When today's plumbers showed up at 11:30 a.m, I over-explained how I am careful about what gets flushed down the toilet (those that know me will not be surprised by this over-explaining stuff...I have a tendency to do that.) I was even tempted to do the finger quotes when I said "what". I didn't want them finding anything down there and thinking it was mine. OK, I'm sure you've had enough of the visuals.

They got to work by first turning off the water to the house, then removing the toilet. Of course, this gave me an immediate reaction of needing to go to the bathroom.

I heard the following comments within the span of 5 minutes (it's a small house, you can hear everything from any room):

• What happens if we break it?


• OMG, you've GOT to be kidding me


• Great, now it's freakin' stuck

Then then came out to tell me that they needed to go get another tool. "You'll be here all afternoon, right?"

Yeah, right. I'll just cross my legs, try not to move too much, and keep my thoughts occupied with wondering why I have to drink so much coffee in the morning.

For a while, I considered the idea of crying a lot because then perhaps I wouldn't have to go to the bathroom anymore. Then considered that maybe that story I've heard about someone crying so much that they didn't need to use the bathroom for days was an old wives tale. Of course, it might have made me feel better.

The plumbers came back and snaked the toilet with the new tool. No luck. They found the roof vent that the previous plumber couldn't find (and made fun of said plumber because they said it was "freakin' easy to find"), and snaked that. Still clogged. Then they said that maybe between all the snaking they've done, that they could just give it a good solid blast of water to clear all the stuff out. Nope.

After trying all of that, they came in and explained to me that there was about 10 feet of clogged up "stuff". I took it as my opportunity to once again over-explain that it wasn't me, saying something about putting up a sign in the bathroom to not flush things down the toilet other than toilet paper.

Even though I feel I did a fairly good job of clearing my good name, I wanted to crawl under a rock. I mean, what kind of people ARE WE that have 10 feet of backed up stuff? What could that stuff be? I don't even flush the flushable scrubbing bubbles bathroom cleaner wipes. Surely it's not 10 feet of hubby's beard trimmings, although I suspect that's a good five feet of it based on what I found in the sink this morning.. yuck! I need to clear that image out of my head.

They left at 4:00 pm and will be back tomorrow with bigger and badder tools. The sinks are still backing up, but thankfully I'll be working in the office tomorrow and will have bathroom facilities at my beck and call.

I'm thinking of starting a bake sale or something, because I have a feeling that once this is all said and done our bank account will be drained right along with the sinks.

Cupcake anyone?

Ever since Super Bowl Sunday, we've had issues with our plumbing. Our REAL plumbing, not the euphemism for plumbing, kids...

Of course, we've had bigger fish to fry these days, so the plumbing took a back burner. Our sinks take forever to drain, the toilet takes forever to flush; the shower? Forget it. You get to have a shower and a bath at the same time. While a bath can be relaxing, a shower/bath combo is gross to me for some reason. Perhaps it's the fact that when I get in, it still hasn't had a chance to drain from when hubby had his turn.

No matter how much I love him, that is just gross.

Monday we had a big name commercial plumber come out. He was here for an hour and wasn't able to do a thing because he couldn't find the drain pipe, and apparently the original homeowner/do-it-himselfer-builder created his own toilet flange. A deformed lead toilet flange. The plumber said that he didn't want to snake that, put the toilet back on, and left. He left 252.00 richer, but hey, I got a free wax ring out of it (sarcasm).

BJ had a friend come out yesterday to dig up the back yard in search of the holy grail; the sewer pipe. Turns out that all of our pipes are lead. Lead? The only lead pipes I know of are in the game "Clue". All of the joints are welded on. He left yesterday as well without our problem being fixed. Apparently the only way to put the joints back on is to weld them. That's illegal because they're made of, well, lead. Lead poisening ring any bells?

Today he's coming back out and is going to try to snake the toilet. Our only toilet. Apparently this is a dangerous procedure because of the way our plumbing is built. If it goes wrong, we will not only not have a toilet, but we'll need to replace our plumbing. We have one toilet, folks. ONE.

Why did we have to move into hubby's bachelor pad when we got married? Why couldn't we have moved into my big home with three bathrooms? OK, it was logistics. But I miss having a big house.

Mantra for the day.... we'll be in a big new house this year.... we'll be in a big new house this year...

Yesterday was our first married Valentines day, so I decided to make hubby a steak and lobster dinner, topped off with a bottle of his favorite wine. I bought everything on Sunday, and told him what he had to look forward to. It was then that he reminded me that he had some corporate types visiting from out of town and would have to wine and dine them at dinner on Valentines day. I was *THE* understanding wife about the whole thing, even though secretly I hoped that the corporate types would burn their tounges on their dinner for taking BJ away from me on this special day.

I decided that since he probably wouldn't be home until late I'd forgo the makeup and hair and put on my sweats after my shower. I also had a GREAT BIG sandwich that included lots of smelly ingredients (like onions) at about 4:30.

I got a call at 5:10 pm from BJ. "Don't eat", he said, "I'm almost home and I'm starving. Let's eat!"

Apparently the corporate types felt bad about scheduling a dinner on Valentines day so told him that they'd have dinner without him and sent him home.

So, there I was, 5 minutes until BJ was due home, looking like a slob, had onion breath (that a bottle of listerine would never cure) and I was full. I decided to pretend that I hadn't eaten because I didn't want him to feel bad about the last minute notice.

Three bites into the meal I had to confess because I thought I'd burst.

How romantic.... Sweats, onion breath, no makeup and bed head. Hopefully, he was blinded by the extra lobster on his plate.

Yesterday, Sis and I decided to stop off at Prescriptives to get a color match and buy new foundation. Ok, really, this was something she wanted to do and it looked like fun so I played along. It's kinda cool, because they do all these stripes on your face to see what turns orange on you. I left that counter over $75.00 poorer (Honey, if you're reading this, I paid out of my allowance, I swear!), but sure that I'll be a raving beauty at work tomorrow.

Note: Co-workers that read this, please allow me to have my fantasies. Thank you.

On to the real purpose of this post. While there, I found out among other things that my sales lady had just divorced her husband and gave me the whole story about why that divorce came about. This was a 15 minute encounter. Never met the woman in my life.

Today, we had to have a plumber come out to *try* to fix whatever is causing our sinks to back up (this in and of itself is a post all of its own). In this visit, I learned about his family members with gambling problems, family members who have terrible diseases, how long he's been married, what he got for Valentines day, what he loves about his wife, why he quit his last job, and the list goes on. He was here for an hour and most of the time was in different parts of the house. The time we spent together in the same room was probably less than 10 minutes.

I've mentioned before on my blog that hubby chuckled after he overheard the deli lady telling me some very personal stuff, even though I'd never met her before. I reminded him about things he told me on our first date that kind of shocked me. He was shocked that he shared those things with me. Chuckle all you want hubby, but you were also one of 'them'.

Sometimes people tell me things that I wouldn't even discuss with my own sister and it's hard for me to remain poised and not have this look on my face:


Please don't get me wrong, I think it's an honor that people feel comfortable in telling me things, but I wonder just what it is about me that makes them so comfortable in telling me such private things? It's just a rhetorical question, because I know that most people reading this have no idea what I look like.

Maybe I should market this skill and be a police interrogator or something...... hmmm.... yeah.....

Pipe in harp dream-like music:

RisibleGirl: Is there something you'd like to tell me?
Bad Guy: I wasn't going to confess, but yes, I did it! I did all of those horrible things and more! Thank you RisibleGirl, I feel SO.MUCH.BETTER now.
RisibleGirl collects her forty gazillion dollar check because she's saved so much money in court costs.

Yeah... Ok, back to reality.

As I could have guessed, I was firmly set in my place last night. It always happens when I try to spend too much time feeling sorry for myself. The Universe (or God, whatever your belief system is), reminded me last night how miniscule my issues are compared to what is and what has been going on around me.

Last night we participated in our usual Sunday night ritual; watching a music DVD before going to bed. We have some wonderful concerts and it really does help us to wind up the weekend properly. We chose Sting last night. It was a new concert I picked up while out with Sis yesterday.

The venue couldn't have been more beautiful. He has a villa in Italy and decided to have the concert on his property with a small crowd of people. His stage was set up against a terra cotta wall decorated with vines. To the right and left were beautiful trees and foliage.

It started on a somber note. The date of this concert was September 11, 2001. Sting started out by saying that this was supposed to be a celebration, but because of events that had happened that day it became something else. He further said that he decided to not cancel the concert because that would give credence to what the terrorists had done. Instead, he wanted to be together with his friends so they could have a sense of community that evening.

He then dedicated the next song to those that had died. "Fragile". And then the next, "A Thousand Years". Read the lyrics if you have a chance. It was haunting, and it was apparent that Sting had a difficult time getting through the songs.

As I listened to those songs and what the lyrics represented that night, my problems and sadness seemed to dissapear and I went to bed with a completely different mindset. I needed to be smacked around a bit and reminded that giving energy and being stuck in negativity is not the right path. Instead, I should find positive ways to move past my feelings. Move past my issues.

And that is what I shall do.