Shitty day, and I'm not talking just about the weather.
The house that we live in was built about fifty years ago, shortly after they invented orangeberg piping. Orangeberg (or maybe orangeburg) piping was oil-soaked paper, essentially, and they used it extensively for sewer lines for houses to the main lines. The idea was that the pipe would deform slightly instead of breaking when the ground shifted.
Most of it lasted about ten years. We've been lucky, but I've known that we were hanging on a thread here... that thread has been severed, I'm afraid.
I started working on it early this morning, using a fifty-foot flat 1/2-inch tape. That didn't work, but it got it running a little bit.
So I went out to get a hundred-foot tape... they normally cost about %50, but one at Lowes was marked down to %25... I had a clerk check it before I took it to the counter. However, it rang up at $16 + change.
I felt guilty for a brief period, and thought about telling the guy that it was wrong, but I didn't. For one thing, I hate telling people that their machinery is messed up... they always think that it's my fault. For another thing, they probably made a good profit anyway.
So I take my heavy cheap tape and go home and start again. Damn, that thing is heavy! However... no luck. The pipe has collapsed beyond the hundred-foot mark, and there ain't a damned thing that I can do about it. Except pay someone $2 or $3K to replace it. And I'll have to tear up the back deck to do it, too, dammit. But I knew that when I built it... that's why I put it together with screws. Which have all rotted out.
The other bad news of the day... Karen fell this morning in the hallway trying to avoid stepping on a cat. Twisted her back... she went to work anyway, but she came home about 10:30 in a lot of pain. She is, however, much better now, she took some pain pills that prevented her back from really seizing up.
She has got to stop this falling shit, it's really hard on her body. I'm starting to worry about her.
Anyway, tonight we put up the (fake) xmas tree, and the cats are having a ball... playing underneath it. The kitten (fluffy?) attacks babycat mercilessly, and babycat will sit on her until she squeals for mercy, then she lets her up, and she comes right back at her. She has started this gazelle-like bouncing too... she's really trying to be cute, and mostly succeeding.
The forecast has changed again... supposed to get really cold tomorrow with high winds... far from that 48F mark they predicted yesterday! A friend got his heating bill today and told me that it had doubled on the gas. How the hell can they get by with that? Time to get out the wool socks and the sweaters, I guess.
I just shot a really cute picture of Karen and the kitten, but I can't get the connection to work... guess I'll have to re-boot, that worked last time. So you'll have to wait for another time.
More tomorrow...