I was deciding what to call this post when there was a cry of "Oh, crap!" from the kitchen. The dishwasher was spraying rinse water into the cabinet under the sink.
May I wring my hands for just a few minutes, internet? I am tired. My husband has been out of town with the 14yo since the 14th. They're at Philmont, which is great for them. I'm really glad they're doing this together. I'm just tired, is all. Do you know that smell that a drain clog gives off? I have that smell embedded in my skin and under my fingernails. It's not my favorite smell.
I was hanging in there, despite teaching an intense summer class to half of the cohort that just shredded me in their spring-semester evals. The first week we ate almost all of our CSA vegetables, which is a pretty good proxy for my on-top-of-it-ness. We had some kohlrabi left, but we almost always have some kohlrabi left. I made it into a nice little slaw with grated pineapple and a chili-lime-mayo dressing; unfortunately, I got a little heavy-handed with the chili.
This week we have eaten almost none of the CSA vegetables. Baby fennel, I ask you. What is a person supposed to do with baby fennel, besides feeding the stalks and the fronds to the guinea pigs? Probably my July self will think that is a silly question, but my late-June self is focused on the basics.
I had asked my mom if she would come and visit me over the weekend, thinking I could enjoy some adult conversation. I said, "I'm not going to be very hostess-y, let me warn you. The housekeeping standards around here are not going to be super-high." But then, you guys, my mom decided to bring my dad and my niece and nephew, and I got all weird and obsessive about being hostess-y and cleaning my house. Result? I am tired.
Even last night, I was still hanging in there. I was cleaning up after dinner when the kitchen sink backed up. I plunged it, to no avail. I plunged it some more, and it made promising noises but nothing changed. I ran the dishwasher, because I forgot that it drains into the same dumb pipe, and I watched in alarm as the sinks filled and filled with water from the emptying dishwasher.
I hit it with drain cleaner and went to bed. In the morning the sinks were empty of water but covered with disgusting sludgy residue.
Tonight, after further faffing with the plunger and slurries of baking soda followed by lashings of vinegar, I brought up the bucket and took off the P-trap. I hoped that it would contain a nice accessible little clump of coffee grounds and bacon grease, which I could clear out with only a little nose-wrinkling. Then I would reassemble the sink, feeling brisk and accomplished. No big deal, just knocking out a little plumbing repair. As one does on a quiet Sunday evening.
The problem, it turns out, is further down the line -- to far for me to reach but not by much. I have now tried and discarded a variety of solutions to this difficulty. (I fear this post will cause my husband to shake his head when he reads it upon his return.) I found some sturdy copper wire in the basement, and I thought perhaps it was the right combination of firm and flexible to push through the clog. No joy. I entered the fray with the cardboard tube from a roll of paper towels, which I advanced far enough into the pipe to cover it (and my hands) with muck, but not far enough to dislodge the clog. You know that baking soda/vinegar home remedy for clogged drains? I used a syringe to squirt a baking soda slurry into the pipe along with a vinegar chaser. ...And I discovered there's a reason plumbers don't wield syringes with baking soda slurries in them.
I asked the kids to vote on my wackiest idea over dinner. I said, "What about a banana? Firm, flexible, with a bend in just the right spot. Is that a totally crazy idea?" They agreed that it was a crazy idea, but they couldn't come up with anything better. The good news is that I did not get a banana stuck in my pipes. (That would have been a fun surprise for the plumber, would it not?) The bad news: there's also a reason plumbers don't snake pipes with bananas.
Right now the dishwasher is running with the bucket positioned to catch its draining water. The unhappiness from this post's first paragraph involved a misjudgment about whether the water from the wash cycle had finished draining, but the resulting spillage has been mopped up.
I've been reluctant to post about my husband's absence, because it leaves me alone with only the shrieking alarm system and the slavering Rottweiler (and the 6-foot teenager whose leisure-time energies are largely devoted to advancing his already formidable karate skills). But oh, internet, I miss him. I can do this; I know I can. It's just that I'm tired.
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