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.