House Update

Not much to update today. Is it procrastinating to avoid working on house stuff by working on a shower gift? (Shower is in a week and a half.) If so, I was bad tonight.

However, this morning after my shower, I packed a paste of borax and water into the gap between the tub and shower surround:

(I'll remove the excess when I caulk, and stuff left behind inside the crack will be a mildew preventative.) Borax is a curious substance: too much water, and it completely dissolves; too little, and it forms hard rocks. There is a narrow range of "just right" to make a paste.

Public service announcement: borax is slippery. I had noticed this in an academic sort of way previously, but my brain didn't put two and two together until I was lying horizontal in the tub this morning. (Chalk up a few more moving-in bruises.)

Another house mystery: why are there four (from a quick glance, may be more hiding) shower heads in the cabinet beside the shower? One is identical to the one in use, two match each other, and the fourth is that inexpensive one traditionally found in rentals. I can see there being one (say, if my brother replaced the shower head without asking dad, and didn't want to throw out the one that had been there), but *four*? What are they doing there? Are they functional, or broken? I'm pretty sure they've all at least been used, which probably means that most are broken. (If they're broken, why weren't they thrown out? If they were kept for parts, that would only explain the one that matches the one currently in use.)

Speaking of house mysteries, I finally remembered to have a close look at the transition between the kitchen and dining room floors, where there's a height difference.

Looks like a plywood base with two layers of linoleum on top. For a better look at the two layers of linoleum, we need only look at the back stairs:

The orange stuff on the treads is what my mom put down when I was a kid (I'm pretty sure I vaguely remember the kitchen being redone), and the older stuff is on the risers.

The plywood subfloor must have been installed properly, because there's no "wear along the edges" that you get when linoleum is installed on an uneven subfloor. (We have that wear at the cabin, and the two linoleum floors in the bedrooms here were definitely *not* put on top of plywood subfloors.)

While working on the shower present, I watched another Holmes on Homes. Take-away lesson: kitchen cupboards should be installed on *top* of the flooring that covers the whole kitchen, since appliances depend on the standard height to fit under the counter top. Since I'm not planning on re-doing the cabinets (mom designed some pretty great ones), that pretty much limits my flooring options to another thin layer of linoleum. (Not that I was really thinking of other options... and the orange stuff is in remarkably good condition for being ~30 years old. It's just... orange.)

Well, time to stop procrastinating going to bed.

Lovely Day!

This morning a friend picked me up, and we drove to another friend's place for spinning group.

Across the road, there was a flea market, so we stopped in for fun. I got a kick out of this old "wool winder":

Definitely hand made! The hooks are bent nails. I found an antique shoe stretcher for $2. (My grandma usually needs her shoes stretched, and mine could often use it too.) Plus it was neat, and only $2. (I left the $10 "wool winder" behind... I don't think I could use it.)

Then we continued on to the spinning group, where there were lots of animals to pet as well. :)


The llamas didn't come close, but Mikey the dog loved attention. And, of course, as the person allergic to cats, I was the only one who had the barn cat jump onto her lap. (Thankfully it jumped back down when I looked at her and said "NO".)

We spun outside (some in the sun, some in the shade... I chose shade), had lunch, then spun some more. (Some people knit, but that's okay too.)

It was a *beautiful* day, and not too hot. :)

After I got home, I had a nice nap (I didn't go to bed early enough last night).

I watched a movie I got in the "previously viewed" bin, it was quite enjoyable.

About an hour ago, I went out to take out some getting-stinky trash (I had shrimp for dinner last night), and did a little star-gazing. There were some clouds, but the rest of the sky was quite clear. I saw one shooting star (Perseid?), Cassiopeia, Polaris, Ursa Minor, part of the big dipper, and what I'm guessing was a satellite (moving south to north at a constant speed, but not an airplane) and possibly the space station (something extremely bright, to the left of the moon, apparently stationary). The police helicopter also circled overhead several times.

Hmmm... googling, it says that the space station isn't in geosynchronous orbit, so the bright thing isn't the space station. I tried looking it up on a star chart, but am having trouble wrapping my head around the placements. (I think I'd need to take my laptop outside, and hold it above my head... but I'd rather go to bed now.)

I hope you had a lovely day too! (I suppose tomorrow I'll have to actually cross something off my list... or at least tackle the dishes that have, somehow, once again stacked themselves up.)

Whoops!

Heh... looks like I sat on a raspberry on one of my breaks:


It's funny how raspberry stains react to soap... it immediately changes to blue-black. Here's the stain after attacking it a bit with soap during my shower:

Homemade litmus strips, anyone? (I wonder if it would change back if I poured a little vinegar on it?)

I put a bit of laundry detergent on it, so hopefully the rest of the stain will come out in the wash tomorrow.

Hybrid is Mutant

Fascinating! The third flower is opening, and it looks like my hybrid lily is a mutant! Instead of having six petals and six stamens, it has six normal petals, three normal stamens, a wimpy stamen whose anther has no pollen, two stamen-petal hybrids, and an extra relatively normal looking petal hanging out in the middle.


This would be cool to show a geneticist studying cell differentiation. Too bad I don't know any. Of course, they'd probably be busy with their own research.

Science is Fun

Recently I received a few pieces of silver-plate from my grandma's estate. It was quite tarnished. Mom recommended using the baking soda / aluminum foil / boiling water method to remove the tarnish, as it was less harsh than silver polishes, and would remove the tarnish evenly, even in the grooves.

Wondering about the details, like just how gentle the process actually was, and whether the aluminum foil should be in contact with the silver, I googled... and came up with this site. (I followed my mom's instructions, rather than the slightly different method listed there.)

Ah-ha... it just reverses the electrolysis, and leaves the silver untouched. Cool! That way if I have to go down to flip the laundry part way through, I won't harm the silver plate.

The aluminum foil should be in contact with the silver. Check.

It's sulphur that causes silver to tarnish? Fascinating.

By now, my water had started to boil. I rearranged my silver in the plastic bucket so that it was in contact with the aluminum foil, shook on a generous portion of baking soda, then poured the kettle full of hot water on.

Holy rotten-egg farts, Batman! If I didn't know there was sulphur before, I sure did now!!! Wow, that is one *foul* smelling process. However, it sure works some crazy chemical magic!

I forgot to take a proper "before" photo, but here's a "during" photo or three:

Sorry about the focus... I forgot to set it on macro.

My kettle is rather small. While I waited for it to boil again (and again, and again, and again...) I turned the pieces when the submerged part looked clean. Plus, it's fun to play with something. ;) (I used my tongs so that I didn't burn my fingers.) Eventually I got them completely covered.

While I was playing, I also tossed in a silver chain I found, and was sitting on the kitchen table. Then I added my silver Medic Alert bracelet. I don't think my Medic Alert bracelet has *ever* looked so clean since the day I put it on. It even got all the "buried" spots in the chain that regular silver polish can't clean. Fun! (I should have thought to go get all my other silver jewelry too. Oh well... perhaps another time. Perhaps over Christmas break.)

Another cool thing about the process is that I didn't even have to use fresh aluminum foil: I used stuff I had been saving for my dad, who likes to collect it to recycle at the places that pay you.

After the tarnish seemed pretty much gone, I rinsed them under warm water while polishing with a cotton washcloth, then dried them with a cotton tea towel. They cleaned up pretty good:

The copper is showing through on the tray where the design is, and there are spots of something, possibly missing silver, on the cream and sugar set. I wonder how much it would cost to get a fresh coat of silver applied? I may look into that at some point.

If you're the type that is interested in markings, here's the stamp from the tray:

and here's the stamp from either the sugar bowl or the creamer:

(I think it's the sugar bowl, but they both say the same thing.) It took me a while to figure out that "E P COPPER" meant "electroplate on copper", rather than some company name. ;) I'm guessing that "W M MOUNTS" means "white metal mounts". I think I'll go google "Viking Plate" now.

Strange News Story

How odd... waterbeds for cows.

Is Wool Self-Combustible?

Penny had trouble mailing yarn again. In my quest to get to the bottom of this issue, I've submitted the question to Quirks and Quarks:

A friend of mine continually has problems mailing packages that contain wool. She is told by the postal worker that it's listed in the book of dangerous goods as being highly flammable. Recently I was listening to the Car Talk podcast, and Ray was reading from Philip McCutcheon's book "Tall Ships":

"Spaced along the upper deck were the cargo hatches with their heavy covers of reinforced hardwood planks, well chocked in and secured with three separate layers of tarpaulin, held down with ropes and more chocks to withstand the pounding of heavy seas. Below the hatches lay the reason for the ship's presence on the sea, her cargo, to be held inviolate against nature and disaster, against fire that could come from a self-combustible cargo like wool, or a cargo that could swell when it met water, such as rice."

Why is wool considered highly flammable or self-combustible, especially when wet? I have not heard of sheep in Britain (where it certainly rains) self combusting in the fields. As a knitter, I have never had my wool yarn self combust, even while washing it. In fact, one test to see if a particular yarn is wool or not is to see if it self-extinguishes after being held to a flame.

Is wool dangerously flammable or self-combustible?

Thank you.

(No, Car Talk hasn't answered me yet.)

Combustion of Steel Wool

Well now, it appears that steel wool is combustible!

(Did I know that? If I did, I thoroughly forgot it.) I doubt that it is "self-combustible", though... all the references I found online required a flame, spark, or battery to start it.

I've downloaded the latest Car Talk, and will listen to it first thing tomorrow morning. I was going to listen to it before now, but somehow the weekend absolutely disappeared on me. (Has anyone seen where I misplaced it? It was here a moment ago!)

Right vs Left Brain

I see the "dancer" twirling clockwise, but I identify more with the list for the opposite brain side. Strange. I wonder if they got things mixed up, or if they just have a bad description of the halves?

What do you see, and does that agree with what you identify more with? How easily can you get her to change directions? (I had a really hard time.)

This is just in case you were bored. ;)