Everything else is screwed up and insane in my life, but this is really extremely cool: Gabby Giffords and her husband are going to be in my neighborhood's awesome 4th of July parade: [link] Right on!

for people in need or want of clothes. jcp.com 15% off orders up to $100, 20% off on orders over $100. and you know supporting a gay friendly company.

Myself, I do not NEED clothes, but since my work wardrobe in now jeans and a casual covering shirt, I am BORED with my current offerings.

le n, 3 times. Then I Googled stubborn drains, unhooked the U-bend, and found a wodge of stuff right at the bottom of the bend that the bs/v/hw had penetrated but not been able to dissolve. I cleared that out, reattached it, and the sink drained splendidly - exactly once. Re-unhooked it, put the improvised snake up the next section of pipe and hit something extremely tarry and gunky just past that section, where the pipe disappears into the wall.

If I could get that section off I could probably bs/v the next bit, then reattach everything and flush with hot water, but it's angled weirdly and there's no way I'm going to attempt it on my own; if someone's going to break the wall tiles and the pipes and incur the landlady's wrath on my birthday, I'd rather it be Maintenance Guy Ray.

I also tried reconnecting everything, flushing with boiling water until I had an inch of standing water, and then plunging the sink, and that brought up a lot of gray sludge and silt but didn't budge the far-in tarry clog. So I think I'm at the limit of what I can do without corrosive chemicals or breaking the wall, and it's time to call Ray.

OTOH, I was pretty chuffed to get the U-bend out, cleaned, and reattached. If it came with health insurance, I would be ridiculously happy with a maintenance gal/building manager job (the second most amazing place I've ever seen in SF was a freestanding cottage in the middle of a big apartment complex, occupied by the maintenance couple for the complex who lived there rent-free in return for being on 24/7 call; they were bookish geeky types who just wanted to live cheaply and fix things and read, and the cottage looked exactly like all the on-campus faculty housing from my college but better - bookshelves built into the stairway and all the stairs).

damn girl.

(that is all I have to say). You put WAY more effort into all that than I would have.

You are very impressive, JZ!

Happy birthday, JZ. Congrats on conquering the U-bend and hopefully Maintenance Guy Ray can conquer the tar while you sip a cocktail.

Happy Birthday SUPERJZ! Taking apart the pipes? You plumb on with your bad self!

True facts about the Mantis Shrimp.

oh dear JZ, that sounds like a job for a sink snake. We have one, but we have old pipes. In general, I'd say call a plumber for that one.

So one of the archivists at work is doing a research project on old recipes in the collection. He wants people to try making some at home, so I copied a few baking recipes. One for Cheese Cakes is barely decipherable between the handwriting and the spelling. But the last line is: "you may add a little muske or ambergreese." Which, EWW!