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November, no sun, no matter
Nov. 25th, 2007 12:02 pmCoo. How long has it been, since I went for a walk in woods on a cold night under a full moon? With one man and his dog?
It still works.
It still works.
Nov. 25th, 2007
... in all innocence (until I heard myself doing it):
"Do you think those are the tops over there?"
"Yay - but I think there might be more bottoms than tops."
"God, what I wouldn't give for a decent screw."
... for yes, I am building shelves. Again. The wallpaper is more or less sticking to the wall; I have dragged my desk away from same, to make what I laughingly call 'space'; I have established that I only have four risers of the kind with the good screws, where I need five, which is why I am fighting to assemble the variety with the completely crap screws. And it's Sunday, so there can be no slipping out to the hardware shop on the corner for new screws.
I hate Sundays.
In other news, I am feeling crap again, and have cancelled my dinner-date tonight. Mutual coughing and hawking is not attractive in or to either party.
"Do you think those are the tops over there?"
"Yay - but I think there might be more bottoms than tops."
"God, what I wouldn't give for a decent screw."
... for yes, I am building shelves. Again. The wallpaper is more or less sticking to the wall; I have dragged my desk away from same, to make what I laughingly call 'space'; I have established that I only have four risers of the kind with the good screws, where I need five, which is why I am fighting to assemble the variety with the completely crap screws. And it's Sunday, so there can be no slipping out to the hardware shop on the corner for new screws.
I hate Sundays.
In other news, I am feeling crap again, and have cancelled my dinner-date tonight. Mutual coughing and hawking is not attractive in or to either party.
Send me off to bed for evermore...
Nov. 25th, 2007 04:38 pm... or, how we deal with problems around here.
Problem: if I build shelves all along this wall, I won't be able to open that cabinet any more.
Solution: put Tom Waits on the stereo, sort out the right screwdriver and take the door off the cabinet. Yay.
Also, I am myself a shoddy-poor cabinet-maker, but even I can put screws in straighter than that, you cack-handed cross-eyed mystery incompetent.
Also, have brainwave! Stick removed screws to parcel-tape, stick parcel-tape to detached door!
Problem: if I build shelves all along this wall, I won't be able to open that cabinet any more.
Solution: put Tom Waits on the stereo, sort out the right screwdriver and take the door off the cabinet. Yay.
Also, I am myself a shoddy-poor cabinet-maker, but even I can put screws in straighter than that, you cack-handed cross-eyed mystery incompetent.
Also, have brainwave! Stick removed screws to parcel-tape, stick parcel-tape to detached door!
In which it isn't somehow funny any more
Nov. 25th, 2007 05:25 pmThis room? Measures c 15ft x 15ft. It has one, count it, one electric socket in it. (It used to be the old folks' bedroom, and why would they, y'know, want to plug anything in? Ever? 'Spect they went to bed by candlelight...)
Never mind that I'm running a dozen different devices off that one socket, via a chaos of extension cables; that's not the subject at issue here. The point is, that socket is a neat six feet from the wall. My shelving units are a tidy three foot wide. If I am to get four units on that wall, one of the risers has to go exactly where that socket is. And of course it can't.
Technically, yes. Of course I know how to move an electrical socket. Hell, I could even fit a, you know, double socket. Coo.
Practically? I don't have the tools or the skills for the hardware bits, hacking holes in skirting-board and wall, even if I could relocate the confidence for the electrics bit (when I was a blithe teenager, I wired up a whole cottage with some salvaged cable and a handful of junction boxes, and ran it off the juice next door; but that was then and this is now, and I distrust myself).
*spits with frustrated fury*
It is a stupid place to have put a socket, if you were only going to have one. Fuck's sake, this wall is where they had the headboard of their bed. How can they not have noticed, when they had the electrics done? They'd have been scrabbling at arm's reach under the bed every time they wanted to plug the vacuum in...
*hates the old folk*
*goes to look at it again, just in case it's moved in the meantime*
Never mind that I'm running a dozen different devices off that one socket, via a chaos of extension cables; that's not the subject at issue here. The point is, that socket is a neat six feet from the wall. My shelving units are a tidy three foot wide. If I am to get four units on that wall, one of the risers has to go exactly where that socket is. And of course it can't.
Technically, yes. Of course I know how to move an electrical socket. Hell, I could even fit a, you know, double socket. Coo.
Practically? I don't have the tools or the skills for the hardware bits, hacking holes in skirting-board and wall, even if I could relocate the confidence for the electrics bit (when I was a blithe teenager, I wired up a whole cottage with some salvaged cable and a handful of junction boxes, and ran it off the juice next door; but that was then and this is now, and I distrust myself).
*spits with frustrated fury*
It is a stupid place to have put a socket, if you were only going to have one. Fuck's sake, this wall is where they had the headboard of their bed. How can they not have noticed, when they had the electrics done? They'd have been scrabbling at arm's reach under the bed every time they wanted to plug the vacuum in...
*hates the old folk*
*goes to look at it again, just in case it's moved in the meantime*
Probably not 'never'...
Nov. 25th, 2007 06:06 pm... but 'seldom', yes: seldom can any comparatively simple modular steel shelving system have been put together with quite so much language involved. And a hammer.
To be fair to the system, it was probably intended to be assembled from new, by two people working in good light and plenty of space. And untroubled by cats. None of the above applies to me.
Still. We have a triple row of shelving. If I'd known I could only fit three units in, of course, I would have used the ones with the easy screws. But still. They're up. Which increases my storage capacity, and should logically decrease the chaos, by that much stored stuff and that quantity of loose shelving which will no longer be kickin' around in the living-room. Couldn't use it all, of course, and I'm running very short of accessible wall. Unless I get rid of that now-undoor'd cabinet, in which case I could fit in two more units, easy. If I could find somewhere else to stand my printer...
Agh. Stop now. For now, just stop.
Also, I think I have an oily steel splinter in my finger. I expect I'll die.
To be fair to the system, it was probably intended to be assembled from new, by two people working in good light and plenty of space. And untroubled by cats. None of the above applies to me.
Still. We have a triple row of shelving. If I'd known I could only fit three units in, of course, I would have used the ones with the easy screws. But still. They're up. Which increases my storage capacity, and should logically decrease the chaos, by that much stored stuff and that quantity of loose shelving which will no longer be kickin' around in the living-room. Couldn't use it all, of course, and I'm running very short of accessible wall. Unless I get rid of that now-undoor'd cabinet, in which case I could fit in two more units, easy. If I could find somewhere else to stand my printer...
Agh. Stop now. For now, just stop.
Also, I think I have an oily steel splinter in my finger. I expect I'll die.
Cribb'd, cabinet'd and confin'd
Nov. 25th, 2007 06:54 pmAlso, of course? What with only putting up the three units instead of four? I could've left the door on the cabinet.
No matter. It hung open all the time anyway, or if it didn't the cats would open it to see if the exciting insides (envelopes, largely) had changed any.
Talking of cats: yesterday, I was impressed by the brain of young Barry. I have a laser pen, which makes an Evil Red Dot of Doom, which both kittehs adore to chase. Yesterday, I realised that Baz knows where it comes from. He's always known it was me doing it, I think (as opposed to Mac, who just knows it's an Evil Red Dot, and gazes about bewilderedly when it disappears); but yesterday, when I was in the room, Baz jumped up onto the relevant shelf and scrabbled at the pen and mewed at me. So we played Evil Red Dot Slayer till Mac ruined the game by joining in, which upsets Baz enormously (sometimes I can get them playing tag, if I'm in the hallway and I have one cat each in the living & and the dining rooms; the dot goes from one to the other and they respect each other's space. Sometimes). So I put the pen away, and did something else. Half an hour later I'm back in the room, and Baz is quickly up onto the shelf again, and scrabble scrabble.
So we played Evil Red Dot until someone came and took me away, and I thought no more about it. Until this afternoon, when I was down there sorting out shelving units, and Baz was up onto the shelf and scrabble scrabble, with hopeful mewing - but the pen wasn't there. Nor was anything else. Because Young Hopeful has scrabbled everything down onto the floor, presumably in an attempt to conjure up Evil Red Dot in my regrettable absence.
Hah! Didn't work, did it? I am not redundant. Yet...
No matter. It hung open all the time anyway, or if it didn't the cats would open it to see if the exciting insides (envelopes, largely) had changed any.
Talking of cats: yesterday, I was impressed by the brain of young Barry. I have a laser pen, which makes an Evil Red Dot of Doom, which both kittehs adore to chase. Yesterday, I realised that Baz knows where it comes from. He's always known it was me doing it, I think (as opposed to Mac, who just knows it's an Evil Red Dot, and gazes about bewilderedly when it disappears); but yesterday, when I was in the room, Baz jumped up onto the relevant shelf and scrabbled at the pen and mewed at me. So we played Evil Red Dot Slayer till Mac ruined the game by joining in, which upsets Baz enormously (sometimes I can get them playing tag, if I'm in the hallway and I have one cat each in the living & and the dining rooms; the dot goes from one to the other and they respect each other's space. Sometimes). So I put the pen away, and did something else. Half an hour later I'm back in the room, and Baz is quickly up onto the shelf again, and scrabble scrabble.
So we played Evil Red Dot until someone came and took me away, and I thought no more about it. Until this afternoon, when I was down there sorting out shelving units, and Baz was up onto the shelf and scrabble scrabble, with hopeful mewing - but the pen wasn't there. Nor was anything else. Because Young Hopeful has scrabbled everything down onto the floor, presumably in an attempt to conjure up Evil Red Dot in my regrettable absence.
Hah! Didn't work, did it? I am not redundant. Yet...
It's lucky I can laugh about this shit
Nov. 25th, 2007 07:44 pmI have twenty shelves remaining, that will fit into these particular units.
And twelve sets of clips, that the shelves slip into.
Which really, really should not be so. All these shelves were dismantled from the library, and then fetched here with ostensibly all their fittings. There should be an exact ratio between clips and shelves.
Aaaargh.
And twelve sets of clips, that the shelves slip into.
Which really, really should not be so. All these shelves were dismantled from the library, and then fetched here with ostensibly all their fittings. There should be an exact ratio between clips and shelves.
Aaaargh.