Disasters

 It was an exciting week, and not always in a good way.

Last Saturday evening, I was home alone as Cypar finished his week of second shifts. I had made some holiday cookies, eaten some leftovers for supper, and was just washing the dishes before settling onto the sofa for some knitting and Netflix. I had noticed on Friday night that the faucet in the kitchen sink was dripping a little, but on Saturday night it suddenly got much worse. About halfway through the dishes, I could no longer shut off the flow of water at all using the hot tap. I had hot water at full blast coming out. Luckily we have a double basin sink, so I could run the water to the second basin and keep my soapy dishwater in the first basin. I wiggled the handle - no effect. I wiggled it again and it broke off! I tried not to panic. I quickly finished the last of the dishes, let the dish water drain, and tried to see how to reattach the handle. I found some pliers in the basement and tried to turn the valve with them, but I couldn't find anything that would move. I looked under the sink for the water shutoff valve and found that we had none. The only way to turn off the hot water was to turn off the water heater so I went to the basement and did that. Thankfully, it worked.

I spent the rest of the evening worrying about what else could go wrong, but in the morning Cypar went to the hardware store and bought a new faucet and some shut off valves. We successfully replaced the faucet and installed a shut off valve on the cold water supply under the sink. We wanted to do the hot water supply also, but the pipe is different on that side and wouldn't work with the valve. We might need an actual plumber to do it for us.

Monday was also eventful. Cypar brewed a beer while I worked on class preparations at the dining room table, so I had a good view of the process. The grains go in a big cloth bag, and the bag goes into a very large pot filled with hot water. The grains are soaked in the hot water for a number of hours, until all the sugars have moved out of the grain into the water. After this, the bag needs to be removed and squeezed with fresh water to extract the last of the sugars which are then added back into the pot. Well, although he has never had this problem before, while lifting the bag of grains out of the big pot, somehow Cypar caught the edge of the pot and tipped the whole thing off the stove. Five gallons of hot, sugary water spilled onto our kitchen floor and found all the ways to drip through into the basement. Luckily, he wasn't hurt and nothing else was damaged. We spent the entire afternoon cleaning up: soaking up the hot liquid with rags, then scrubbing the floors, then wiping down the basement walls and ceiling, then doing many loads of laundry. The only thing I wasn't able to clean satisfactorily is a bit of the dining room carpet that got splashed. We may have to have the carpet professionally cleaned to fix that, but really the carpets haven't been cleaned since we moved into this house so it wouldn't be a bad idea anyway. Cypar was so distressed he said he should give up brewing. I said I didn't think it was as bad as that, and on Tuesday he went to the brewing store to get more grain so he could try again on Wednesday. Wednesday's batch was brewed without incident, so I think we're back on track.