matthearn.com

She’s like Jerry West

I think Sarah Palin took this straight out of Tex Winter‘s playbook. Tommy Craggs on Gov. Palin’s Full Court Press:

I loved him most
when he came home from work,
his fingers still curled from fitting pipe,
his denim shirt ringed with sweat
and smelling of salt, the drying weeds
of the ocean. I would go to him where he sat
on the edge of the bed, his forehead
anointed with grease, his cracked hands
jammed between his thighs, and unlace
the steel-toed boots, stroke his ankles,
his calves, the pads and bones of his feet.
Then I’d open his clothes and take
the whole day inside me-the ship’s
gray sides, the miles of copper pipe,
the voice of the first man clanging
off the hull’s silver ribs, spark of lead
kissing metal, the clamp, the winch,
the white fire of the torch, the whistle
and the long drive home.

-Dorianne Laux

Plumber’s cleavage

Dear Moen company in specific, and plumbing enterprises in general:

You know what would be nice? If you could be consistent with your connections. Or, barring that, you could clearly label your stuff so that poor schlubs like me don’t discover, as I did last night, that the expensive new kitchen faucet I bought doesn’t fricking fit.

Our kitchen faucet has been falling apart for months; it, like the one replacing it, has a built-in sprayer, a function I like very much, but something funny popped loose such that only the spray mode works now. It’s fine for washing dishes, but kinda sucky for, say, filling a water bottle. So, I decided to replace it. Went to , bought the aforementioned faucet, brought it home.

I lucked out in that we have a split sink, and the faucet sits right on the divider of the basin, so it was reachable from underneath, which meant I didn’t have to go and buy a basin wrench. After much cursing and dripping of hot water into my left eye, I managed to get the old faucet off, and tossed it aside with much élan.

I unpacked the new one, and discovered that the instructions are entirely in picture form, which I guess is great if you can’t read, but doesn’t do much to answer basic questions, such as for example why the faucet had 1/2″ threaded male connectors, when the old one had 3/8″ threaded female.

The new one doesn’t fit. It’s not just a matter of being the wrong size; as I posted on Facebook, both the faucet and the supply connections are male, and neither is willing to go gay for the other and make the whole thing work. (As one wag pointed out, I have to find a couple of lesbians to get in the middle of them, although in my limited experience, the only time two lesbians get in the middle of two men is when they’re breaking up an argument at a softball game.)

Lowe’s supposedly has flexible connectors to solve the problem, but

They vary widely in price, from $4 apiece to $30. No idea what I’m going to have to buy.

Most of the pictures on the Lowe’s website don’t match the product. Does this look like a 3/8″ C x 1/2″ FIP x 20″ stainless steel faucet connector to you?

Don’t the ends look like…the same size? And does it appear to be 20″ long?

Since I can’t take the supply connections out of the wall to screw them into a connector and see, I’ve brought the old faucet to just sort of hold next to it and compare, and the new one to actually screw on and verify. If it doesn’t work, I’m going to assault someone, since I’ve already thrown parts of the old faucet in the garbage, and I have no idea where the receipt is for the $180 faucet I purchased.

So if you hear about a Lowe’s in northern Delaware burning to the ground, um…I actually will have had nothing to do with that.

End of the world as they knew it

Hey! You! Stop what you’re doing, and start reading Freak Angels! I’ve linked you to the beginning, because otherwise you’ll be even more confused than you would normally be.

Wochende

I bet your July 4th wasn’t as awesome as mine. Yeah? Oh yeah? Oh, you traversed the Grand Canyon on horseback, ingested more than the recommended dose of peyote, and woke up next to Anne Hathaway? Okay, you win.

Our weekend started Thursday night with a quick dinner and cake at my parents’ house, and then a lot of packing, finally getting to bed at something like 1am. We were up shortly before 7 to continue packing, rousting the offspring, and getting on the road to Strasburg, PA (home of the world famous Strasburg Railroad, which we did not see) for a lengthy family reunion of sorts at my aunt and uncle’s farm there. Upon arrival, I immediately threw my new golf clubs in my dad’s car and set out to Lancaster Host Resort for a “quick” 18 that lasted 4.5 hours. My slice and push are abysmal as ever, but I will say this: the putter is spectacular. I kept swishing 8- to 12-foot putts like I knew what I was doing, although I had a hard time getting the speed of anything longer, and as you might expect my golf game requires a great deal of long putts.

After the game we settled in for the evening at the farm, where Charles chased cows and sheep and I drank staggering amounts of beer. There was also a chicken-grilling competition; I remember eating it, but do not remember tasting it.

Saturday we loaded up and went to a nearby elementary school where I discovered the following important fact: if you are overweight and wear athletic shorts that are too snug and display every delicious contour of your ample posterior, the rest of the players will be distracted and you can go 4 for 5. If you also position yourself at a spot in the outfield where few balls get to you, you don’t have to be a defensive liability. When most of the players are over 50 or under 15, you’re not gonna have to spear a lot of line drives in center field.

My team won in dramatic fashion; down by three runs with one out in the bottom of the 7th, my uncle Marty hit an inside-the-park grand slam. After two days of lengthy athletic efforts, even two days later, I can barely walk. Muscles hurt that I guarantee did not even exist before this weekend.

In the afternoon, we ate some more food and enjoyed a beer-tasting contest, after which I fell asleep in an easy chair and completely missed the fireworks.

Sunday morning started at 5:30am, when Josephine decided she wanted to be up and around; Sarah had put the kids to bed the night before while I sawed wood, so it fell to me to entertain the child. Charles came down around 7, but we let Sarah sleep in until 8am because she needed the rest; this later turned out to be a Mistake of the first order.

We planned to go to my mom’s family’s ancestral church, Grace Lutheran, where we would all sing in the choir and play in a small brass ensemble and in general take over the musical duties of the church for the day. When I woke Sarah at 8, and told her we needed to leave for the church by 9am, she said “There’s no way that’s happening.” It had not occurred to me that she would have to get herself ready, a half-hour effort, but also feed Josephine and get her and Charles ready. It was agreed that I would ride to the church with Charles in my parents’ car, thereby making it possible for Sarah to be out the door by 10.

Went to church, had a good rehearsal, Charles behaved himself, and then around 10 I got two texts from Sarah.

You aren’t going to believe this but the car won’t start!

Help!

I called, and she said the car was making noises that indicated to me that the battery was fried, which isn’t wholly unexpected since the car’s almost 4 years old. We agreed that she’d just stay at the farm, and we’d hustle back from church and get the car jumped so we could actually drive home.

The service was very nice. I sang my big solo, which is always intoxicating to do from a balcony at the back of the church because it’s extremely enjoyable to see people’s heads whip around with looks on their faces that say “Holy crap, that guy’s loud!” Satisfying.

After the service I grabbed Charles from the nursery and we hustled on back. Grumps parked his car next to the Honda and, while he got out his jumper cables, I decided to see exactly what noise the car made when the ignition was turned. In my case it hesitated, and then started. I thought Sarah would light something on fire, but she took the news in stride; I think she had been drinking for most of the morning.

After that we drove home, spent some time at the pool, and passed out like meth addicts after a home-cooked meal.

Th’ow ’em out

Someone with a little too much time on his hands has made a lego sculpture of the Defenstration of Prague. I don’t know what it says about the world that this exists.

Can I kill them?

Someone should be murdered for this, right? Right?

Britta Bacon & Hayden Porter are childhood friends turned business partners. While Hayden was completely obsessed with high heels, Britta wasn’t even sure if she owned a pair. On her way to her daughter Kayla’s 4th birthday party, Britta was reminiscing about when Kayla was a baby and Hayden’s shoe obsession crossed her mind. She thought to herself “That would have been hilarious if I could have brought Kayla to a party in high heels when she was a baby”. It was at that moment that ·heelarious® was born.

Yeah, I guess you’d have to be named either “Britta” or “Hayden” to have come up with something as fricking stupid as this.

Pieta

From roflrazzi.com:

Hott

Argh

How can the Southern Baptist Convention still call itself a Christian organization? Bigoted idiots.

The Southern Baptist Convention has broken its 127-year-old ties with a Fort Worth Baptist church because the SBC views its stand on homosexuality as too lenient, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram and The Baptist Press report.

This, among other reasons, is why anyone who purports to be a “Christian” needs to answer one question: what is your church’s stance on homosexuality?

Celebrity #8 in a week, I think

In my early teens, I spent a lot of evenings with my parents, watching “Are You Being Served?“, a fantastic BBC sitcom from the 70s and 80s about the employees of a large London department store. It’s on youtube, I think, you should check it out. Either way, RIP Mrs. Slocombe.

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She’s like Jerry West

The Shipfitter’s Wife