Ironing

I chose to title this entry ironing because that is what stage we are at right now. The wrinkles are ironing themselves out. Let me explain...

When we moved into our apartment things seemed fine although a bit strange. However we just assumed that's how it was. I mean the light switches are on the outside of the room and you have to flip the switch for the water heater for the bathroom and the kitchen and separately. So any deviation from the norm seemed normal. But over time we started to notice some things getting worse. For example, our shower. If you turned it on hot and ran it, it got nice and hot. But as soon as you turned the faucet toward the middle for a not so scalding temperature it would go ice cold. So then you'd turn it back to hot. Usually you'd get a decent temperature for a minute or two. Then it progressively got worse and it was either very hot or very cold and very hard for us to actually be under the water. Problem two, our toilet started leaking. It has a little pipe out the side of the base (overflow or something I guess) and there's a little drain on the floor. I think it's a precaution so your bathroom never floods. Except ours was - little by little the water creeped until more of the floor was wet...well, finally this week they replaced some part and now it's bone dry there (yay) and my principal Tim (Mr. Hong Kong as he's otherwise known because he knows so much about here) said why don't you run your sink on hot just barely while you shower and that should keep the hot water running in the shower. See, it's a unit that flash heats the water - not a tank. So something is awry with the pressure and sensing. They are still trying to figure out a solution but at least in the meantime we can be clean! So those are two very big reliefs to us.

It seems that plumbing problems follow Ernie and I like the plague. When we moved to Chandler from Tucson we lived in a brand spanking new apartment but the first time we used the new washer it flooded. Then we moved to our San Juan address in Phoenix. The master bedroom toilet just kept running one morning and we found ourselves ankle deep in water - that was a fun process drying all that out. Then in our last place the toilet handle had to be jimmied and the fixtures were from the 1920's. The sink in the kitchen had separate spigots. While charming it was a bit unpractical. So I figured here we'd be home free. But I read that scripture the other day that says "I have told you all this so that you may have peace in me. Here on earth you will have many trials and sorrows. But take heart, because I have overcome the world." John 16:33 Boy isn't that the truth - but it's okay because there's something bigger going on and I'm not gonna let a little plumbing get me down. Instead I'm gonna do some ironing!