Regarding Teddy

If you've ever met Lucy, you've most likely also met her Teddy Bear, who accompanies her not merely while she sleeps, but on most outings, visits, and activities. Teddy was a gift from Stephan and Jess, and he's a wonderful, lovable fuzzy guy. Early on, when we realized that Lucy had really taken a liking to this particular fuzzy guy, we bought a "backup Teddy" in the same style in case of loss or other harm. We exchanged the two every once in a while to keep him clean and keep up the appearance that this was just one bear.

But recently, BOTH teddies have been showing a lot of wear. When people on the street see him, they comment on what a "well-loved teddy" he is (and they don't even know that the one they're seeing shows only HALF the wear!). Worrying about what would happen if serious medical intervention was needed for Mr. Teddy, we actually bought two more backup teddies. The problem is, those, more recently purchased Teddies looked SO DIFFERENT from the original 2 teddies. The new ones were plumper, their fur shinier and not matted, and their arms still had stuffing in them. Either we had to actively mess them up to make them look like the current teddies, or somehow make Lucy believe that her original teddy had magically transformed. But could that possibly work? We were skeptical.

Fast forward to last Thursday, when Lucy got sick in the middle of the night, apparently without waking up. When we realized what had happened, we put her in the bathtub and laundered everything in sight. Teddy was in bad shape. So we thought, well, maybe this is the chance. Previously, we had never told her that we were washing Teddy -- we just switched the dirty Teddy with the clean one without her knowing that anything was amiss. But this time, since she knew Teddy was in a Bad State, we thought it might work to tell her that we were going to clean Teddy and the shiny, dapper fellow we were returning to her was simply Teddy after the bath.

It worked. Sort of. My fear was that she would revolt completely, knowing that this was not HER Teddy, and she would reject the new bear. Instead, she embraced him, delightedly cooing "My NEW Teddy! Look! Look!" She seemed to have no worries about where old Teddy was. We had a brief moment of panic when she asked what was in his hand (where he has stitching) and we realized we didn't know if the previous Teddy was the same (turns out they were the same). It's interesting that she seemed to both believe that this was HER Teddy, at the same time that it was a NEW Teddy.

Here's a shot of Lucy & Carter with the plump NEW Teddy:

So far, so good. We'll be bringing NEW Teddy (and his backup version) along with us for our next trip. I wonder how long it will take for him to look like his predecessors. And I wonder how much this whole charade is going to mess up Lucy in the future, when she reads this and understand that there were four teddies masquerading as one lovey. We'll start the future therapy fund now.

Long Live Anarchy

After the recent "conversations with Lucy" post, a certain beloved friend sent this for Lucy:

She loves it. THANK YOU!

St. Patrick's Day

Last night was our 5th annual St. Patrick's Day bash. It was a great time. We failed to take any photos during the party because we were too busy having fun. But we do have some shots from party preparation that I think will provide you with some evidence of the fun that was to come.

First, our welcoming committee.
Lucy is wearing a dress from Ireland (it was once mine) and she was VERY excited about the party. Carter didn't know what was going on, but he knew there was a lot of food being cooked, and once the guests began arriving, he was ready to shine at what he does best -- taking food from unsuspecting individuals. We need to get him a hat or bandana that says "no matter what I try to tell you, DO NOT FEED ME!" He took cheese right out of the hands of small children, and grabbed a cookie here and there from plates perched on the edge of the coffee table or on people's laps. He was vigilant about patrolling the floors (particularly the dining room) for any remnants.

Pictured here are the three pots of corned beef:

As usual, we got our briskets at Blood Farm in Groton. Special thank-you to Paula for getting the beef for us this year -- YUM! Jake did two in his "original recipe" (the one we've used for years) and then a third in a new recipe that involved molasses. The new one was good, but I think the voters preferred the original. It was all yum. We did have some left, but really not very much.

Colcannon is always a big hit here. Every year we make a bigger pot, hoping that we will have some leftovers, and every year, every last bite of it is eaten. This year, we went above and beyond, making nearly 20 pounds of potatoes:

And wow, our guests did an amazing job of tearing into this tray of colcannon. But finally, this year, we did have some leftovers. Not a lot, but enough to have a good dinner today. Hooray!

We skipped pie this year and went with an all-cookie dessert. We made double batches of both the lemon cream cheese gems:

And the horrifyingly addictive salted white chocolate chip oatmeal cookies:

That's a lot of cookies. Even with a half dozen little girls running over to [secretly] take cookies from the plates, there were still lots of cookies leftover. Yum! Lucy wanted to eat cookies for lunch today and was very distressed when told that wasn't going to happen. She really worked her sad girl face last night to trick grownups into giving her cookies.

I foolishly failed to take a photo of the whole table with the fabulous spread, but in addition to the stars featured above, we had a great supporting cast of lentil salad, spinach-cheese squares, our usual spicey pecans, Aunt Kris's salmon dip, hummus, guacamole, pea&soybean dip, boiled cabbage & carrots (who knew that would go so fast??) and various veggies and chips and the like. I think that covers it.

Also as usual, we now have more beer in the house than we did before the party started. Time to have another party!

Conversations with Lucy

Yesterday, Lucy was a bit of a handful at daycare. I was told by our daycare provider that Lucy refused to nap, and was generally defiant of all requests to do all things. Adding to the provider's irritation was that she did all of this with a big grin on her face, laughing all the while. What to do?

When we got home, I talked with her about school -- the projects she had worked on and the kids she had played with. I asked her if she took a nap and she grinned and said "yes," then "NO!" I reminded her of the importance of her nap and of cooperation and so forth, and started talking about school tomorrow. Here is what follows:

Me: Are you going to behave?
Lucy (smiling): I don't want to behave.
Me: Why not?
Lucy: Because I want to be happy!

Oh Lord.

Dryer: Functioning and Safe!

Today Jake took on the project of the dryer vent, and he emerged victorious! Woo hoo!

After the obligatory trip to the hardware store for supplies, Jake made a worrisome discovery that we feared might be the end of the plans to send the vent through the brick wall. Here's a photo:


See that pipe? Apparently her name is Charlotte. At first glance, it appears that Charlotte (who is a sewer pipe) ran directly in the path of where the vent would need to go out through the wall. This made us begin to think that perhaps the reason that the dryer vented through the floor was because of this blockage. But after a bit of measuring, Jake discovered that good ole' Charlotte was not in fact in the path of the vent, so the plan could proceed.

The plan involved cutting a hole in the brick wall, or what I like to call "breaking our house." Jake began, as per the advice of the internet (and an actual human w/ actual credentials -- thank you, Matt!) to drill a series of holes in the brick, as shown here:

You may notice that in addition to the lovely constellation of holes on the left, there is one hole a little ways over to the right. Remember kids, measure twice, cut (or drill) once. Jake in fact measured 8 times (he is reading over my shoulder as I write this update). Here's an addendum to "measure twice, cut once": Check your math.

The next step after making a lot of small holes is to get in there and smash stuff to make one big(ger) hole. Here it is:

Also, shocking discovery: this wall involved not one, but TWO layers of brick. Bonus! Double the destruction!

Destruction complete, Jake took a lunch break, then resumed the project. He installed the venting pipe and then got out the mortar to fill in the holes. Funny enough, Lucy was apparently also involved in some masonry at school today. Here is her project:

Yes, that is some sort of adobe-ish house that she made with mud bricks. Fun! Of course, since Lucy was playing with mud and sand at school, we were in even more serious need of a functioning laundry set-up, and finally, we have it! Here is the first load in the new dryer:


And here is the vent in action:
See how it blows the dryer air right out of the house, into the great outdoors? Why yes, that is what it is supposed to do! Hooray!

As for the hole in the floor and the crawlspace underneath, Jake used the shop-vac to suck out some of the lint and whatnot through the old vent hole. Then he cut a large piece of plywood to put under the dryer, which both covers the hole and provides a solid, sturdy base underneath the dryer. It also raises the dryer ever-so-slightly, which apparently is good for the venting as well.

So that's it. Our dryer saga is over, with a happy ending. Way to go, Jake!

Let there be (not ugly) light!

Admit it: if you've visited 83 Durant, you've thought, in passing, "wow, those lights in the front hallway are kinda ugly." You know you have. I have thought that roughly once a day every day we've lived here.

Today, that has changed.

For those of you unfamiliar with our now old lighting fixtures, here's a picture:



My main problem with these was with the glass, which was tinted a light brownish color, almost as if the fixture was made of sunglasses. Also, we were less than crazy about the brass/gold color. There were in fact two of these in the front hall, the first thing you see when you walk into our house.


This project was long delayed by the problem of finding and purchasing the actual fixtures. It's not easy to shop for lighting. We saw a few things that we really liked, but they were crazy handmade pieces of art and well beyond our budget. Most of the other things we saw left us feeling "meh." Finally, after several disappointing trips to look at actual lighting in stores, I actually ordered fixtures online. I went with Lighting Direct, and I'm happy with the service and product. I would not have thought that online was the way to go (I really felt like I needed to see them before I bought them), but the site had a good return policy if it turned out I didn't like them. Well, it turned out that I really liked them a lot. They're Energy Star rated (always a plus) and I found them on sale w/ a coupon, so it was a pretty good deal. Our wonderful next-door-neighbor the electrician came over to do the install for us today. And here's the new look of the front hall:

Here's a closer shot of one:

Sorry those aren't great shots, but really, the fixtures are SO much better. I really really like how they look! Hooray!

Dryer still on Probation

We now have a functional, safe, 4-prong electrical outlet for our dryer. Said dryer can even be plugged into the outlet and receive its delicious electrical juice. One might think that I would doing laundry right now. Alas, I am not. Why are we not going on a drying binge, making things moist so as to test the strengths of our dryer?

The venting.

You knew it. As soon as you saw that picture of the ductwork from the old dryer going directly into the floor, dear reader, you knew. You knew the odds were seriously in favor of duct to crawlspace ending in the crawlspace rather than outside the building.

Still, we hoped. We dreamed.

And these hopes and dreams were crushed by the reality: the duct really does just go down into the crawlspace, where it belches damp lint into the area under the basement floor. This is not good. This is not safe. So tomorrow (maybe) we begin the new venting plan. What will the plan be?

1. Continue venting through the floor, but hook up actual ductwork that goes through the crawlspace and out through the back (where there are some vents. They look like this.

2. Take the vent straight out through the wall behind the dryer. This wall is brick.

3. Start using a clothesline.

Stay tuned, readers. You won't want to miss this one.

Meet the Dryer

Here's the inside of the dryer:

Shiny!

At this very moment, our neighbor (who is a electrician) is taking care of our outlet situation. This is good, because at this very moment, our pile of dirty laundry is threatening to mutiny.

Updates as events warrant.

What a Dryer will Require

Apparently, in addition to a new dryer, we are in need of a few other adjustments to the basement.
These include:
1. New wiring & a new outlet
2. (Potentially) a new venting system, which may include a new hole in the wall.

Issue #1: Electrical
Here's the current electrical situation for the current dryer:
Our current dryer has a 3-prong plug, and the wall has the matching 3-prong outlet. Our new dryer has a 4-prong plug, thus we will be needing a 4-prong outlet. According to various internet sources, we could actually re-wire the dryer to use the 3-prong plug, but the consensus of safety-minded folks is that we should really keep the dryer as it was manufactured and update our wiring. Thankfully, we have a wonderful neighbor who's an electrician, so she'll be coming over on Saturday morning to fix us up. Hooray!

Issue #2: Venting
This one might be more serious, but we're not sure yet. Here's the situation at the back of the dryer:

Yes, that is the vent from the dryer directing down into the floor. There is a crawl space under that floor, but we do not know where the vent goes once it goes down there. Does it exit somewhere in the back of the house? We've never noticed, but it's possible. What is more like (and what we fear) is that it just blows all the dryer nastiness directly into the crawl space under the house. This situation is less than ideal,* and obviously something we will want to fix for the new dryer. Will we be putting a new hole in the wall? Or can we figure a way to take it out through the floor and direct it outside? Or is it really OK the way it is? We hope to answer these questions for you (and ourselves) this weekend when we begin the Great Dryer Odyssey of 2010.

Stay tuned!

*I should note, and perhaps he will elaborate later, that Jake once lived in a house where the dryer actually vented directly into the house. Like, into the room (I believe it was the kitchen) where the dryer was. I believe he described some sort of sock-like contraption that hung at the end of the venting.

Of Fires and Dryers

Jake made the trip to Home Despot today and purchased a new dryer. It will be delivered on Friday. I know, I know, you're wondering, "but wait, Bridget didn't blog about the dryer being broken." Sorry about that. The truth is that it has not (yet) gone completely kaput. But it is on its way out, and recent events have convinced us that it is Unsafe. For about a month now, the dryer has made a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad sound during the entire run of its drying time. It sounds a bit like a large, sharp, metal thing is attempting to escape the dryer. For 40 minutes. Straight. Thankfully, the dryer is in the basement, so we really don't hear it up here in the living space. Nonetheless, such noises should not be ignored for long.

While we had in fact been quite successfully ignoring this noise, events on Monday changed my mind. In the early afternoon, I noticed a lot of activity outside, and then, suddenly, I noticed that there were no fewer than three large fire engines sitting right in front of my house. I was pretty sure that there was not a fire at 83 Durant, but it was clear that something bad was going on. The three kids from across the street were standing in front of our house with their two dogs, freaking out a bit (both dogs and kids). I had them come into the yard where the dogs would be contained, and I gave them some jackets, but they didn't want to come inside because they were scared. I understood (I'll tell you sometime about the fire at my house when I was a kid). One of the kids explained that their dryer had caught on fire, and, moreover, said dryer was a gas dryer, so their entire house was filled with fumes and could, at any moment, completely blow up (or so they thought/feared/believed). Thankfully, things were contained and the Lowell fire fighters prevented further harm. I don't know what kind of smoke damage they had inside, but it seems that they are back there and everyone is fine. Except the dryer, obviously.

Anyway, this left me reflecting on the dangers of the appliance known as the dryer (even though ours is an electric dryer), thus the purchase. The dryer was in fact on the "appliance death watch" list as it came with the house, and was in fact the subject of a previous post.

So this tale of fire in our neighborhood reminds me of another serious fire that recently changed the local landscape in our neighborhood. The Varnum Building, which stood at the corner of Bridge Street and Third Street was a landmark on the way home -- we passed it every day. On February 13th, it went up in flames, leaving 11 people without their home.

The building dated to 1882, and was on the National Register of Historic Places. Here's a picture of it (not a recent one, sadly):

Here's what Lowell's website said of it:

The Varnum Building is one of the oldest surviving commercial buildings in the Centralville neighborhood. Built in the Queen Anne style, the building’s prominent location and architectural detail combine to make it the landmark of commercial buildings in Centralville. The builders, brothers Leavitt and Daniel Varnum, were extensive real estate promoters and developers in the neighborhood who operated their real estate office in the building’s first floor.
(http://www.lowellma.gov/depts/historic-board/historic-places-architecture/varnum-building-401-bridge-street)

Most recently, there was a hair salon and a chiropracter's office in on the first floor, and many apartments above. The day after the fire, it was deemed a serious hazard (and it was, since it was several stories high and was right up against the sidewalk) so they tore the whole thing down. We went past it early in the day and it was being dismantled; later in the day, there was a great big hole in the ground, and by the next morning, the hole was filled in and it was an empty lot. It was unbelievable.

While looking for photos of the Varnum Building, I stumbled on someone else's blog, and they had a rather nice photo essay about Christian Hill, our neighborhood. I'll link to it here so you can see some shots of some of our environs. I keep meaning to get out and get some photos, but....well, things get busy. I hope to do that as things get warmer here.

Until then, beware of dryers.

Household Item Mystery: Can you help us?

Today we have a reader challenge to offer: Can you tell us what this is:

OK, yes, we know it's a stopwatch, but look carefully. Those numbers don't look like any other stopwatch we've ever seen. A full rotation of the large hand is VERY swift -- 0.050 of a minute. The tiny dial measures 1 and 1/2 minutes (30 revolutions of the big dial). What in the world would be the purpose of such a thing?

Further deepening the mystery is the inscription on the reverse:


What does all that mean? Is it a code? Does DJ-38 ring a bell for anyone?

Here is what we know: The brand of the stopwatch is Minerva, it was made in Switzerland, and the box has a handwritten number 132 on it (though I don't think this is any sort of model number).

It belonged to my grandfather, who was an engineer, was in the Navy, and also had a small boat he sailed on the Chesapeake. I don't know what he used it for or when, so any piece of information there could be a real or misleading clue.

We welcome your ideas, though I must say, we have googled the heck out of this thing and have come up with nothing!

Correct answers will win glory, praise, and a deep sense of satisfaction.