Tidal Wave

Doing dishes is a pleasure that I enjoy behind closed doors, nothing to brag about; a sink of hot water with an added tea kettle of boiling water, a squirt of dish liquid, about two tablespoons of ammonia and rubber gloves for heaven's sake.  This is if the amount of dishes is momentous enough to call for an assembly line; day to day dishes get a scrub with a sponge, the end.  You want clean dishes, add the extra ammonia which is the not such a big deal secret put in grease cutting soaps.  Do read labels, anything with oxy won't get along with the ammonia and may create fumes, same with bleach.  Never mix the two or you may end up on a gurney with blinking lights and plastic tubings.  Not to scare you, but be smart about this.  It's chemistry.

Get two tubs of rinse water ready; the first being plain hot water to swash off suds and the ammonia which would eventually evaporate on its own, but why not hurry it along?  The second tub is also hot water, but with a bit of white vinegar added to get All the soap off.  Whoa, you say, there was just a lecture on mixtures and solutions and gurneys, what's this acidic vinegar nonsense?  Well, by the time the item gets through the first rinse, most of the chemical is gone, and the vinegar rinse produces sparkle and squeaking, which is lovely.  Fling open a window, turn on a fan, having fresh air wouldn't hurt but I guarantee there won't be a headache from fizzing.  If things fizz, there's too much of something, dilute further with tap water.

Glass turns to diamonds, just be sure it isn't Grandma's because it is unlikely to be tempered and may crack going in to the first solution.  I let it air dry on a folded towel, while plates stand like enlisted soldiers in the dish rack.  Various sizes of bottle brushes do different jobs; a teensy one for teapot spouts, a scientific one for getting in the angles of pitchers.  I am far, far from being a clean fest, faaaarrrrrrrr.  But this dishes business is similar to a tea ceremony, and I like thinking that I'm productive.  Do rinse sauces and dairy off the plates before the first wash, so that you don't end up with a greasy, brown soup that has chunks in it.  

Last Thursday, I was at the sink with only a few things to wash but look!  The tea kettle is spotty with bacon grease, wash it!  Utensils hanging over the stove, wash them!  Wipe down the trash can lid and cat food bucket, rinse the sponge! The digging tools and rock hammer could use a cleaning, wash!  The zone was in action, I was being almost holy, and then WHAM! Where the hell did that puddle under the fridge come from?  Flipping pancakes, the rug is soaked, that's not coming from the fridge, it's from under the sink where the trail led to inside the bottom cupboard; the vision of an unscrewed pipe connector met my gaze, burbling with rinse water.

A life lesson is that you can swear IF you keep moving and fix things; it does not help one bit to swear in frozen disbelief as a half inch of water laps at your heels and please oh please don't let it be so much that the downstairs apartment is wondering which idiot flooded their kitchen.  I have learned to get moving as fast as possible and figure out the how it happened later.  Failsafes fortunately caught even more water than was on the floor, as the pipe had dislodged before, and so trays and tubs lined the area inside the cupboard with stored items.

I can only imagine that the wind from the lake, which shakes the building from time to time, creates a slow unwinding of counterclockwise movement, jiggling the connector loose until it flails meaninglessly into failure.  Or, the place is haunted.  Stranger things happen, ladies and gentlemen.  It may also explain why cupboard handles come loose and fall off mysteriously.

The magical car washing sponge is excellent for sopping up messes; under the sink was emptied out and dried, the creeping puddle was vanquished, and there were no knocks at my door.  Cats wanted to help, but there was yuck everywhere, and so feelings were hurt when I said no, thank you.  NO. NOOOOOO DAMMIT!!!!  The evening was filled with humidity and disappointment at lost plans; that's another lesson.  Not much doesn't gang aft a-gley, so just go with the flow till it can be resolved, if ever.  No one will remember it in a month, including yourself, unless it's a bill collector or your boss.

Today was put-away-snow-boot day, in honor of tomorrow's vernal equinox; yet under the boots was a puddle.  Today is Saturday, did water from the kitchen fiasco find it's way over to the shoes and boots by the door?  No, no way, this is not happening, where did all this water come from, for the amoeba-like blop extended under the bike, then ended at the sisal mat which was bone dry.  This meant that no water got past that mat, coming from another source.  Where? Paper towels contained most of what was sort of medicine-y smelling liquid and led to the perp. a knocked over container of wipes used for cleaning around the cat dishes.

Who knew wipes had that much liquid to cause a minor collapse of my physics perspective, being that if something crummy happens, you are declared safe for at least the remainder of that week.  Certainly, you have experienced the combo emotion of chagrin/relief, and end up being temporarily confused as to which to feel first.  The rest of this weekend shall be bone dry, a Sahara of linoleum, a desert wind across the cooling coils of ye olde refrygeratore.

In other corners, there was a navy blue wool sailor suit in perfect condition at the thrift store for $16; now, I don't need a man's sailor suit, the kind the Cracker Jack kid wears, but how, how could this be passed up?  The pants have a lace in the back, a buttoned square front; the patches indicate that this man was a Petty Officer, Second Class and worked in the Aviation Machinist division.  A semi-circle on the shoulder announced ATKRON 42, Attack Squadron 42.  I have yet to find further history on the uniform, but what a story from artifacts sewn onto the cloth!  Could have been WWII, Korea, or Vietnam; hopefully research will lead to answers, but frankly, it looks as if it had never been worn, except that the pants legs are safety-pinned up on the inside to a height a bit taller than me.

The name tag under the back flap of the jersey had become unreadable, traces of blue ink had dissolved into obscurity; well, check the pants.  There it was, May James.  May?  Did women wear these uniforms?  With that squared off front in the pants?  Flip the name around, and it became James May, with a number. Googled the name and here is a British television somebody who does documentaries?  He lives in Hammersmith, London, and flies small aircraft.  Is he the match for this name?  Was the uniform, a size 36 whose pants would had fit a 6 foot frame unpinned, part of a program he did?  I doubt if this is the man, and tomorrow will dig around with the number, a B132215, if I remember correctly.  May James, James May, I will do my best.

I had brought home a National Geographic with a story regarding how darkness, night time, impacts our diurnal lives and how we have lost much darkness by the illumination after sundown.  What drew me was a photo of something I think I saw only as a small girl when living out in the sticks, the Milky Way. Can anyone not fall to their knees at the image of eternity, of the liquid star clusters, nebulae, billions of systems with stars and planets, the wheeling map of light and energy?  And yet to those who see this view each night, those who live in areas not lit by electricity, do they shiver to their toes at the immensity, do they reach with fingers as if to slide them over a point of light?

Repair when you can, look up at the night sky; it will fill you with what you are.