Friday Randomness

Now that you’re (almost) caught up with my books (I finished one and started another yesterday, both on audio), I’ll catch you up on other things around Chez J.

Remember our new dishwasher, named ASKO? Well, Ted and I (mostly Ted) unclogged it on Wednesday, and it ran cleanly on Thursday, and I wrote last week’s post…and then on Friday it threw the same error about trouble with the outtake, and it wouldn’t run a complete cycle. CRAP.

What is this, you might ask? It’s a little piece of zip tie. I took a picture on a piece of paper so you could have an idea of how small it is. Sadly, it’s big enough to cause a blockage in the air gap that our new dishwasher needs to run. The water runs through the air gap on the way out of the dishwasher, and it doesn’t take much to clog it up.

When I spoke with the salesman at the appliance store last week, he told me to use a zip tie down the air gap to clean out blockage. Well, when we were cleaning out the pipes last week, I remembered that advice, and apparently while I was cleaning it out, a little piece broke off, and then got jammed in the air gap. (Gappy, above, it not our air gap…ours it the one I showed in last week’s post, but doesn’t show the little connection where the lines come together, which I assume is where the zip tie got stuck. We had no idea, and could not imagine that the issue was another blockage after we had done such a great job cleaning the pipes, so the appliance store sent out a repair person to check, and he found the zip tie. Oops. You will be glad to know that ASKO is now working great. Knock on wood.

Remember the 3 kittens at the rescue where I volunteer? Well, one of them was adopted, so there were 2. I bought them a toy, which they clearly LOVE, and then the rescue moved them to another location so they could bring in 5 more cats.

The 5 new cats are a teen mom and her 4 kittens. Mom is the top left photo, she’s about 13 months old, and the others are her kittens, who are 3 months old. The four kittens are sharing a kennel, and mom has her own. I wondered if she might miss them, so I brought her up top to see them. She hissed at them. I guess she is enjoying some time away from the kids. Luckily, she’s been spayed now, so she doesn’t have to go through this again.

Engie posted this week that she was in Philadelphia for a conference, which made me wonder if she might be at UPenn, which is where Ted went to school for his PhD, where I worked, and where Maya was born. I dug out this old photo for her, of us with Benjamin Franklin on a bench near my office when Ted walked for his Masters degree. I didn’t color my hair at the time, I was worried about coloring it while I was pregnant, and then didn’t get back to it until Maya was weaned I guess. I think some people’s hair gets darker from pregnancy hormones, so I don’t know if it would actually be that dark or not if I hadn’t started coloring it blonde again. We’re not about to find out.

I was suffering from some shooting pain in my feet last week. This stuff really helped. What was wrong? I DON’T KNOW. I have Rheumatoid Arthritis, I have tendon issues, and I’m 60. Your guess is as good as mine. I’m just glad it helped.

Lisa used to have a blog when she was living in San Francisco probably 20 years ago. She’s American, married a Japanese man, spent a bit of time in SF, but mostly has lived in Tokyo, where she is now. We are Facebook friends, and she posted this a few days ago. Fascinating!

I saw this sign on my walk the other day. After seeing a coyote on Russian Hill in San Francisco a couple of years ago, I guess I shouldn’t be surprised to see them here. Mostly I’ve seen them in open spaces, though, not in townhome complexes.

Lastly, I saw this sign (selling t-shirts) the other day and thought of Stephany and her fur siblings.

Today I’m getting my hair done for the first time in about 12 weeks, and let me tell you, it is overdue. Maybe I’ll have time to watch an episode or two of the new Netflix sequel to A Different World. Any exciting plans for you this weekend?