Laura, did the new shower head work?

Yes! And I replaced both hoses on the washing machine too, and they work. Also got a pedicure so my toes would be pretty while I was plumber woman.

Steph, that picture is fabulous!

ita's dream, not at all fabulous.

Jilli: Are they available at target.com? If they are I have an unused 5% discount code you could use, which might pay for shipping.

If you have a Target Red card, which is free, and gives you a 5% dicount on everything you buy, shipping is always free.

Yup. But Jilli does not have a local target and thus probably does not have a red card. If she does my discount code is on top of the red card. I have a target near me, but money is too tight right now for me to put the money out in advance. But if these are available on the target.com website, she can order them herself, and take advantage of my discount code. Also if someone not me has a red card and wants to order them for Jilli, again I can let them use the coupon, to get another 5% on top the 5% discount they already have. That way they can have it shipped to Jilli with free shipping and slightly less than a 10% discount. I have ~$20 in my bank account currently to see me through the end of the month, so my putting out the money is advance is not an option. My profile addy is good.

Door retractor fixed.

The panties aren't available on the website, is the thing.

I'm so irritated. Physically. My anti-perspirant has apparently been discontinued and so I'm trying new ones. And they ain't working. The latest has actually caused..not a rash but skin is cranky and then the unsurpressed sweat hits, it stings worse and ahrg. I may need to take a third shower to deal with getting rid of it and the sweat from my latest project. And use up more of my dwindling stockpile of old stuff.

Thank you, Typo, but they're not available online. If they had been, I would have already made a HUGE order. :)

Man, long, long day. Urgent word came on Friday from the building maintenance guy that inspectors from the City were coming to evaluate our entire building on Monday, so we'd need to clear out any belongings we actually wanted to keep from the storage space underneath Apt. #1. (I guess it's not legally a storage space at all? But apparently we can move everything we want to keep back again after the inspectors have okayed the building.)

So, today I dug up and sidewalk-Freecycled a bunch of ancient baby stuff, set aside another giant stack of things for Goodwill (didn't drop them off because today was the Haight Street Fair, a giant AVOID AT ALL COSTS event, but will do so tomorrow), found a few pieces of gorgeous curtain fabric whose loss I'd been mourning for several years, unearthed David's Little League uniforms (so tiny! so adorable! so musty from years in storage! so in need of a very long but exceptionally gentle wash!), and also found a solid-wood dresser from probably a half dozen tenants ago that will be perfect for Matilda and a solid-wood Adirondack chair.

Then off to the hardware store, got sandpaper and spray-on weatherproofer and new paint for the dresser, then home again and scrubbed the ever-living shit out of the chair and put two coats on the dresser. The chair still needs a ton of scrubbing and some kind of heavy-duty gloss, but for now it's at least sit-in-able. It's low and loungey and sturdy and it's been crouching all folded up and ignored for years in the storage space. I feel all accomplished, but also all used up -- we also need to install new fire alarms (why is the maintenance guy not doing it? I have no idea), and I got one at the hardware store but have been sitting and staring at the instructions for two hours in a haze of overexertion. Holes in wall, screws in holes, mount alarm on screws. I should be able to do this. But instead I'm just looking at the words and scratching my head and muttering, "I am Groot."

(why is the maintenance guy not doing it? I have no idea)

In every rental place I lived before the pre-Tim apartment complex, there was already a fire alarm/alarms, but I was responsible for remembering to change the batteries (and then doing it). In the pre-Tim apartment complex, I think they decided that several buildings' worth of dumbasses who forgot to change their fire alarm batteries was an insurance liability, so every 6 months Paul the maintenance guy came around and changed our batteries for us. I felt like goddamn royalty.

This was the apartment where the fire alarm was mounted on the ceiling right outside the bedroom door, presumably so that tenants wouldn't burn to death in their sleep. But it was *also* basically in the kitchen, and it was so sensitive that it would go off if I cooked ANYTHING in the oven. Not burned, mind you; just regular, non-charred baking. (I started to suspect that even running the hot water too long would make it go off.)

So one evening when it went off because I boiled water or something, I tried to push the button to make the beeping stop, and it wasn't working. So I took a broom and swatted the thing off the ceiling, which was immensely gratifying.