Erin and I are not ashamed to say that we’ve reached a stage in her pregnancy where she obviously shows.
While visiting a local Shoppers Drug Mart the other day to purchase Aspercreme, we happened upon a young couple who were studiously considering which box of condoms to buy.
Erin pulled me aside and, giggling, told me that she had this almost irresistable urge to walk up to them, belly out, and say, “for God’s sake, don’t buy the Trojans!”
I do not understand why she hit me repeatedly when I did just that as we passed…
Click here for the story behind the title of this post.
Lesson for Today: Something that Sucks Can Also Blow
My mother-in-law is heading back home after staying with us for about two weeks. The visit has been good for her and for Erin as we continue to cope with Wendy’s passing.
During the visit, we’ve thrown ourselves into home renovations, in preparation for Vivian’s arrival. Our crib and change table (both used) have been given a new lease on life and a new coat of paint. There’s new vinyl flooring in our front lobby and in our bathroom (replacing the ratty tiles that existed beforehand), and our basement is now a cavernous empty space (thanks to a $300 payment to 1-800-GOT-JUNK).
I did my part by tearing out baseboards and helping to lay down the vinyl floor. I also prepared dinner, and did a bit of the cleaning. To wit, I encountered our first serious clog in our new vacuum cleaner. I was noticing that the vacuum wasn’t doing nearly as good of a job as it used to, and the cat hair it was picking up was staying in the hose. A quick check of the hose showed almost no suction power.
The problem was a clog around the point where the hose ended and the waste container began. There was a narrowing here, and several vacuums’ worth of dust and hair had clogged things thoroughly. How thoroughly? Well, after I worked at the clog by sticking a half-inch dowel through the hose and attempting to churn butter, I realized that the clog wasn’t going to move for love or money.
Eventually, I got the bright idea of removing the hose, sticking one end in the sink and the other end on the faucet and turning the water on. The hose made a sound like a cat letting loose a hairball. What spilled out into the sink looked very much like a hairball as well. Disgusting, but it worked. The vacuum is now clog free.
Before I got this brilliant idea, however, I tried bringing one end of the hose to my lips and blowing. And I learned that the hose was surprisingly elastic. It began to expand like a linear balloon. My second mistake was releasing the hose too suddenly. The blowback blew dust in my face.
(sigh).