Safety

We here at 83 Durant believe in safety. Looking at some of our posts, you might not believe this, but we are. So, theoretically, a new law that makes toys safe is a good thing. But the more I read about the CPSIA, the more distressed I become.

In finding out a bit more about the CPSIA, I went to the source -- the website for the Consumer Products Safety Commission. They have huge lists of product recalls there. As a confirmed worrier about all things, I really should not be allowed near this site, or, really, the internet generally.

There I was horrified to learn that everything you have ever wanted to play with can kill you. Would you like a for-instance? Well, how about this one:

Hallmark recently recalled a line of snow-globes because,
"When exposed to sunlight, the snow globes can act as a magnifying glass and ignite nearby combustible materials, posing a fire hazard."

Just so you know I'm not making this up, here is the link:
http://www.cpsc.gov/cpscpub/prerel/prhtml09/09073.html

People who live in glass houses.....

...should be sure to have a lot of band-aids around.

So I was cleaning up the mess of our shattered storm door (see below), which, thankfully, was made of tempered glass. Tempered glass shatterers into tiny little bits instead of big sharp-edged pieces. I should stress that it fractures into LOTS of TINY bits. It's actually kind of pretty.

While sweeping up the sparkly bits, I was transported back to the days one summer when I worked in a glass factory. Yes, dear reader, I worked in a glass factory. Worst. Summer. Job. Ever. I spent a lot of time sweeping up broken glass from the floor, not because I caused the glass to be broken, but because A LOT of glass gets broken by machines & people, and when you're the lowly summer help (and a girl at that) the only thing they really want you to do is sweep the floor.

One of the many miserable things about working in a glass factory is that you have to wear a lot of protective gear. First, heavy steel-toed boots. There are chaps involved. Also arm gaiters and multiple layers of gloves. As a (former) professional in the field, one would think I might have at least put on some garden gloves for the task at hand. But no, I took the term "safety glass" a bit too literally, and now my hand is covered in band-aids.

Shattered

We considered ourselves lucky in this last storm -- the Lowell Sun is calling it the worst ice storm of the decade -- as we were only without electricity for about 6 hours, and due to our ancient systems, our gas heat and stove were unaffected. But apparently, some folks in Lowell are still without power, and certainly many in more remote areas of Massachusetts and New Hampshire are still without power.

But this afternoon, when Jake went to go out for a bike ride, he discovered that 83 Durant has not escaped completely unscathed: we have a shattered storm door. It's the one that leads out to the backyard from the basement. I don't know when it happened. I'm glad it isn't one of the new ones we recently installed. It wasn't a super fancy one, and in fact, I had remarked on a few occasions that the latch seemed to well, unlatch and open of its own volition. Perhaps it was swinging open when the storm winds caught it and shattered the glass. In any case, we are now in the market either for a new storm door window, or perhaps a whole new storm door.

Power on (at least for now)!

The power came back on around 12:30, then went off again around 3:45; it's back on again now, but who knows for how long.

Campus is closed for tomorrow, too. Power is still off in various places around town. Yikes! Lucky for us!

Blackout at 83 Durant

Greetings, readers. 83 Durant is currently without electrical power. It went out at 7:30 am, and the latest update from the electric company is that it won't be back on until tonight. Woo hoo. There's a big ole tree that has fallen on the wires just half a block from our house. Finally, the trees have risen up against us.

I'm writing from the Wendy's up the road, which does have power. However, looking out the window, it's not clear why this is the case, since the traffic light outside the Wendy's does NOT have power. Hmmmm....

Anyway, here are some things to know about our house during a blackout.

1. We have gas heat, which is unaffected by the power outage, which is a nice feature.

2. We have an ancient gas stove (see previous posts) that doesn't have one of those fancy schmancy electrical ignitions, so we can cook on the stovetop or in the oven. Oh ancient stove, we shall never replace you.

3. Our one non-electric-type phone doesn't have a functioning ringer, so if you're calling us, we don't know that you're calling. Periodically, we'll pick up the phone just to see if someone's calling, but, well, let's face, that's not going to work very well. Oh, if you need to get in touch with us, call our cell phones.

4. No electricity also means no internet (even though our laptop batteries are fully charged, the internet box needs electricity to work). Boo.

So that's the situation. The University is closed (their electricity is also out), so we're just hanging out at home with Lucy, with little headlamps on our heads. Lucy doesn't have a headlamp of her own, but she really seems to want one.

Other than that, all is well. I'll post again from home once we're back in electricity.

Food Reviews by Lucy

Lucy has recently been trying out various solid foods, as you may have seen in all the flickr photos. But recently, she's been doing some taste-testing of various kinds of baby teething biscuits. As a public service to all the other babies out there [and by the way, WELCOME to Lucy's newest cousin, Greta and CONGRATS to her Mom & Dad!] we're having Lucy do a guest blog feature, Lucy's Food Reviews, Volume I: Biscuits!

UNEEDA BISCUIT



Lucy's Perspective:
Uneeda Biscuits are basically extra-large saltines without salt on the tops. I love Saltines, so I figured I would love these, too. It turns out, these are a bit harder than Saltines, and so I had a hard time biting into them. Once my mom broke them up for me a bit, I had a better time and was able to munch happily.

Bridget's Thoughts:
I bought these because because I love their name. Actually, I didn't even think they were made anymore. There used to be a very old "UNeedaBiscuit" ad painted on the side of a building in Northampton, and I always thought it was a great name. But I figured they'd been discontinued ages ago. But there they were, in the cracker aisle of my Market Basket. They're OK, but Lucy wasn't crazy about them. She's a big fan of Ritz, which she prefers over Saltines.


Arrowroot Biscuits

Lucy says:
Yum! But still, they're pretty hard, and I can't bite into them. When mom breaks them up, I can suck on the smaller pieces and eat those, which I like. Hey! There's a baby on the box! I like that!
Bridget says:
These seem like cookies. Should we be feeding Lucy cookies at this point? I'm not so sure. Again, some product nostalgia here; I didn't know they still made these.

Organic Biscuits for Teethers



Lucy:
These biscuits are hard! Very hard! I can't even break off a piece. It's like a lego! I love legos! Is this really food?
Bridget:
Super hard. And super messy. Incredibly messy. Basically, they slowly melted in her mouth and hands, completely covering her with a sticky brown molasses mess. She has fun with them, but we only feed these to her right before we're giving her a bath. In fact, she once ate one in the bath. So it's an edible bath toy.

That's all for today's installment. We'll see if we can get Lucy to do more food reviews soon.

Masonry Projects Complete!

Our mason did a terrific job fixing up the various problems at 83 Durant.

The main job was fixing the front wall in the basement, which has been the source of leakage over and over again. That area of the basement also had a bunch of weird built-in workbench type things. Why do I describe them as weird? Well, one of them was actually a door -- a cheap, hollow door -- made into a workbench top. It was kinda crazy, and we never used that area for anything, let alone as a workshop. So Jake's first job, before the mason could come to do his job, was to rip out all the junk. Here it is, most of the way broken down:


And now, here it is, all fixed up and water-tight!


We're now thinking that we should also have the side wall (where the window is) done later.

While we had him here, we also had him take care of a few masonry projects and repairs on the outside of the house.

This is a small area of the wall on the side of the house, towards the back. As you can see in the "before" picture, it looks like all the mortar has been chipped away.


The mason not only re-pointed, but decided that it would all be much stronger if he just coated the whole thing. So here it is, all nice and smooth and ready to paint (if we want to).





Here are the steps that lead out to the backyard from the basement:
They were once all cracked, and several bricks were missing. Now they're all better. (Sorry, I couldn't find a before picture.)

He also fixed up this little area of brick pointing:

So things are now nice and tight and hopefully water-proof and critter-proof! Hooray!