't tell if he's just being normal or trying to smile.  Anyway, I ask him what's going on.  :(  You're just gonna LOVE this.  :(

He tells me, Oh, the plumbers don't know if they can fix it. It's an awful mess in there and most likely the building will have to hire pipe fitters to do the work.  Now, this is Hawaii.  Pipe fitters are union.  The chances of getting a union organization here before the Second Coming are exceedingly slim.  I think I will have a torn out wall for the next couple decades.

And me still wineless.  I is most unhappy.  :(

Crap, Crap and More Crap

Ok, I am most definitely NOT amused.  Matter of fat, I am most definitely pissed to the max.  Wanna know what happened?  Sure you do.  Ok, Maybe some of you read my post from a few months ago when I had the 3 Doofuses who came to take out a wall before cladding the air conditioning pipes?  Now, these guys were simply not to be believed.  It took THREE men 45 minutes to remove one piece of drywall.  Remember that?  It was scary it was so pitiful.  Anyway, they got the drywall out then the equally moronic guys came to clad the A/C pipes.

Now, you may remember that there was Doofus and ...yep, Romeo.  Really.  So, Romeo, being a tiny little squirt, hies himself into the wall and up the pipes.  Doofus remains in our unit.  All of a sudden I hear Romeo shout, BRAH!  Dere's  leak in dis pipe!  Crap, I think.  Doofus wants to know where the leak is.  Romeo tells him.  Now, Romeo is far enough above our unit that I can see the bottom of his boots.  Between the 2 of them, they decide with their collective brain cell that they will wrap the leak.  Yep, wrap the leak.  Who lets these guys out in public?

I immediately hie my shocked self to the front office where I tell the manager what is ensuing.  I even go so far as to say, Dimitri, you can't just WRAP a leak! He says he'll take care of it.  FOOL that I am, I believe him.  He tells me the leak is fixed and the ever-wonderful Charlie drywalls the cut out wall and I paint.  Life is good.

Fast forward to yesterday.  I am talking to my Hunnibunni and go to have a gander at our new bathroom.  You know... the one that has the possessed faucet?  THAT bathroom.  Holy shit!  There is WATER on the floor by our a/c pipes.  The carpeting is wet.  I can hear my wine screeching at me!  Screeching, I tell you!

I tear apart our a/c to find that the padding on the bottom of it is soaking wet but the a/c pan is bone dry.  We haven't used our a/c since last summer.  I immediately hear, in my mind, the ever awful Romeo shouting about the leak.  Romeo is shouting, my wine is shouting, I am thinking about a nervous breakdown.  However, New York chick does NOT break down.  She does, however, drink lots of wine.  :D

So, undaunted, I go out to face... yep.  The Creep.  Why me, God?  I been good.  Big fat sigh.  I can do this.  I toddle out and tell The Creep the entire story of Romeo and The Leak.  He, naturally, thinks (I can hear him) what does this stupid haole woman know.  Ok, he tells me the plumbers are coming because the water is now leaking all the way into the party room downstairs.  Are we having fun yet?  Not so much.

So a couple hours ago I am messing with my jewelry when a knock comes and two guys are outside our screen door saying they are the plumbers.  I tell them wrong unit, I haven't called any unknown plumbers.  Then the lead guy explains he is here to see about the leak.  And, didn't The Creep tell me they were coming?  Why, gosh, no.  Can you imagine that?  Surely it slipped his mind.  The rat.  The phrase "Payback's a bitch" flits through my last remaining brain cell.  I let the plumbers in and run to put on my bra.  Jeez.  The things one has to do, yanno?  ;(

So, then the lead plumber tells me, I gotta cut out this wall.  WHAT!  I practically throttle the poor sap.  It's not his fault but that is a brand new wall!

So, I trot out to discuss this with The Creep.  Now, I have to say, he was pretty nice about it but, the leak does need to be found.  Naturally, I am still the stupid haole woman so not one of those men will listen when I tell them the leak is upstairs.

They ensue cutting out the wall.  I can hardly bear to watch.  My wine is still screeching.  Then, horror of all horrors?  I realize I have no wine.  It was screeching all the way from Safeway.  I call the Hunnibunni and tell him WINE!  NOW!  I hope he doesn't think I was kidding.  Anyway.  My beautiful wall now has a big "window" in it.  So, I ask PlumberII, so, what did you guys find?  He replies, "Just what you said".  No shit.  

Sure enough, they trot upstairs where I hear them cutting out the upstairs wall, too.  Sure enough, the leak was precisely where I told them it was and, the other a/c guys never did fix it.  They did, in fact, tape it.  How dumb is this, anyway?  If you ask a 4 year old they could probably tell you that water will undo tape.  It can and it did. Because I am mean and I am pissed, I ask the lead plumber the same question when he comes back to my unit.  He tells me the leak is upstairs in the pipe joint.  Nah, really?  SUCH a shock.

So, it turns out that they now have to have access from both units to cut away the broken leaky pipe and repair it.  Of course neither of them can tell me how long this will take.   They don't even know if they will be back tomorrow or not.  Sigh.... I hope Hunnibunni doesn't forget my wine.  :(

Now, is this a trauma or what?  Here I sit with a big hole in my newly painted wall and no wine.  Am I having fun yet?

The Next Day

Hah.  Here it is a full 24 hours later.  And the addendum to the Possession story. Now, when we left our story yesterday, the faucet's wall valve was turned off and it was sitting quietly planning its next attack of water spitting.

So, Hunnibunni comes home and logically says, we oughta turn the wall valve back on as otherwise, how will we know if the faucet has miraculously cleared itself of its possession.  Now, he is one smart Hunnibunni.  Exceedingly cute, too!  So, he turns on the water.

I am on my knees in the other room praying that Niagara Falls Pacific doesn't spew forth.  God loves me.  Nothing happens.  Nothing bad, that is.  So, we wait. The faucet sits there innocently.  It doesn't drip, it doesn't spew, it just sits there being faucet-y.  All evening I am on hyper-alert with my ears turned to the slightest watery sound issuing from the bathroom.  Blessed silence.

So, night happens and now it's day again.  I go in to see what awful things have occurred while we were sleeping.  The tub is still full of water, nothing is dripping and/or spewing and the floor is dry.  Oh boy.  Normal.

So, I call the plumber who is my new best friend.  He is still stumped but says to call Price Pfister to see why we can't get the aerator off the faucet.  Ok, I do that.  I get the inevitable computer who wants to know an amazing amount of information for no reason I can think of.  I finally get Maria, a human.

Maria is stumped.  She toddles off to speak with her supervisor who is also stumped.  The upshot is that PP will send me a new faucet.  Why?  Because the aerator is not made to come off.  I wonder what cement head thought that one up?

Anyway, aren't they wonderful?  Those Price Pfister guys?  I asked if they wanted the old one back.  No, I get to keep the thing.  I'm sending it to the Pope so he can exorcize it.

So then I call Ricky, the tile guy.  It's another dilemma.  He can only do so much of the travertine work until the new faucet comes in 10 days.  He has scheduling conflicts.  Crap.  So, being the magnanimous creature that I am, I say, Ricky, just do whatever you think is best and that will be ok with us.  They are coming tomorrow to do....what?  I have no idea.  Ok, now I gotta go downstairs and tell maintenance that they will be cutting stone in the common area and what time.

Naturally, I run smack into The Creep.  He is carrying a cup of coffee.  I am staring at this 5 inch praying mantis I see on the wall.  Ok, stand off.  My loins are girded.  The Creep flashes on tossing his hot coffee at me.  I can see the thought flickering across his mean little forehead like the banner in Times Square.

So, I point to the praying mantis and say, Look, Creep!  He actually grimaces and says there is another one in the stairwell.  Ok, the ice is broken.  Who would have thought that standing in the hallway discussing praying manti ( if mantis is Latin then this is the plural)  :D  would actually render The Creep ok to speak to again.  For a fleeting nano second I consider saying I'm sorry but I come to my senses and realize I am NOT sorry so why lie?  Virtuous, I is.  :D  My halo is shining merrily.

And who knew that there were praying manti in Hawaii?  Did you know that?  I had no idea.  I thought they only lived on the Observation Deck of the Empire State Building.  Another story for another day.

So, here we are.  The faucet is still nice and quiet.  I think it knows its time is short.  Hopefully, there will be no tile disasters tomorrow.  Maybe The Creep will go on vacation.  Maybe the praying mantis population will have him for breakfast.

Who knew?  32 years I have lived on this island and never saw a praying mantis here before.  I think I'll go do something nice and safe like make beads.  :D

Am I Having Fun Yet?

Ok.  You KNEW this couldn't go without any hitches, right?  Well, the plumbers came today and put in our faucets.  They are gorgeous, right?  Yep.  However... one tiny problem.  The tub faucet is possessed.  Ok, let me start from the beginning.  NOT an auspicious day.  :(  It started with me leaping out of bed in anticipation of the plumbers and the cheerful thought of having running water in our bathroom.  A cheerful thought, no?  Hah.

Our plumbers are the world's best.  They say they'll be here at 8AM, they are here at 8AM.  Always.  So, by 8:30AM, no Marc.  I now figure nuclear holocaust has  occurred and somehow I missed it.  I call the plumbers and Steve tells me..what!?  they should be there.  He calls Marc while I wait.  Then Steve tells me, they are sitting outside, someone told them they can't come in.   In my heart of hearts, I KNOW who has done this dastardly deed.  I hear my wine calling.  WAY too early.

So, I go let Marc in and ask him what happened.  Turns out they arrived at 10 to 8 and my neighbor who will, from this point on, be referred to as The Creep, tells Marc that he isn't ...ready?  "allowed in the building before 8:30"!  What kind of nazi crap is THAT!?  So, I leave Marc to get to work and I stomp downstairs to find out just exactly who had the unmitigated gall to tell the plumbers they couldn't even come into the building.  Now, by the time I reach the maintenance room, I am in full on Pissed Off New Yorker Mode.  I rip open the maintenance room door and am thwarted in my righteous indignation.  The room is empty.  Snarl.....

So, I go stomping out to the pool where I see 2 hapless maintenance guys cleaning the pool.  I take a deep breath as Marc described the nazi as, "a short little guy".  Can't be Pat as he is about 6'4"  Pat is saved from my wrath.  So, I ask Pat if he knows who spoke to the plumbers?  He doesn't but suggests it might be The Creep.  I figured.  My wine.  I can hear it even outside!  ;(  Still waaaay too early.

So, I think, ok, don't tear The Creep's head off until he admits it.  I stomp to the front office and there sits the offensive little twit.  I say, "Creep, I am trying to find out who told the plumbers they couldn't come in".  Blissfully ignorant of the firestorm I am about to unleash upon his nasty little head, he tells me, "I did".  Oh boy.

So I ask him just who he thinks he is.  He tells me, in nazi like fashion, "not my fault, I was told...".  I explode.  He gets his ears burnt to a crisp and a lecture on stupidity and arrogant nerve.  He is most unhappy.  Good.

I now have a Creep induced headache.  My wine is rattling in my fridge.  Too early.  Rats.

Ok, that is taken care of and I call my Hunnibunni to tell him i had a fight with The Creep.  My Hunnibunni says, The Creep deserved it.  Yay!  What a great Hunnibunni.   Poor Brian.  He is afraid to ask me if I have decked The Creep  or called him foul names.  Utilizing amazing and admirable self-control, I did not.

So, back to the possessed faucet.  Kurt is installing the sink faucet.  Lots if copper pipes and flame throwers.  I stay away.  Marc is installing the tub faucet.  It takes a while but they get everything in and it looks great.  See pictures.  Beautiful, no?

Then Marc says he is going to put spray foam under the tub for support.  Ok, dandy.  Spray away.  But, to keep the Superman foam from lifting the tub, Marc fills the tub with water.  Really.  How strong is this stuff, anyway?

Enter Ipo.  You KNEW we couldn't have a story without Ipo.  So, I take a nice long look at our beautiful new faucets and come to the computer.  About a half hour goes by.  I am now happily working at my clay table when I hear, SPLASH!

Oh shit.  I KNOW Ipo has fallen into the tub.  Serves her right I think.  But wait!  A wet cat is not a happy cat.  I hear nothing then look down and there is Ipo sound asleep at my feet.  My wine is now uncorking itself.  I race into the bathroom thinking little Allie has fallen into the tub.  But, that can't be right!  She's a cat, too.  Nothing.  There is no cat and no anything that I can see that would have made that splash.

Ok. being jittery from the Ipo induced flood from a few weeks ago, I start checking for water.  I see the inside of the tub under the faucet is all splashed with water.  But... what made the splash?  Then I look at the floor and...oh, shit.  Water.

I remove the giant sheet of Durock facing the tub.  Good thing I am strong.  I expect to see Norwegian water rats or something that made that big splash.  Nothing.  Except there is water leaking from the elbow joint of our brand new piping.  Crap.

I go call Steve.  He sends Kurt back.  In the meantime, while I am waiting for Kurt to return, I am staring at the tub faucet when it regurgitates a large amount of water into the tub.  All by itself.  Jeez.  It's possessed.  I watch then listen for the next half hour.  The faucet is dripping and regurgitating water at odd intervals.

Kurt arrives.  He looks at the elbow joint and the little sucker has a hairline crack in it.  Crap.  Kurt now has to whip out the copper and his flame thrower.  he does this while I make beads so I don't have to watch.  Meanwhile, the possessed faucet is still spewing water into the tub.  Kurt finishes putting a new elbow joint in but has absolutely NO idea what is making the faucet fo that.

He now gets on the phone where he calls half of his company.  Absolutely nobody can give him an answer.  The consensus is that it is a faulty stem in the cold water faucet.  Swell.  My wine is now screeching at the top of its little lungs.  Kurt, naturally, does not have that particular part in his truck.  So, to be safe, he turns off the water in the wall.  The second he's out the door, the faucet resumes spitting.  I race out and tell Kurt who is beginning to back away. he says, "Maureen, I turned off the water in the wall!'  Yeah, I know, I saw him do it.  He tells me that he will have Steve, his boss, call me after Steve looks to see if he can find the part.

Meanwhile, handy girl that I am, I go dig out the receipt from where we bought the faucet.  Naturally, we bought it on line AND we bought it in December.  Swell.  I'm pretty sure I hear my fridge door opening.

Steve calls.  He has checked the 4 plumbing supply houses in Honolulu.  You know what's coming, right?  Nobody has the right part.  Because it's after 4PM here, it will be  the middle of the night on the mainland.  :(  Now I have to wait until tomorrow to see if after 4 months, they will replace the faulty stem.

Meanwhile, I have to cancel the tile guys because they are stuck until the plumbing is done.  Nobody is happy.  And, sure enough, here comes my wine bottle marching across the kitchen floor.  I will give in to it.  :D  It ain't easy being me.  :D

A New Mirror

So, the bathroom is moving right along.  We bought a new mirror and, with a few mishaps, we got it hung.  Ipo had to check everything out.  :)  The little rat isn't going to have the proverbial 9 lives if she doesn't stop trying to knock the new mirror off the wall, though.  She's going to be REALLY bummed when the plumbers come tomorrow and install the faucets.   :D

A New Necklace

So, I had this gorgeous red coral so I made beads to go with then used turquoise for spacers.  What do you think?  It came out nicely, didn't it?  ;D

The World's Worst Craft Fair

Yikes.  Yesterday I did the WWCF.  It was grim!  Here's what happened.  My best client asked me if I'd do a craft fair at her daughter's school.  Their first one.  (my first clue and I ignored it).  Naturally, I said ok.  I borrowed a tent and tables and chairs and yesterday the big day arrived.

However, on Thursday I get an email form the coordinator of the fair saying that we could go do set up on Friday evening.  I thought, that's nice, they must have good security.  On Friday I get two emails.  one explaining that if you are going to set up early (that evening) it is at your own risk because they have....NO security! Now come on... I was raised in Catholic schools.  They have nuns!  Whaddaya mean, no security?  The second email is to tell me that she has broken her foot so someone else will be the new coordinator.

Anyway, she goes on to say that they have a gate... but no lock and absolutely nobody to watch anything you might leave there.  Now really.  WHO would take their tents and stuff and leave it overnight in an unsecured place?  Even knowing nuns are watching?  So, we nix that idea and wait until Oh dark thirty as they say in the military.

I wake up at 4Am.  WHY this happened, I don't know.  But, I am awake and up so I get up and do kitty chores.  At 5Am I drag my poor long suffering Hunnibunni out of bed.  We go to Starbucks.  It is a dark and dismal day.  Cheerful kid that I am, I sez, Self, it will get better.  I am SOOO stupid!

We get to the school and there is not one sign, no cars, no people, no activity.  No  nothing.  Now, we are veterans of craft fairs.  By 6:30AM on craft fair day, there is tons of activity.  So, I get out my paper from the school thinking, maybe I have the day wrong.  Nope.  It is the right day.  We drive around the block a few times when finally, across the street from where the fair is supposed to be, Brian spots cars and people.  Still no signs or directions.  It is now raining and the wind is picking up.  And it is still dark, dreary and nasty.  WHERE are these nuns who can talk to God to fix this weather???

A very nice person meets us at the gate and directs up to a spot that doesn't seem to be the one they said I had in my confirmation.  It is on the outside basketball court.  Ok, this is Hawaii, everything is outside.  By now, it is howling, raining, freezing (for Hawaii) and just miserable.  We finally get the tent set up but the wind is threatening to blow it away every 4 seconds.  I am unable to put my jewelry boxes out because they just blow of the table.  Swell.  Are we having fun yet?  It's now 8AM.

Finally, the nice greeter woman comes over with two kids who go to school there.  She anchors the girls to the tent legs.  I have visions of these two little girls flying through the air still attached to the tent legs.  In fact, one guy's tent did fly away.  Was awful.  :(

Anyway, I tell her this isn't going to work.  I can't display anything because it will blow away and get soaked.  She toddles off to see if she can't move us.

Now, when I was signing up for this fair, I asked She of the Broken Foot to be in a protected area, cafeteria or lanai?  She tells me there is nothing like that.  Ok.  So, Nice Greeter Woman comes back and shows me a nice under-the-awning spot on the lanai.  TONS of room.  I try to talk the guy next to us, who is selling Hawaiian cookies, to move, too.  There is lots of room.

So, about 16 people jump in to help us move.  Including the kuki guy.  (that's Hawaiian for...cookie) :D  I get all set up and the weather turns even worse.  The winds are now tropical storm force, it's raining, almost like sleet but naturally, not frozen.  :)  I know, you guys are all saying...that's what sleet IS!  I don't care.  It FELT like sleet.  :D  Buffalo girl knows about sleet.  :(

Things are blowing all over the place and there are no customers.  Time is dragging by.  It turns out that the school didn't bother to put up any signs on their fence announcing the fair until about 2 hours after the fair started.  Genius. :(  Then the sign was pink with curlycues and pale lettering which rendered it completely unreadable from a moving car.  I am sure that people driving by thought, how nice, Sacred Hearts has a pink sign.  Jeez.  :(

In the few times between sleeting attacks, I wander around talking to other vendors.  I fear a vendor uprising.  There are some seriously unhappy people here.  Nobody is selling anything.  I think that it is a good thing the other woman broke her foot or some of the vendors might have offered to do it for her.  Most people just took it all with the proverbial grain of salt.  But there were a few pretty unhappy people.

The fair is supposed to go until 3PM.  By noon people are talking about packing up.  Nobody does as a small number of people show up.  A very few sales occur and the uprising is mitigated temporarily.  But, at 2PM we all packed up to leave.

I dart over and buy kukis.  :)  Delish!  I make a few sales.  I have lovely neighbors next to me and my girlfriend shows up and B is here so we have fun.

But, I have to tell you.  The next time someone says, we are having a craft fair.  It's our first one.  I'm saying NOOOOOO! It truly was the worst craft fair in the universe.