The Dryer, Part 2

 

This is my dryer.  It stopped working.  It was running just fine and then it stopped.  There was a slightly smoky smell to the clothing inside and I was worried that there was a fire some where in the recesses of the motor.  There wasn't.  Very glad about that, I am.

These are the magnets that profess my love for Jim The Office.  I think they're funny.

This is the dryer with its top removed.

This is the dryer with the front opened.  See those flimsy little wires near the bottom?  They're the only thing connecting the front to the rest of the machine.  Those little wires were a constant source of worry to me during this whole process.  They go to the door switch and if I broke them I wouldn't have light in my dryer any more.

My method for keeping track of the various screws and where they belong on the dryer.

This is the dryer when I finally got the flingin-flangin-belt off the drum, motor and idler pulley.  That took some serious contortions and a bruised arm.

The freed drum!

The empty housing.  At this point I still had no idea what caused the malfunction.  I was just happy to have it mostly taken apart.  Getting to this point took the better part of 2 hours.

The back side of the drum.  Paul thought the bearing kit was bad.  That's the round, sort of pointy looking thing in the middle of the drum.  I had no idea what a good or bad bearing kit looked like.  I did notice that spotty gray scrape mark going around the outer edge of the circle of triangular cut outs.  It was clear the paint had been scraped off with something but I thought it was normal wear and tear.  (Hint: it wasn't.)  Also, Paul was not here during any of this.  I sent him pictures of this and a video of me moving the bearing kit around and asked if it looked normal to him.  He wasn't sure.

Being the clean freak I am, I had to vacuum the copious amounts of dust and lint and a few lost buttons from the floor of the machine.  It was very therapeutic.  I also had a high time digging out great handfuls of lint from the door and vent tube.

At this point there followed a lot of speculation on both Paul's and my parts regarding what the problem was.  It clearly was not the belt because that sucker was very much intact when I opened everything up.  Everything else appeared to be in good repair as well so we decided the thing to do was order a bearing kit.  I did.  When I picked it up I felt a sense of foreboding -- it looked exactly like what was attached to the drum.  This likely mean that the kit I had was fine.

Paul studied the dryer some more and found a tiny broken wire at the bottom of the dryer housing.  My Dyson missed it.  It's actually a good thing it did or we might not have figured out the problem.  Paul realized that it had broken off the heating element causing the element not to connect at one of its terminals.  This meant the end of the element was scraping the back of the drum, hence the scratched paint I noticed.  It also burned up all the lint that was stuck to the back of the drum, hence the burning smell.  I'm really lucky the whole thing didn't burst into flames with our clothes inside.

So I ordered a new heating element and took the bearing kit back.  I lost a 10% restocking fee on the bearing kit. Who invented restocking fees?  I'd like to give them a piece of my mind.

Paul was nice enough to string the new heating element for me.  That's his mostly consumed beverage off to the right there.  He said that stringing heating elements required limeade with a splash or two of vodka.  I happily obliged.

All finished!  It's much shinier than the old one.  And, most importantly, it's intact!

So we put everything back together, plugged it in and crossed our fingers as I switched it on.  It ran smoothly.  It did not blow up.  It did not catch fire.  I did a little happy dance.

Parts that were left over.  Only I think the beebee and the little screw looking thing were part of Samuel's collection that got lodged in the dryer some where.  Not sure about the washer.  That might have been part of his collection, too.

Now that is the complete saga of the busted dryer and how I took it apart and Paul helped me fix it.  We rock!

The Dryer, Part 1

At some point in this calendar year my dryer quit.  I can't remember when it was.  January?  February?  It was definitely one of those because we're in March and it wasn't this month.  Beyond that, everything runs together.

Anyway, the dryer quit.  In the middle of a load of wet laundry.  With a load in the washer.  And at least 2 more waiting to be washed.  Of course the dryer would pick that day to quit.  That's the way dryer strikes work.

It was just before I had to pick up the kids from school so I packed up the wet clothes and hauled them to the laundry room at the apartment management office.  I didn't have any quarters so I tossed the wet clothes in the machines and looked around for a change machine.  There was none.  So I hoofed it to the manager's office and asked for change.  They didn't have any.  I may have muttered some not-so-nice words in the general direction of the unhelpful staff (they deserve it -- this place is a hole and they're incompetent like you wouldn't believe. I need to devote a post to that.).  I definitely stormed out, packed up my wet clothes and did a quick laundromat search for this ZIP code.  I found one.

But by then it was time to pick up the kids.  I called them and told them that I had to go to a laundromat and could they please walk home?  Fortunately it was a beautiful day and they took the opportunity to play at the various playgrounds between school and home.  I got the clothes dried at the laundromat (that has half a dozen change machines! Imagine that!) and came home just as the kids trooped upstairs, all tired out from their adventures in Playground Land.

Oh!  As I left the laundromat I was pushing one of those wheeled, stainless-steel baskets with the hanging bar at the top to the door so I could take my clothes out to the car.  One of the wheels stuck on the corner of a tile and the basket stopped.  I, however, did not.  I proceeded to slam my left cheekbone into the steel bar supporting my clothing.  I hit it so hard I bit my tongue and felt my teeth jar against each other.  I literally saw stars before I even figured out what happened.  Ow-flippin'-ouch!

I whined to Paul about my awful afternoon and he whined to me about his broken down car.  Yes, his transmission went completely kaput on the very same day and stranded him in downtown Denver with a big towing bill.  Not a spectacular day for either of us.  He proposed a couple of possible problems with the dryer and promised to help me with it.  I could not propose any problems with his car, nor could I promise to help with it.  But we shared some wine and commiserated together.

A couple of days later I'd managed to disassemble most of the dryer but I still wasn't sure what was wrong with it.  Needless to say, I had more laundry to do so I figured the best plan was to gather the essentials into one load and wash them at home, then take them to the laundry room here in the complex and dry them.  I would, of course, be sure to take my own quarters since the management here can't seem to maintain a change machine.

On the night I absolutely had to wash clothes it was snowing and dark and cold and windy.  I took the wet freezing clothes to the laundry room.  Guess what?  One of the dryers was locked up so that no quarters could be inserted.  The other one didn't work.  I know because I put 6 quarters in it and ended up with still-wet clothes 45 minutes later.  (Also, the laundry room is supposed to have 2 washing machines.  On the night I was there they only had one and it had an 'Out of Order' sign on it.  Oh, and the lights in the room didn't work so I was doing all this by the light of a broken soda machine.  Do you understand my muttered not-so-nice words a little better now?)  I then had to hike back to my car with 50+ pounds of wet clothes in the cold and snow.  And I slid in the snow and fell on my butt with the 50+ pounds of wet clothes landing on top of me.  I was reallyreallyreallyreally not happy.

When I got back upstairs I still had to have dry pants for everyone.  That meant picking out the essentials for everyone, hanging them up in my bathroom and turning a fan on them full-blast.  They were sufficiently dry for the next morning.  Thank heaven for small favors, huh?

Anyway, that's the story of the broken down dryer.  Actually, that's not all of it.  There's the whole ordeal of actually fixing it, which Paul and I did.  And I have pictorial evidence!  But that will have to wait for another post because it's now Miriam's bedtime and she's demanding her (rightful, promised) computer time.

I Hate the First Week After Breaks

I really do.  When the kids are with the ex-husband in Albuquerque they eat all manner of crappy food, stay up way past anyone's decent bed time and are generally spoiled rotten by movies, video games, candy, amusement parks and no responsibilities.  Then they have to come back here where I *gasp* make them eat healthful meals, go to bed at an appropriate time, do chores and I can't spend money on every entertainment their little hearts desire.  It sucks for all of us.

So last week I was in a funk.  It's tough enough to write about the mundane things during times like that, never mind the extraordinary ones.  But we made it through the week.  Literally one week of nagging, hounding, whining (both theirs and mine) and crying.  Sunday was a great day and Sunday marked one week of the kids being back here with me.

Today was fabulous.  Well, except for the minor frustrations this morning with Samuel's toothbrush.  And his jacket.  And his shoes.  But that's kind of normal.  We had a delicious, balanced meal and each kid was only reminded once to eat the veggies.  I did not only a load of laundry, but also unloaded the dishwasher from yesterday, reloaded it after dinner and ran it!  The kids had minimal homework that was done quickly and they even had time for some tv and a half hour of computer games.  Everyone went to bed (almost) on time.

:contented sigh:

I hate Week One after school breaks.  Week Two is okay.

Why I Will be Happy for the Kids to Grow Up

Disclaimer:  This is a Debbie Downer post.  I'm fully aware of that.  I'm not usually in this state of mind and you know it.  But this has been a difficult couple of weeks and I need to vent.  Thank you.

When the kids grow up there will be no more:

• mysterious stomach symptoms, followed by puking
• obsessive-compulsive throat clearing
• remembering who gets the first computer turn today, who gets to sit where, who gets the 'special' fork or who gets any one of the numerous things they argue about
• invasion of my bed at 6 AM with tossing and turning, flicking at my ears, asking for food, wiggling incessantly and finally running frantically to the bathroom to pee
• peed beds
• homework wrangling
• coordinating of visits with the ex-husband
• coordinating of anything with the ex-husband
  
• deciding where to live based mostly on where they will go to school
• book fairs, skating parties, volunteering at school or scheduling parent/teacher conferences
• backseat fighting
• "Move!", or "Don't do that!", or "Stoooooop iiiiit!"
• crying over computer games that are too difficult or too violent or too everything
• being afraid of the dark or monsters or spiders
• disgusting yellow stains on and around the toilet or stale urine smell in the bathroom
• discussions of why I think drinking alcoholic beverages is okay and the ex-husband does not

The Business of Half Siblings

This is so much harder than I thought it would be. I never wanted to care this much about anything the ex-husband did, so long as he didn't mistreat our children or expect me to make nice to the mistress. When the mistress went away, half of my worries went away. But then he started dating the new wife and he married her and I had a whole bunch of new worries.

It was weird to find out that they were expecting. It was weirder when she started to show. The most surreal moment was when I saw a picture from her 3D ultrasound and the baby's nose looked exactly like Solomon's. Until then, I could push it to the back of my mind because the baby was still a formless, genderless being hidden away in her belly.

I was texting with my ex-sister-in-law (whom I still like) two nights ago about Solomon's birthday. The next morning I got another text message from her that said the ex-husband and the new wife had gone to the hospital because her water broke. All day I kept waiting for the text message that said the baby had been born and was, therefore 'real' in my mind. 'Real' in the sense that it now had a name and an identity, like my own children. The last I knew when I went to bed was that she was getting an epidural and not progressing past 3 cm.

When I woke up today I had a message that read "It's a boy, born at 12:30 am. He weighs 8 lbs, 2 oz and he's 20.5 inches long." It doesn't get much more real than that. Or so I thought. And then I heard the name. He has the same first name as my boys. And his middle name, which is undoubtedly the name they will call him, follows the same pattern that my children's middle names do.

My 3 children, for whom I live and breathe, are included in a naming pattern with this child. Their child. My 3 children are his siblings. They share DNA with him.

I've been trying to figure out why this bothers me and I think I have it: I don't want to care what the ex-husband does but he's made it so that I have to. He's had a child that will directly impact my children's lives.

The easier bit to figure out is equality. What I mean is that the new wife professed to love my children like they were her own. And I can believe she did. But that changed in the moment that she had her biological child because now she does have her own. Call me a cynic, but I find it impossible to believe that she'll love and treat all 4 of these children equally. I just do.

It's easier to believe that the ex-husband will love his 4 children equally. I can put myself into an imaginary situation in which I have an imaginary child with an imaginary partner and I can imagine that I love that child just as I love the 3 I already have. I can imagine that. The problem on the ex-husband's side is that my 3 children will see things differently. After all, this child has both of his parents together all the time. This child won't be traveling 400 miles to see his father during school breaks.

My children, at this point, are happy about the new baby. They are excited to go spend the summer there and play with him. Because they are happy, I am happy for them. Babies are cute and sweet and exciting. No matter my feelings on the subject, he is their half-brother and I don't expect them to ignore that relationship. But I dread the day they realize this may not be all it's cracked up to be.

Finally, I am grateful that this child missed being born on my brother's birthday, even if it was only by 30 minutes. I am more grateful still that this child wasn't born on my child's birthday, which is tomorrow. But that doesn't keep me from wishing he was born in another month, or even a different season.

Why I Don't Like Today

• Miriam and Samuel started puking last night.
• Miriam and Samuel started having diarrhea this morning.
• I'm not feeling so hot.
• Solomon denies feeling sick but I'm just waiting for that shoe to drop.
• I'm somewhat hungry but limiting our diet today in light of our earlier gastrointestinal distress.
• I'm worried about whether the boys can go to school tomorrow and Miriam can keep her dental appointment.
• The weather was beautiful today -- 60F and sunny -- but we were too sick to go any where.
• We did go outside to play in the snow for a bit and Samuel puked.

Don't Divorce Us

"Fidelity": Don't Divorce... from Courage Campaign on Vimeo.

I Was Insulted

Earlier this week a patient's mother stressed to me repeatedly that I must document all phone conversations in her child's chart so there would be no discrepancy when it came time for the insurance company to pay her claim. She said it over and over and over again.

This is insulting to me for several reasons. 1) I am a nurse and documentation is key. 2) I am a good nurse and my documentation is excellent, whether I'm charting patient care or a conversation in person or on the phone. 3) It is our office's policy to document everything to insure consistent patient care. 4) It's just common freaking sense.

I tried to say this politely to this woman, but she didn't seem to get it. Whatever. I sighed and let it go because that was Wednesday. But it happened again today. I spent 15 minutes on the phone with this woman while she repeated that her insurance company is a stickler for correct diagnosis and treatment and documentation. I gritted my teeth and said, "Ma'am, documentation in any medical chart is an absolute must and I assure you that I am writing everything down." She still didn't seem to appreciate my situation.

And to add further to the insult, she actually asked me to falsify documentation. She wanted me to write down that she had tried to come into the office many times this summer for her child's condition but was unable to because there was a family crisis. Seriously? I have no idea if that's why she hasn't been in until now. I don't necessarily doubt her, but I can't write that down. Then she asked me to document that her child's diagnosis is the exact reason he has experienced these particular symptoms for the past 5 months. Again, not my call.

When it became clear that nothing I said would satisfy her, I told her that she could talk to the doctor. I'm still irritated.

Untitled

I started this post Friday morning with a sinking, sickening feeling in my stomach. I was coming here to lament the atrocious comments made about Barack Obama by some John McCain supporters in recent days; comments that are bigoted, racist and, simply put, untrue. Further, they were comments that have been largely ignored by the McCain camp. I was so disheartened that I couldn't gather my thoughts and I saved the post so I could come back and edit it later. I am continuing my post now with a better frame of mind.






For what it's worth, I don't believe for a minute that all of McCain's supporters espouse the beliefs of these few. I wouldn't even purport to believe that John McCain himself believes these things. But his refusal to address these comments is paramount to agreement with them. John McCain has now made a couple of statements to the effect that he does not condone this type of bashing. Whatever his motive, I am pleased that at least something has been said. I fear this is a case of 'too little, too late,' though.




I hope that more of the media pick up on the nastiness coming from people like those in the first two videos. Some have and they have reported on it. I hope they continue to do so. Refusal to condemn actions and words like these is reprehensible.

This country should be better than this. I hate that in the 21st century people can still let race, religion and something as insignificant as a middle name color their perceptions of another human being. It's sickening and I am so sad to be living in the middle of it.

Things like this make me feel more 'glass half-empty' than 'glass half-full'. I don't like feeling that way. My response to this negativity is to volunteer for the Barack Obama campaign. During the two weeks leading up to the presidential election I will be working the phone bank at a local campaign office when I get off work. To those bigoted, uneducated nasties -- congratulations! You've just campaigned for the man you hate.

Too Creative for His Own Good

Solomon and I had a difficult bedtime last night. He pushed all the wrong buttons and by the time I turned out the light, I was too tense to tuck him in nicely. So I did what I do in that situation and told him that I'd be back in a few minutes to tuck him in.

I left the room to straighten up a few things and cool myself off. As I was organizing my desk, Solomon came out of the room and stood by my elbow. I ignored him for a few seconds, thinking that he might think better of it and go back to bed. He didn't so I turned to look at him.

I heard a sound.

A deep sigh. Go. Back. To. Bed.

He turned, stomped into the bedroom and threw himself on to the bed. It was a very hard landing and I heard creaking from the bunk bed. The kids have had drilled into their heads "Do Not Jump On The Beds" since I made that purchase more than two years ago. It's an automatic time out. I can't believe I am putting a child into time out after bed time, but so be it.

He goes to the spot in the hallway and I start his timer. He was appropriately meek and served his time well.

When the timer beeped, we had the very brief discussion about why he had a time out and why it's not okay to jump on the bed or throw oneself on to the bed. I don't feel the need to belabor this point because it's not a matter of him not understanding by now. But whatever.

I should know better than to ask, but I asked him why he had done it. He thought carefully before responding, "It's because I want to be in the Olympics and I need to practice so I can jump over those hurdles."

Yeah, I laughed, too.

Sometimes I Annoy Myself

I have a little problem. Clutter stresses me out. At work we all switch desks, depending on the nurses working and which doctors are in the office that day. There is only one desk that is acceptable to me. The others are piled with papers, post-its, pens, paper clips and dust. It's very troubling.

I'm the same way at home. I have figured out my own system for keeping the clutter at bay and it works for me, as long as I have some time to devote to de-cluttering every week. If, for some reason, I don't have time to take care of little things here and there, I get irritable. If things pile up too much, I get down right grouchy.

At that point, I have to stage an intervention on myself due to the condition of my own house. We eat cereal and sandwiches for a weekend, the kids watch way too much tv and I clean, de-clutter and toss stuff for 48 hours. It's pretty exhilerating.

Every once in a while, the breaking point occurs at the same time the kids are gone for a few days. This is convenient because then I can get everything done much more quickly and not feel as if I'm border-line neglecting them.

The aforementioned problem occurs when I get so caught up in the organizing and cleaning that I can't relax. I'll cook dinner with the intention of eating and watching a movie. When I'm done eating, the kitchen has to be cleaned immediately or I won't enjoy the movie. Then I'll realize that the floor needs to be swept. I might as well mop, too. Which leads to the bathroom floors. And that reminds me that the bathroom trash cans are full. When they're emptied I see that the big trash can is full and carry it to the dumpster. Surely you see where this is going.

And so we return to the title -- Sometimes I just really annoy myself.

The Perfect Storm

I have two rather extensive computer labs due tomorrow. I have a pharmacology exam due on Monday. The final is Wednesday. The final for my computer class is due on Tuesday and it has be taken in the presence of a proctor. The proctor is never available to schedule testing time.

I have a headache that ibuprofen isn't touching. I am out of Dr. Pepper. I didn't sleep enough last night. I just ate too much boxed macaroni and cheese. The kids have way too much energy for it to be 7:30 pm. A large serving of neon green beverage was spilled on the carpet at dinner.

It's May and it snowed 2 inches yesterday. The high today was too freaking cold to pass for May or anything even close to it. My windshield cracked yesterday during the snow storm. Not a little crack, either -- many long, silvery, nasty cracks.

I can feel all of this combining into one big mess, the likes of which I haven't seen in a while. Poo poo on today.

Grant Me Strength

Some days, I swear I won't make it to the end of this parenting gig with my sanity in tact. My daughter occasionally acts as if she has taken a leave of absence from her body and allowed 47 varieties of hysterical body snatchers to take up residence there. It's enough to reduce my usual calm self to the gnashing of teeth and the wearing of sackcloth and ashes.

:deep sigh:

Today, it began with the refusal to wear the outfit that was perfectly acceptable only 10 minutes earlier. Once the clothing issue was settled, she decided that when I trimmed her hair last night, I trimmed it too short. A continuous wail of "My-hair-is-too-short-I-want-my-hair-long" ensued on the walk out the door, down the stairs, to the car and half way to school.

When I picked her up this afternoon, she pouted when I asked about her spelling test, even though she did extremely well on it. At home, she wanted to paint but we are, sadly, out of both water colors and the not-so-washable washable paint. This was cause for more pouting and whining, "But I want to paaaaaaaaaaaaaaint." A brief time out fixed her attitude momentarily -- until she decided that she wanted to change into her pajamas for movie night.

Now, changing into her pajamas wasn't the problem. (I was just fine with this because pajamas mean sleepiness and sleepiness leads to actual sleep very quickly with this child.) No, the problem occurred when she shouted at her brother to leave the room so she could change. I prompted her to ask politely and she responded by shoving said brother. Another trip to time out, accompanied by more screeching and wailing -- this time, for Daaaaaaaaaaaad-dyyyyyyyyyyyyy. My response? Sweetheart, Daddy wouldn't be too happy about your behavior right now, either.

:deeper sigh:

The rum on top of the fridge is beginning to look very enticing.