Sink. And/or swim.

It doesn't take all that much to make us inordinately happy these days.  In this case, some mere drips will do.

Today was the appointed hour of our kitchen faucet re-installation. Eleanor was scheduled to work earlier than usual today, and I'd been scheduled for a court hearing this afternoon that wound up finishing yesterday, so I was able to be here with Em and Cam (and the over-excited dogs) when the guy arrived to replace the leaky two-knobby fixture that likely dates to the Nixon Administration, if not to the construction of the house in my first year or so of life.

Iddn't it purty?



I know- nothin special. Most kitchen faucets went to this modern format back in Flashdance days; I think even my mother's house had one in the late 80s before she moved. Still, it was new to us; it ended the endless drip of the underside of the installation that had always been a problem for us (and that in recent weeks had resulted in serious leakage into the cellar); and while the overall pressure out the faucet itself is a little less than we used to have, when we use that hose thingy? ALL of the water goes to that task, versus the 20-40 percent that used to literally go down the drain when we used it for cleaning or fish-tankery back in our hot-and-cold-running-knobby days.

Total tab: $287.10. Peace of mind at finally getting it done? Fuck, I ain't doing a MasterCard product placement:P

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As is happened, it was time (actually, several days beyond time) to clean the fish tank, so once I finished my surprisingly quiet workday, I set out to try out the new kitchen assembly on the process of cleaning the fishy-bits and, then, filling their 20-gallon home with 20 actual gallons.

The result? Win.

As noted, the overall water flow is a bit more restricted than the previous crankypants setup had been, but now, almost all of the H2 and O molecules get directed to the actual job. The only other downside is that the hose length is a little shorter than the previous version, but I can still maneuver the tank close enough to get far more pints per minute than I used to. And so, Othello and Gene settled back into clean and happy-fish-ness on about the same schedule, if not sooner, compared to their previous Right of Return:



Gene, Gene the Fishy Machine is the larger-than-he-really-is orangey guy on the right. To his left is the cloud of black hole that is our longer-lasting tenant Othello.  They both seem to approve of the new kitchen digs, and my only regret is that it took me this damn long to cut the crap and get round to it.