It's been a good week. The biggest accomplishment was getting the City to turn off the water that had been flowing down the street for over a week. It was flowing because of some leak inside a house at the top of the street that looked abandoned. I called the City on Wednesday. First I called 311, then they told me to call the water company (SAWS). SAWS told me that a problem had already been reported and they gave me a case number (after I asked for it). That night I still saw water running, so I emailed my city councilperson. I got a call the next morning from someone who had been contacted by councilperson's office. He told me that SAWS cannot shut off water of a paid-up customer without an order from code compliance, but he would get that done. Actually, right about then I noticed that my water taps were flowing very slowly. It turned out that SAWS had put a notice on my door a few hours earlier telling me that water would be off while they did repairs. Later in the day my household water had come back on in time for me to take a shower, but the water was still flowing in the street. But by that night, the flowing water in the street had stopped. I also found out that a neighbor or two had also called SAWS.
In all this, I can't determine whether my email to the city councilperson made any difference. It was possible my first call the day before, or a neighbor's call, had already set wheels in motion and it was just a matter of time before the fix was made. But also it could have been that SAWS would have done some repair and still not shut off the water. Things often go like that. Anyway, the combination of actions taken by me and neighbors fixed the problem. I also sent thank you to city councilperson, giving them full credit since I don't know for sure otherwise.
The water flowing down the street actually had a slight tributary that ended contacting my front lawn. I walked around that area and did not feel any mushy ground, but a friend also did that and she did feel mushy ground and warned that it might damage my foundation (about 35 feet away). I thought that very unlikely, but when I emailed my city councilperson I said the water was flowing into my yard and could cause damage to my home. It is probably a good idea to mention such adverse possibilities when trying to get something fixed.
I think I may investigate building up the yard in that spot where the water entered which is a slight depression (though mainly the issue is that the sidewalk drops a bit). I will get some sand and dirt and fill it in a bit. My friend suggests putting a decorative boulder there, but my feeling is the water would just flow around the boulder, but the boulder might be nice to cover up the added sand.
*****
I've been getting used to the new adjustable bed. With the "head" (which is actually the last 30 inches of the mattress) lifted up, the remaining flat portion of the bed is much smaller. So when I left my down comforter at the foot of the bed as I used to do while watching TV, I simply kicked it to the floor. I then tried using a fluffy throw instead, and I kicked that to the floor as well. So finally I got a new relatively thin black coverlet on Monday, washed it on Tuesday and was using it on Wednesday. The trick is to actually make the bed (well duh, but I previously hadn't usually bothered). I fold the top sheet and coverlet back at the half way point in the bed. Then, if I lay on top of it all, I don't kick it to the floor, and when I tire of watching TV I can stick my feet and legs under the covers even without lowering the head. Though I've also found I like lowering the head to about 20 degrees for sleeping, or about 40 degrees for watching TV. I don't like to have the bed perfectly flat, even for sleeping, at least that's my feeling so far. A slight head tilt even seems to help when I'm sleeping on my side, but it especially helps when I'm sleeping on my back.
I no longer need the down comforter at all. A thin coverlet is sufficient. The King's Room feels substantially warmer now, probably mostly thanks to the sealing that was done during remodeling. The room was sealed around the top with mud (there was lots of cracked mudded paper that got replaced with solid mud) and sealed with acoustical caulk at the bottom. Even Tom didn't much want to do that sealing with acoustical caulk but I got him to (and then, I did some additional sealing on top of his quick pass which had some crucial weak spots). The Queen's room didn't get that treatment. When I complained to my previous builder Rob about the gap between floor and drywall, he simply said it would be covered up with baseboard. He seemed somewhat irritated by my complaint and I decided not to press him further. But now I notice that the floor near the southern wall, and especially near the new closet (and moreso within the closet itself) gets cold on cold days. I'm thinking it's precisely the floor sealing which builders hate to do (they just like to cover things up) is what needs to be done. I may remove the baseboard in the closet and seal it with acoustical caulk myself.
*****
On Thursday I got a 5 drawer tool cabinet from Sears. I've always lusted after the big cabinets on wheels and wanted one, but though they were too expensive. This month they had about 8 different cabinets on display, all the way from "Standard Duty" to super premium heavy duty. The Premium Heavy Duty and above are quite expensive. But standard duty was not. I could have gotten a complete 6 foot high cabinet for $209. But since I don't have room for the whole thing yet, I just got the 5 drawer top unit, which was a steal at $85 That will go on the worktable in the Laboratory, replacing the plastic bin that's there now. Currently the entire Laboratory is a huge mess, including the work table, partly because I've had to dig through all my tools in my tool box several times in the past few weeks. It always seems the tool I need is at the bottom, no matter how many times I try to put the most useful tools on the top. So it was clear I needed a multi drawer unit. I was happy that Sears was able to sell me just the top cabinet at the discount price (at first the salesman tried to charge me the full price, but I showed him the display where it showed the discounted prices for each separate piece). On Friday it seemed like they were trying to hide the Standard Duty storage cabinets behind stuff they were moving around.
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