Plumbing Photo Addendum

Having featured self-closing toilet seats and other water closet advances in earlier blog posts and having announced our leaking toilet in last Friday’s post, Plumbing and Me, I was confident you’d appreciate a more in-depth view.

A “before” view of the leaking toilet drain pipe.
(Vicki removed a ceiling board and took the photo.)

An “after” view of the plumber-replaced toilet drain pipe.

Since I’m on the topic and since our apartment is in a rather old structure, I thought you might like to see some really old toilets.

Ancient Roman toilets. (multiple websites)

Ancient toilets at Ostia Ruin near Rome.
(multiple websites)

Latrines along Hadrian’s Wall in Roman Britain.
(multiple websites, including Wikipedia)

Plumbing and Me

Welcome back. I knew something had to happen. After all, it is my new home. When this started long ago, I thought it was just bad luck. I learned it’s much more. It’s hard to believe, but I have a plumbing curse.

It’s not like electricity, which I fear and find unfathomable. Plumbing doesn’t frighten me. I mean you can look at it and know what’s supposed to happen--water in, water out. For me, though, the water often comes out when and where it’s supposed to stay in. Or it doesn’t go anywhere. Or, to really test me, it goes everywhere.

Early Encounters

You may recall an earlier blog post, House Sound Check, in which I blamed dripping valves and faucets as well as a kitchen geyser on the house hating me. That attribution was true, yet the overriding cause was the curse.

In that same post, I also wrote about the basement of another house flooding whenever rain was forecast. When the Roto-Rooter serviceman tried unsuccessfully to snake the basement drain, he concluded that we had a clogged French drain (gravel rather than a pipe). He recommended a sump pump.

If that were the end of it, I too would scoff at the idea of a curse. (I know you’re scoffing.) The first rainfall after a sump pump was installed, other areas of the basement flooded. Although we added a second sump pump, it was always touch and go.

I’ll skip over a failed shower drain seal, faucet leaks and the usual plumbing problems homeowners deal with, albeit less frequently than I did. I’ll even bypass our son’s scissors episode, which required a fiber optic probe of the toilet drain. Fast forward to our recent move.

Plumbing for House Sale

The house we left has three and a half bathrooms, each of which had well-functioning though visibly well-used faucets. In my spruce-up- the-house-before sale spree, I thought, Why not replace the faucets?

Hearing no negative response, I scheduled a highly recommended plumber who suggested that I buy the faucets myself. Searching online, I found excellent faucets with solid brass bottoms, and I bought four units.

In his 30 years of installing faucets, the plumber had never encountered a faucet base too short to reach through the counter tops to connect with the locknuts--the curse.

My New Home

This brings me to our Wisconsin garage apartment, built as a barn well over 100 years ago. Though I accepted that our faucets must be connected with plumbing somewhere, I would not have had the close encounter if Vicki hadn’t mentioned an old clothes washer and dryer downstairs, whose slightly overflowing floor drain Nelson had checked.

Pipes in the first floor “laundry room.”

I had never met Nelson but she assured me that he understands these old structures and their plumbing and electrical systems.

If it weren’t for the windows, the “laundry” room could pass for the boiler room of the old ship, where the crusty engineer vows, “I don’t know how, Captain, but I’ll get it going.” Rusted pipes, dials, large tanks, gurgling drain… it’s all there, along with large farm equipment and the hardtop of an old convertible.

The clothes washer has no control for load size or water temperature (as if I needed controls); and though the drain overflowed, it was mainly soap suds. The dryer has lots of controls and it worked fine.

Wrap Up

Transferring the laundered clothes to a basket, I was brought back to reality. I noticed dripping from the ceiling. Once I had narrowed the source of the leak to a toilet, I relaxed. I felt wanted but protected. “Yes, Curse, I’m here!” I shouted. “But so is Nelson.”
 
Thanks for stopping by.

Dining Out

Welcome back. The Washington Post had an article about a fellow, 49, who found mushrooms in his backyard after a rainstorm. They looked so good, he plucked, cooked and shared a handful with his wife. An experimental drug saved his liver and his life; his wife recovered without the drug.

Title of 25 Sep 2011 Washington Post.

article by Joe Stephens.

Reading the article, I was wondering how this guy ever made it to 49 years, when I saw, about a week later, a second person ate mushrooms he found near his home and was also saved by the same experimental drug. This fellow was an 82-year-old, retired farmer. A farmer? No way.
 

Store-bought 

mushrooms.

I love mushrooms. But about the same time my mother was telling me, “Yes, dear, you can play with the worm but don’t put it in your mouth,” I’ll bet she was also telling me not to eat mushrooms growing wild in the yard.  

Anyway, the article got me thinking about how lucky I’ve been. Of course I’ve eaten things that disrupted my internal plumbing; that’s allowed by the FDA. As yet, however, I’ve avoided dining on anything that would kill me. I thought a few highlights might be of interest.

Foreign Fare

  I emphasize that this is not a slam against any cited locale. Taking reasonable precautions is always advisable. The aftereffects of sampling our supermarket salad bars have been as bad as anything I experienced overseas. I’m not sure if that’s a testament to my iron stomach or, again, incredible luck.
 

One of Rachel’s animal 

portraits—unroasted pig.

Puerto Rico -- Working at the Arecibo Observatory, I accepted invitations to attend various celebrations. Lechon asado (roast pig) was often the main course. Given the other scrumptious dishes and, yes, perhaps a beverage or two, I’m hesitant to blame the poor pig or its preparation. Still, more than one morning after was unpleasant.
 
Philippines -- I don’t remember being “off,” so to speak, even once after dining at home, where the water was boiled, or around the country. Admittedly, I never tried balut (boiled, fertilized duck egg with an undeveloped embryo), which was offered regularly by Tomas, a program driver who had a side business selling such delicacies.
 

Bangladesh – My first UN consulting project was in Bangladesh, where I remained quite healthy, even en route, when a delayed flight set me down around midnight in Pakistan for an unscheduled overnight. 

Bangladeshi family at brick-factory housing, 1981

Preparing for that project, I made the mistake of asking an acquaintance who had worked in Bangladesh where I should stay. Then I made a bigger mistake, accepting his recommendation. Only later did it sink in that my acquaintance had been a Peace Corps volunteer. For cultural awareness, he would have opted to share space with a Bangladeshi family in a jute and bamboo structure. At least my hotel had electricity and running water.

Baking flat bread, Syria, 1982

Prickly pear vendor, 

Syria, 1982

Syria -- As in Bangladesh, my UN project activities in Syria were unhampered by food-borne problems. On my initial visit, I went with the UN’s recommended hotel, though dining alone, I kind of went overboard on flatbread and prickly pear I purchased on the street.  

On a subsequent trip to Syria, I spent more time in the field. Fortunately I remained healthy, as I and my weak knees were introduced to non-western style “squat” toilets, the use of which is akin to camping out, except they flush.
 

Squat toilet, 

northwestern
China 1982

Banquet residuals, 

northwestern China, 1982

China -- Dining at banquet tables or off a yurt blanket, where I somehow missed the fermented horse milk, I had significant aftereffects only once during UN projects in China. Flying west from Beijing to Urumqi was the most uncomfortable plane ride I’d ever taken thanks to a broken seat. To top it off, whatever I was fed on the plane spent little time getting to know me.

Minding the meal, northwestern China, 1982

Food preparation in the field, 

northwestern China, 1982

Wrap Up

At times, the aftereffects of dining overseas were humorous. Visiting a communal, open stall, no-seat, outhouse very early one morning in northwestern China, I was…uh…monitored by a boy about 5 years old. He apparently had never seen a Caucasian before. As I crouched, so did he, smiling.  

Thanks for stopping by. I’ll write again in about a week.

Technology Update Photo Addendum 2

To show me how far I’d fallen behind on bathroom technology, Tim C. kindly provided a photograph he took of a store’s toilet display when he was visiting South Korea.

Neither Tim nor I have searched online for the operating manual. Nor do we plan to.

High-tech toilet.

Technology Update Photo Addendum

I was recently astounded by the latest advance in technology: self-lowering toilet seats. (They need a nudge to get started, but then it’s all downhill or at least down.) 
 

Self-lowering toilet seat in action.

Investigating further, I found that self- or slow-closing seats have been around for a few years.

How did this escape me? Where was I when this advance hit the...uh...bathroom? Once again, I'm left in the lurch technologically.