I’ve never considered myself a huge “Mad About You” fan, but I used to enjoy catching episodes on a semi-regular basis. One scene that made me laugh and sticks out in my mind, was when Jaime demonstrates to Paul exactly how easy it is to change an empty roll of toilet paper. The scene:

Many times I’ve thought about reenacting that scene for my roommates who seem to like the class and convenience a freestanding roll brings to the operation.

Not too long ago I finally got through to them.

Shortly after that, my roommate came to me with some bad news. Apparently while changing the toilet paper roll he dropped the little plastic holder, the technical term is “insert”, while simultaneously flushing. In an instant it was goodbye insert; hello flooding toilet.

After some futile attempts at dislodging we decided our best bet would be to call Roto Rooter.

They came; they plunged; they charged $100 and left in less than 5 minutes. I can’t say I was overly thrilled about the apparent ease of running his special tools down the toilet, pushing the insert further down the line to become someone else’s problem, but who cares, the toilet appeared to be working again and what’s more the roommate paid me back.

However, even with the 24 hour guarantee on the work, I had a sinking suspicion this problem wasn’t completely resolved.

The next morning I left for my holiday to Punta Cana and returned Sunday afternoon—long after the 24 hours had expired—to discover the toilet having difficulties flushing and leaking water etc, into the basement bathroom on each flush.

I called Roto Rooter again.

Greeted by a pleasant voice on the phone, I explained the situation. She seemed pretty sure that I would have to pay for the clearing but conceded that if it was the same thing, then maybe they’d make an exception. She explained that they wouldn’t be able to tell what it was if they pushed it through. I asked about the use of a camera to check it out. Well, they had cameras, she patiently explained, but I’d be charged if they used them. So in order for me to find out whether or not I’d have to pay, I’d have to be charged. There it was, a nice little catch 22.

Later that day a new, but equally inspiring, Roto Rooter specialist showed up at my house. After a quick removal of the toilet and a little toilet water accidentally poured down the heating vent (I had to tell myself, just grin and bear it), the guy ran his toilet snake tool down the pipe where it “90s” and though he didn’t actually see that it was the same problem, he trusted my story and thankfully they didn’t charge me again.

Yay for Roto Rooter—though it did take two house calls to get it fixed.

Now I’m not saying this happened, but if you ever drop something in the toilet, don’t flush it. Be brave and pull it out, or failing that, get someone else to do it. Telling the owner of the house that it was dropped mid-flush is highly suspicious—but I realise, not impossible.

P.S. Post vacation, where you might have accidentally drank the water, is a terrible time for toilet problems. Just saying.

Today is the fifth year anniversary of owning my own home.

I moved to Lethbridge in the fall of 2002 to go to University and of all the decisions I’ve made since moving here, buying a house has got to be one of the best.

I’ve watched as the value of the house doubled in only a few years and there is nothing quite as satisfactory as the feeling I get knowing that I have a place to call my own.

Hopefully I’ll have it paid off in the next five.

A short time ago, the bake element in my oven decided it would prefer to experience life as a sparkler rather than as the key component in the “heating up Jeff’s food” process.

An interesting thing happens when good elements go bad. It’s not uncommon for the metal to start shooting fiery sparks in all directions travelling around the whole element or until it snaps apart due to the breakdown of the material. It’s fun to watch but a little scary at the same time especially if no one has warned you that it’s not unusual for old elements to self destruct in such a manner.

Ok, here come the boring (but important) life lessons:

• Always put something under your food—the oven is not a barbecue. I’ve caught roommates doing this on several occasions. Luckily we’ve so far never had a house fire ensue (maybe that’s why the bottom of the oven looks so bad). There are some exceptions to this rule of course, like the pizza that is currently rising to delicious perfection as I write this—I always say “They’ve come a long way in frozen pizza technology”.
• Replacing your old element is easy. Follow these straight-forward directions.
• Clean your oven before you take pictures and post them on the Internet or the world will think you’re lazy. I’ve chosen not to clean it just to prove a point. Think about how right I am by how apathetic you’re judging me to be.

I guess that’s it. Now I’m off to enjoy some gourmet frozen pizza. Oh and I did clean the oven after I got the old element out—Mr. Muscle you are my hero. I just hope that now my pizza won’t taste like heavy duty oven cleaner.

Recently I switched to a fixed rate on the natural gas portion of my utilities. I am really happy that I made the switch because it’s already saved me a lot of money. However, I also switched gas companies—something I didn’t really realize I was doing. Not that it’s a big deal, but it has resulted in some confusion. Allow me to elaborate:

The old supplier is Direct Energy Utilities, and the new supplier is Direct Energy Essential Services. Since I didn’t realize there was a change I continued to pay my bills online like I always do, to Direct Energy (Utilities). Well you can imagine my surprise when I started getting overdue notices. But I brushed them off thinking, well I must have just forgotten to pay somehow I’ll do it now. So I sent the wrong company more money. Pretty soon the colour of paper for my overdue notices changed - a sign that something was drastically wrong.

When I called to find out what was going on, the person I talked to was very understanding and said that it happens quite frequently. It did somewhat bother me though to hear that if it’s not paid within only a couple weeks they’re going to cut the cord. Understandable from a business point of view, but kind of rude given the particular situation from a customer service point of view.

I still need to go to the bank and see what I need to do to get back the $400+ from the my old gas service providers. I hope the process is quick and easy to that I can use that money to pay the correct people. Who would have thought something as simple as changing to a fixed gas rate could result in almost having the heat cut off.

One of my roommates let me know that he is moving out at the end of the month. I will now need to find another roommate. If you or someone you know needs a place to live in Lethbridge let me know.

My parents have a rental property in Medicine Hat that they are also trying to rent - it’s a house in Southridge. The previous tenants did quite a number on the place and didn’t pay for their last couple months either. Eventually they had to be evicted, and now I think my folks have finally got the place ready for new tenants.

My day included:

• Cashing two cheques! (yay)
• Paying off my summer class tuition (boo)
• Browsing Chapters (meh - nothing to interesting)
• Shopping at the brand new Superstore that opened today and having my mom buy me food (yay)
• eating corn on the cob with my parents (yay)
• cleaning the house and spilling a bucket of mop water all over the floor (boo)
• Trying not to think about you know who (meh - breaking up still sucks)
• Blogging about my day (yay)

Well that’s about it. Hope you had a good Friday. Here is your moment of zen: Redneck montage.

My house is infested. It’s really frustrating, but I have a serious moth problem. (Not to be confused with a math problem which I may or may not also have).

I have been killing these intruders like crazy but every morning when I wake up there are fresh ones all over the house. (Actually I can usually find about… Let’s see three or four each morning but let’s not talk about numbers, as I said earlier this is a moth problem and has very little to do with math.) Just so you know, I’m not talking about the huge scary “Silence of the Lambs” style moths, luckily, but still even though they are small they are still annoying.

I poured out some Vector cereal this morning and discovered a moth in the bowl. This was pretty sick, but whatever, I scooped it out and ate it anyway. Looking in the box indicated that there weren’t any other moths and so I didn’t think much of it.

Tonight I grabbed myself another bowl only to pour in the milk and find ANOTHER moth in my food! GROSS! Little bits of moth dust spread through the milk. I inspected some of the other (old) boxes of cereal - which should have been tossed long ago just because nobody is going to eat Bran Flakes anyway - but when I opened them I found what you might describe as a moth hive. There were tons of dusty dirty moths creeping and crawling around everywhere inside the box. I didn’t count them (see paragraph 1) but I certainly tossed them. Which serves me well anyway because now that I’ve cleaned the cupboards I have room for more tasty cereal.

Hopefully that will be the last of them, if throwing out that old cereal doesn’t take care of them I’ll have to get some mothballs. Which begs the question of which is worse: moths in your food or the smell of mothballs in your kitchen?

A seemingly impossible thing happened today. The painting of the trim in the hallway that I’ve been thinking about doing for months now, finally happened. But that’s not the impossible thing.

I decided to read some more of Anna’s book, “Middlesex”, while I waited for the primer to dry. It’s one of those books where you can’t wait to get back to it, but at the same time you dread the fact that you’re racing through it so fast that soon it will be over. Suddenly there came a rustling from the other side of the house. It sounded like someone was on the stairs. Must’ve been the toilet just topping itself up, I thought to myself.

I had a roommate about a year ago that believed someone or something haunted this house. How silly I thought, it’s just an old house; old houses creak and twist under their own weight. It’s probably just the wind.

The toilet moaned again. Or was it? I knew that my house is 100% apparition free. There are no such things as hauntings, there is always a reasonable explanation. Another pause, then more noises. I put my book down and peered down the hallway. There was nobody in my house—this I knew because both the doors were locked. Shuffling in the living room. Oh !@#%&.

“Hello?” I ventured, “Is anybody there?” I knew I would feel silly after I discovered the obviously logical explanation, but nervously I grabbed a chair to defend myself against whatever interloper happened to be in my home.

As I rounded the corner, there in my living room was a small terrified bird feeling trapped inside this old house. She smashed herself against the glass terrified of what I might do to her. I opened the door and the small creature set herself free. Goodbye little bird, I said as the beautiful sparrow flew into the sky. I have no idea where that bird came from.

Having such a visitor is supposed to be a good omen; a signal that something good is about to happen to me. It reminded me of someone else I used to call “My Little Bird” and whom I also set free. Of course if she ever wanted to visit me she would be totally welcome, because she’s my best friend.

Anna-Maria and I have been painting. Ideally it would be great to paint the whole house but we’re trying to be smart and realistic by doing one bedroom at a time. Last spring we painted the awful pink room into a nice light shade of yellow. This time we’ve hit the master bedroom with a nice light green. It’s so much nicer than the flower wallpaper and bold teal colour that the previous owners had gracing the walls. The house is getting very nice—I’d almost ready to admit I’m proud of it.

I got a new mower.

Above is a picture of me with the new mower on Friday just after I had set it up. I’m barely over the fact that my mower got stolen last year, but I’m pretty happy to have gotten a new one. This one is even better than last year’s model—it’s got 6.75 horse power! I haven’t mowed with it yet but when I do the grass isn’t going to know what hit it.

Anna’s mom gave her some sparklers a long time ago but we never ended up using them. She came into the computer room today and asked if it would be ok to light one in the house. I was surprised that she asked me, but she must have doubted something about the idea anyway I told her to go ahead. I said if something bad happens she could always run out the back door and throw it in the dog’s water. Um, about 6 seconds into the burning of the sparkler I suggested she write her name and burn it into her retina. Well the flinging motion of the sparkler caused a bit of hot burning metal to fall onto a piece of paper hanging on the bulletin board and then burned through onto the floor. All Anna could say in surprise was, “Oh no! Something bad DID happen.” We now have a little black mark on the hard wood floor to remind us of the dangers of sparklers.

I finally sold my old washer and dryer. I am very happy to have them out of the house. I’d like to say I am going to do something particularly special with the money, but in truth it will be going to my monthly bills. I am very happy though, to have the washer and dryer gone.

More importantly than my Washer and Dryer (boring) is the fact that Anna, yes the one and only Anna-Maria LeMaistre, has made a triumphant return to Lethbridge and has no plans to leave again anytime soon. Anna-Maria was on tour for the last two months doing theatre performances in the French immersion and francophone schools all over Alberta. I’m so happy she’s back—I was wasting away and already I’m feeling (and looking) much better.

I knew, at the time, that I would regret later but I was trying to be sensible. I went to an auction the other day to see about buying a fridge. I only wanted to bid $100 for the fridge and also promised myself that I wouldn’t bid on anything else. Well now I regret it. There was a piano for auction—a mighty fine sounding upright type piano and I was quite tempted to bid. Probably worth a few thousand now that I think about it. It sold for $250. What was I thinking? I guess I was thinking that I just don’t have room in my house for a piano. Maybe I’d have room if I got rid of all the extra washers, dryers, etc! They are really bringing me down lately.

We finally buckled. My roommates and I are getting cable. The cable guy is supposed to be coming on Wednesday—they said that someone needs to be home all day. I don’t know how they get off having someone ruin their day waiting for the stupid cable guy to come, you’d think they could at least narrow it down to a couple of hours. Well I guess that’s just the way the world works. Hopefully with all the roommates that I have now at least one of them will be able to stick around. Speaking of roommates, I was happily surprised to find that while I was in Calgary my roommates moved the fridge in for me. Sure now that I have another fridge my house looks even more like a furniture/appliance store, but it’s a store with plenty of food.

The fridge has arrived. It is in my backyard waiting for someone strong to move it downstairs. Anna thinks she is strong enough to help but reality will hit hard when she finds herself under the fridge at the bottom of the stairs.