I have no problem admitting that I am not all that handy.

Truth be told I wish I were but I was terrible in shop class and everything to do with carpentry. Electricity scares the hell out of me for some reason and I’ve watched enough HGTV to know my limits.

So there we are on Sunday afternoon, gearing up for what turned out to be a terrible performance by the Bears, when I decided to throw out some old flowers we had in a vase. They were roses H brough home from a work function and died relatively quickly so it was time to get them off the counter.

This is where it gets slightly embarrassing.

I never used a garbage disposal until moving to Los Angeles. I am pretty sure H has always had one but that wasn’t the case with me. As a matter of fact, we didn’t have a shower in our house until around 1990 (we had a tub, no shower). A dishwasher made an appearance in our house some time in the mid-1990s but there sure as hell was no garbage disposal.

So there I am waiting to throw out the flowers when I decided the disposal could handle them. Why did I think that? Well it’s designed to handle chicken bones and other hard materials, surely it can take a flower.

Apparently I was wrong.

I ran the cold water, turned on the disposal and put the first flower down there. As it spun wildly around the drain rose petals were flying off and hitting me in the face. I sort of stuffed the stem down the drain and marvelled at the stubborn stem – “Wow, the disposal works on all kinds of things but it’s having trouble with the flower? Huh, who knew!”. A few more stems, this time flower first to avoid being struck, but still they just wouldn’t get swallowed up like I thought.

I like the garbage disposal and have put everything from vegetables to whole eggs down there. It’s right up there with the thrill of shredding documents (I would have done well at Enron).

A few more stems and I finally gave in, realizing this just wasn’t meant to be. I yank out the remaining stem and turn off the disposal before running some water and watching it back up into the sink.

Uh oh.

At this point H gleefully mentions how she isn’t yelling at me whereas I supposedly would have if she had done this.

Around the same time the dishwasher decides to train and this is when I learn that it in fact drains into the disposal and then the disposal drains into the pipe.

I run water in other sink and watch it all go down the train without incident. In the mean time I have bailed water out of the sink connected with the disposal and decided there must be a clog with the garberator. I unplug the disposal, and throw the breaker switch just in case (remember my aversion to electricity) before launching my hands down into the drain but feel nothing. I remember there being a tool under the sink that has something to do with the disposal so I use that as instructed to turn the blades but that did nothing.

More dishwasher draining = more sudsy water mixed with remnants of flower stems = more bailing.

So the disposal isn’t clogged, therefore it must be the drain.

Grab the toolbox but find out there isn’t a wrench big enough to get around the pipes. As I am sitting in the floor I decide to give the connection a go with my hands and guess what, they were loose! So I disconnect one joint, use a screwdriver to loosen the disposal from the sink so I can move it around, and then take out one more pipe joint. In the end I find the spot where all the stems have been ground up and are stuck in the pipe. I fish that out with my hands for a while and pour water down the exposed pipe before concluding the passage is now clear.

Reattach all the pipes with my handy tools, a screw driver and my hands, before confirming that everything is once again working fine.

I’m not Mike Holmes or Bob Villa but I felt handy for once.

I also know just to throw the damn flowers in the garbage.

I haven’t neglected you blog … just deciding what to do with you.

So here’s Carter’s new thing …

Carter sleeps in a number of places throughout the day but namely he chooses to hang out on the bed. How do we know this? Two reasons:

1. You can see all the spots on the comforter where he has made an indentation throughout the day.
2. Sometimes he is lazy enough to not greet us at the door and will just be laying on the bed and looking at us when we walk in.

Usually we take an evening walk somewhere between 8:30 and 10 pm each night, and afterwards Cater comes home for his treat and then goes to bed. Literally. We will be sitting in the living room and he will get up, wander into the bedroom and jump up on the bed and go to sleep.

At night, Carter will jump up and off the bed throughout our sleep. Sometimes he wants to be on the ground, and other times he runs off to get a drink before returning.

For the last 3.5 years he will just hop on up and settle in. He’s a wheaten which means he is a jumper and can just hop up. Sometimes though he likes a running start and will wander into the bathroom and then you can hear him running before all of a sudden leaping through the air and onto the bed.

That’s all changed lately.

For the last five nights Carter has a new habit that take’s place at least once but sometimes twice per night.

Our bed is probably 3-3.5 feet off the ground. Lately he stands with his two front paws up on the bed, in effect standing on his back legs. He then proceeds to scratch the bed or my leg in an effort to get attention. He will do this until I wake up, lean over to pick up the 35 pound puppy onto the bed before flopping down and falling asleep.

This is incredibly annoying.

Of course he tried this with H – going over to her side and scratching and scratching. She ignores it to the point where he comes to my side and gives it another try. For some reason he is relentless with me and no matter how much I put him off he continues to scratch.

We thought maybe he was hurt and that’s why he wasn’t jumping up. However, throughout the day and evening he has no problem running around the house, jumping on the bed and acting like a fool.

No, he’s just lazy.

It’s been nice here the last few days … Daytime temperatures in the mid 70s which means upper 70s with the heat index. Night time temperatures in the 60s with a little bit of a wind … the closest thing you get to fall in Los Angeles.

However …. THIS IS NOT COLD.

Neighbors, coworkers, random strangers on the street have talked to us about the weather and keep mentioning “Can you believe how cold it has got?”

No I can’t, you know why? It’s not cold!

I certainly understand such temperatures are not the norm in a place where it’s 80-something and sunny 350+ days a year. However, I think the word ‘cold’ has some universal meaning and it’s implied what ‘cold’ really means.

No so much here in LA where 60 degree weather means people get out jackets, fur lined coats and warm hats.

For the record – you all look very silly and have no idea what cold means.

Cool … the word people around here are looking for is cool, not cold.

Don’t let the title fool you – this isn’t going to be very exciting.

Anytime a new gadget, web site or application comes out that finds a way to occupy my attention … I’m obsessed.

Lately I am trying to track our miles per gallon using Fuelly, a great web application that does all the calculations for you.

So what kind of stats do we have these days?

We’ve tracked just a little more then 2,000 miles over the past few months. We don’t drive back and forth to work each day so the eight fuel-ups tracked are over the course of months.

Still not impressed that we’re averaging more than $3.10 per gallon but perhaps I should be thankful since prices were so much more last year.

We’re averaging a little better than the EPA Estimated MPG but I think we can improve this if we keep our tired inflated a little better. It’s not something we pay a lot of attention to and we should.

I am in the midst of stringing together 3-4 posts about our experience thus far here in Southern California/Los Angeles.

Everyone has told us “Give it a year, maybe a year and a half …” … well we’ve been here 18 months so it’s time to check in and see where we stand on things.

Give me a day to get things rolling.

Did you watch the season premier last night?

I love the fact they started the race at the super cool Los Angeles river, complete with graffiti and very little water. When I hear ‘river’ that’s not exactly what I think of but it’s so LA.

I don’t want to spoil any of the show but three things stick out:

1. They eliminate one team right off the bat in the river. Phil points out about ten times in the first 5 minutes that one team will be eliminated for first time ever at the starting line. As if it’s not bad enough you got eliminated, Phil makes it a point to explain this over, and over and over again.
2. How about Lance and Keri – especially Lance. In this guy’s first 30 seconds on TV he talks about how smart he is, and they will do well because he is muscular. It’s also really classy when he does the whole throat slashing move every chance he gets.
3. The Japanese game show was a-w-e-s-o-m-e. “Eat the wasabi!”

I got up this morning to the sound of alarms/high pitched noises from construction across the street at 6:15 am. Again. Hey developer of 717 Flower, it’s getting old!

Anyhow, I tried to think of something clever and witty to write about today but I’ve got nothing.

We haven’t done anything exciting this week.

Nothing is new with our holiday plans – still shopping for Christmas flights.

We don’t have any plans for the weekend.

It’s still really, really hot here.

Carter is still lazy.

I haven’t heard from our tenant back in Chicago so I suppose we are still renting.

Like I said, there isn’t too much going on here.