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#516

We have the keys for our new apartment, and we’ve measured the important rooms. Now I’ll spend the next week figuring out placements for our furniture.

Addendum: And now I have a floor plan that looks as if it may work. It took several tries; putting the exercise bicycle against the wall of the dining area helped unjam the design. It looks like we’ll have the practical books in the dining area; the fiction, the nonfiction, and the game books in the office; the graphic novels and the oversized books in C’s room; and the complete Heinlein and the belles lettres in the bedroom. And that will influence where we can display the ceramics and other ornamental objects.

The last puzzle was where to put Macavity’s food and water dishes. C thinks we should have them in the dining room area, to encourage Macavity not to hide in the bedroom all the time.

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#517

Thanks for the well wishes, everyone. We’re hanging in there so far.

We assume he got it from his work, but that’s mostly because we just don’t go anywhere or do anything else. He’s an engineer in an industrial shipyard. Right now he works somedays from home on his computer and somedays he has to go in to the shipyard to the actual construction sites or to meetings or whatever and he went in to the shipyard Monday and Tuesday last week and some the week before though I don’t remember the exact days. He is as careful as he can be, always wearing a mask and the like, and we limit our exposure otherwise by getting groceries delivered and not eating out or meeting friends. He doesn’t know of any of his close coworkers having had it, but it could have been asymptomatic transmission or just the shipyard is a big place and he could have got it from any random other person working there.

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#518

I hope you don’t get too severe symptoms and best of luck with a good recovery.

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#519

The move is almost on us, and I find that my anxiety level has risen, even though we’re making decent progress on getting ready for the movers to show up. I will be really glad when we’re in the new place, hopefully for a long stay.

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#520

Good luck. I hate moving

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#521

Best of luck with it!

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#522

Thanks. I’m not fond of it myself. I’m trying to remind myself that this will be less hard than previous moves (for most of which we were carless) and than last year’s move (which involved driving from California to Kansas.) Last year had about three or four moves’ worth of stress. So far nothing this year has been really stressful; I just keep dreading that something will go wrong—which of course is its own form of stress.

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#523

Saw this on Twitter

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#524

Oof. I’m glad I don’t put any stock in astrology. That’s brutal.

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#525

Sagittarius is bang on, beside the fact that I am teetotal (which makes me an exception for the drunk bit) they got me right.

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#526

It’s been a rough weekend for me. But an unusually large snow is forecast for Little Rock this week so that should be diverting.

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#527

Here in Lawrence we’re having intensely cold weather, but not that much snow; I’ve been told by two people (a friend, and one of our movers) that this is the coldest winter in seven years. We’re trying not to go outside, though we need to make a quick grocery run soon.

Fortunately, the new apartment is as well insulated as the old; we turned the heat off just when we went to bed, and it’s only down to 64°F. And we had the maintenance people in on Friday, to replace the knob on the hall closet, unstop the drain on a bathroom sink (we discovered that it was stopped on Tuesday), and get the garbage disposal working again (it had stopped working that very morning, from having a small ceramic piece fall into it). Back at the old place it had taken six days to get our heat turned back on, 24 days to get our water heater replaced, and the broken off bathroom sink handle, which we reported in late October, still hasn’t been fixed! So it appears we’ve found a place with timely maintenance, at least.

I had to revise my floor plan a little to fit in all the shelves, but I think there will be room for everything. Having a dozen sets of shelves demands some extra space.

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#528

Heard a story this morning about some California transplants in my old neighborhood that were unprepared for freezing pipes. Thankfully, they just learned about frozen and not burst pipes.

So, in case you were not previously aware: probably a good idea to leave any faucets that are plumbed through an exterior wall on a slow drip over night. We’ve also had the cabinet doors under our sinks open over night, but we have large western-facing walls that catch a lot of wind.

#529

We were actually told that by our local friend, and tried it. Leaving the faucets dripping here overnight had the unexpected outcome that we found the back bathroom sink overflowing and a puddle on the floor; apparently the drain was blocked. Our manager says that they haven’t had issues with pipes freezing, and we didn’t have them last night, so we may be safe.

I don’t think our sinks are plumbed through exterior walls; they’re all in rooms that are on an interior face of the apartment, and none of them is at either end of it.

Which is not to say that the advice is bad! I’m just thinking it may not apply in our specific case.

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#530

Yeah, in this area, I’m not worried at all about plumbing that’s through interior walls.

I think, for apartments in this area, they probably started designing the plumbing to primarily be in interior walls for that purpose back in the 80s or 90s. They only apartments I had concerns about were older than that.

My house, on the other hand? 5 of 9 sinks are on exterior walls (and it was built in 1999)

#531

If I had 8 sinks in my house, there wouldn’t be room for anything else :laughing:

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#532

Just mentally counted again and it’s 9.

This house is, admittedly, ridiculous.

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#533

Do you distinguish between sinks, basin, and tubs? I have a brother who is a plumber and who is pedantic about the distinction. My house has three basins, two sinks, and two tubs.

#534

I’m not sure I understand the distinction.

We have 9 of what I call sinks: a basin set into the top of a counter with a faucet that is plumbed to both cold and hot taps. One, in the kitchen, is divided with two sides, each with it’s own drain (one side has a garbage disposal, the other does not).

I think a “basin” would be if there were two faucets, one each for hot and cold taps? We don’t have any of those.

Not sure what a tub would be unless we’re talking about a bathtub: of which we have one standard (has both a bath spigot and a shower head) and a jetted tub in the master bath (no shower head, but fitted with a water pump like you would find in a jacuzzi).

The master also has a custom, walk-in shower stall, and so does the jack-and-jill bath.

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#535

There’s a lot of that about, but my brother gets cross and scolding if anyone gets it wrong in his hearing. Basins are for putting in bathrooms and toilets, and are for washing your hands and face and cleaning your teeth. Sinks are for putting in kitchens and are for filling and emptying pots and for washing fruit and vegetables and for washing up. And then tubs, apart from bath-tubs, are for putting in laundries and are for soaking and hand-washing laundry. Then you have yard sinks….

My brother is very disparaging about homes where a sink has been installed in the laundry.

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