A Hitch in Our Giddy-up

There be gremlins in our life right now--arrrr. The car left behind by Denny's step-mother will not start, a tire blew out on our trailer as we're sitting here parked in the driveway, and nothing is where we left it/put it in the house when we return in the morning. Sigh.

Today we dropped all pretense of work on the house to go pick up a new tire for the trailer so that Denny could change the flat. That scares the heck out of me; him raising a 17,000 pound trailer with a little bottle jack. Fortunately there was an old cast iron house jack in his dad's garage to use as an additional support, but since that side of the trailer was already riding on seven inches of leveling boards I was not comfortable with Denny changing the tire himself. However, the manly man got her done. Then it was onward and upward to installing the new marble top for the bathroom vanity where we discovered that a 37 year-old vanity base just might not work with a new top. The cabinet has two small drawers at the top and the basin of new top is much larger than the old one so the drawers are in the way. Hmm. Only one drawer was a problem actually, so I had Denny remove the drawer, took the front off the drawer and then we screwed the front of the drawer back onto the vanity. Voila'. False front that matched the drawer that still can open. New faucet and drain installed, a little leak in the old plumbing to be worked on tomorrow. New faucet handles in the shower, but no luck in pulling the old drain out--it's stuck in there good with years-old mastic. Denny will probably have to take a hacksaw to that to get it out with a lot of muscle after cutting through the male threads.

Some phone call hassles occupied the afternoon and then we ran out to get a new battery for the car to see if that was the problem. Fortunately, it was so we don't have to worry about an expensive car repair for a vehicle that is going to be sold as part of the estate. We treated ourselves to dinner at Red Lobster and had a great evening chatting with one of the managers who we had teased upon our arrival. All the employees there were friendly and smiling and it was a nice dining experience after a very frustrating day. Other restaurants in the area could take a lesson from the folks at this particular franchise.

The painting is going well, but it's the "two steps forward, one step back" routine on all the jobs that we find frustrating, like installing the vanity top but having to create a workaround fix to make it fit. Nothing has been easy in this rehab of Denny's father's house. Which makes us ask again, "Why do people own houses????"