Plumbing Leaks

Normally, it’s the pressurized stuff you have to worry about when plumbing. You know the issues: water spraying from a loose brass fitting, a righteous leak from a valve that failed to seat properly, or a flexible hose that gives up the ghost.

Well, I don’t do normal.

My problems tend to live on the PVC connections on the gravity-operated drain side of the equation. True to form, when I ran water down the drain of the new sink I plumbed for our new vanity, the plastic P-trap I’d just twisted into place leaked.

Not a little. More like runoff from a metal roof during a heavy rain. I gave the connections one more careful wrench crank and tried again.

Still a steady leak.

When I tore everything apart for a second time, I found that one of the pipes had a slight manufacturing defect at the connection joint.

Out with the new, back in with the old. We now have a new sink, with seasoned plumbing back on the job.

I knew I had a firm reason for becoming an electrician.

Plumbing Stuff

—Mitchell Hegman

The Small Vanity

The new vanity for the small bathroom is finally in place. Its style matches the one we installed in the bathroom adjoining our bedroom, right down to the sink and Corian countertop.

Corian is interesting stuff. It’s a composite material made from acrylic polymer and reconstituted, pulverized natural minerals, in a ratio of about one-third resin to two-thirds mineral compound. Building a Corian countertop takes some effort. In my case, the top began as a half-inch-thick sheet, cut to accommodate the sink. That sheet, along with edge strips and the sink itself, was then laminated together to form a single solid piece.

It’s a pretty thing, and it’s durable. Best of all, it requires very little caulking from me.

Bathroom With No Vanity

Vanity Before the Sink

The Top Being Laminated at the Cabinet Shop

Finished Vanity

—Mitchell Hegman

A Tilted Conversation

The man leaned in. “Consider the English.”

“English?” the woman asked. “Are we talking about the language or the people?”

“Both. They arrive as a pair.”

“And what, precisely, are we considering?”

“Well,” he said, “they have tilted things a little. Apartments are flats, big trucks are lorries, and girls are birds.”

“I have no quarrel with being a bird. There are worse fates.”

“You’re a fine one, too, my little chickadee, my sweet kinglet.”

“Kinglet carries a hint of boy about it.”

“My dove?”

“Acceptable.”

“My tufted titmouse?”

The woman blinked. “Good grief, no. That sounds a bit brassy.”

“As I said, the English bend words in curious directions.”

—Mitchell Hegman

The Worst Thing

I can juggle fairly well. I’m not ready to do so with knives or running chainsaws, but I’m a firm go with apples or oranges. While thinking about this, I suddenly switched to considering things I am not very good at. As you might have already guessed, that’s a pretty robust list.

Let’s look at a few examples.

We can start with the fact that I’m not especially skilled at dressing myself appropriately. I’m not good at stacking the pots and pans away. Things get a little tippy within my haphazard heaps. Also, in a general sense, the “unable to walk and chew gum at the same time” applies to me. Twisting wrenches on cars has always been a dark shadow.

Then I tried to drill down to the thing I’m absolutely the worst at. Well, that’s pretty easy. I came up with caulking around bathroom fixtures with white silicone. I’m no good. Invariably, I begin by applying too little caulk, which is immediately followed by applying way too much. Then I bring out the snowplow to try to remove the excess caulk. By the time I’m done, my hands, clothes, and the entire bathroom are smeared with sticky caulking.

And, no, I’m not good at cleaning caulking up.

—Mitchell Hegman

Locked Out

I see that the government in Australia has decided to ban children under the age of 16 from most social media platforms. Hard to argue that unlimited scrolling can scramble a young brain, but enforcing a full ban might prove tricky.

Thinking about all this brought back a memory from years ago, when my buddy Bill’s teenage daughter managed to lock him out of the Weather Channel with a “parental” control she’d set on their television. It took him a while to catch on, but once he did, let’s just say he applied a bit of barometric pressure to quickly negotiate his way back to his channel.

—Mitchell Hegman

Six Minutes

Researchers at the University of Michigan have concluded that drinking Coke might be shortening your life. Taking into consideration things like additives, fats, calories, and sugar content, they estimate each can you drink may shave a full twelve minutes off your life. And you have to wonder, what if those are the best twelve minutes you had coming?

A sobering thought there.

Well, I’ve devised a workaround where I don’t need to worry about that. I now drink the little half-sized cans of Coke. Therefore, I am only losing six minutes. I figure not much can happen in six minutes. Most days, I can’t even decide what to watch on Netflix in that amount of time.

Mini-Cans of Coke in My Refrigerator

—Mitchell Hegman

Sunroom Privileges

Filipino pork siomai (pronounced shu mai) started life as a Chinese dumpling, but the Philippines grabbed the ball at some point and has been running with it ever since. Siomai has become one of my favorite island dishes. To make hers, Desiree seasons ground pork appropriately, tucks little scoops into wonton wrappers, and steams them into soft, savory perfection.

But that’s barely opening the curtain on this act.

The real magic arrives when you dip the bundles into soy sauce brightened with freshly squeezed calamansi juice. For those of you hoisting a beer at a bar in East Helena, calamansi are tiny Filipino limes. They are small, but fierce and full of attitude. And this is where sunroom privileges come into play. We happen to have a modest but wildly productive calamansi tree living its best life in our sunroom.

Limes in Hand

Steaming Siomai

Siomai with Soy/Calamansi Sauce

—Mitchell Hegman