Bread and Plumbing: Part Four

 

The Deluge

My regular readers may recall that I have mentioned, on occasion, the fact that I hate plumbing. Being proficient in plumbing is an entirely separate level of skill, artistic talent and pluck, beyond any other labor practice. Carpentry, for instance, involves structural engineering, careful measurement and the understanding of thousands of guidelines in order to craft a product that will be safe and long-lasting. But there is room for error with carpentry: your measurements can be off by a few eighths of an inch, your cross beams not quite level and your posts not quite plumb, and yet your structure will still stand strong. The same could be said for electrical work, landscaping and painting. Failures in these areas tend to present themselves by degree of noticeability: if the mistake doesn’t make an impact to form or function, then it’s probably okay to let it go.

Not so with plumbing. If you make a plumbing mistake, you get a leak. And even minor, slow leaks will eventually cause damage and loss.

I’ve never completed a plumbing project without having to redo a leaky joint. Never.

Which is why I rely exclusively on professionals to do the job for me at this stage in my life.

Thus, for this project, I contacted Angie’s List to get a “Top Pro” to come out. We’d had luck with Angie’s List before, and figured we’d luck out again. Because they’ll send a “Top Pro.”

Note that Angie’s List uses the word “Pro” because it implies “Professional”. The strict definition of the term “Professional” means “A person who does the indicated work to earn his/her living”. It is very important that they say “Pro” and not “Professional” for reasons we shall now explore.

A few days after I put in the work request, a guy pulled up to our house in a well-seasoned 1982 Chevette. I was not home at the time but was monitoring the security cameras while my wife ushered him in to explain the job.

I squinted into my phone and pinch-zoomed the image to get a better look at this character. My first red flag was raised immediately: Not wearing coveralls. Shouldn’t a worthy plumber be wearing coveralls?

This fellow looked like he might have only recently arrived in town after sleeping in a box car.  

So let’s assess: no coveralls, no clipboard, no hat, no van with a ladder and a logo. I was already not impressed by this “Top Pro”, but willing to give him a chance. After all, we were taught not to judge a book by its cover, right?

Just the same, I was also on high alert, ready to dash home on a moment’s notice.

I did not hear the verbal exchange as my wife explained the situation and the details of the request, but her gesticulations and his head nodding and thoughtful expressions gave me some confidence that the job was understood and the plan for implementation was being crafted.

He crouched down to look at the wall behind the range and made some marks. Then he stood up to announce that he would need to make a trip to Home Depot to get some pipe, fittings and pipe cement.

While he was away, my wife texted me the details of the conversation, and her concern from his lack of questions. She had handed him my sketches and hand-written suggestions along with a few pages from the new range’s installation instructions. I believed he was well-armed and ready to tackle the installation of a new water line, so our soon-to-be-arriving range could make delicious, crusty baguettes.

With renewed confidence, I closed the monitoring app, put my phone down and went back to work.

An hour or so later, my wife called me. She never calls me at work.

“I’m hearing scary sounds under the house,” she said. “Like something is very wrong.”

“I’m sure it’s normal, and will settle down once he’s done.”

“I hope so… it sounds like water gushing out of the vents.” She sounded truly panic stricken.

I told my boss I needed to head home to take care of a contractor emergency, and I’d log in from there to complete the day.

I arrived at home to witness our “Top Pro” emerge from under the house, pants soaking wet, to tell me he’ll need to get more glue. More glue?

“Yeah,” he grunted, “I guess it needs to dry some more before I turn on the water main.” I looked at what he was holding: PVC cement and purple primer. I’ve used both before and had very good luck with it. It’s fast and strong, and shouldn’t take but a couple of minutes to set. I wanted to correct his use of the term “dry” though, because anything that dries can get wet again. Glues and cements need to set or cure, and it has very little to do with “drying” per se. But semantics.

So he headed out the door and back to home depot to get more glue, while my wife and I shared concerned looks and anxious pacing.

A half hour later, he came back in and started his next attempt. We heard him banging and scraping around under the house as we stood nervously in the kitchen.

He crawled back out of the accessway and announced he’d be turning on the water again. My wife guided me over to the spot in the dining room where she’d heard the awful sound the first time he did this.

Sure enough, we soon heard the unmistakable sound of water rushing from beneath our feet, seemly coming from the heater vents.

To me it sounded like bankruptcy and catastrophe. It was the full, entirely grim sound of every molecule of water in the greater Portland area hurtling through our plumbing infrastructure at approximately 10,000 gallons per second, earnestly working to convert our crawlspace into a subterranean wetland.  

This was not normal. This was not good. This was not solved. This would not get me baguettes.

I yelled outside “Turn it off! It’s leaking badly!”

I saw his surprised face flash up from his position on the sidewalk, then he bent back down and rotated the wrench. The gushing ebbed.

When he came back in he exclaimed “Well I guess that glue didn’t hold. I’ll try another.” This was not inspiring confidence. “I can’t leave this undone,” he went on. “I gotta finish this job so you guys can have your water supply,” he said. That was the right attitude, I thought. I’m glad he had that going for him, at the very least.

So down he went with his bucket, his wrench and his tubes of glue. More banging, more scraping, more crawling and he was back out again. I suggested we wait ten minutes for things to set well. He agreed.

Back out to the front he went. My wife and I waited inside, huddled close together, eyes closed, praying with all our hearts that this would be the end.

It wasn’t.

Almost instantly, the torrent began anew. The flood below sounded more robust than ever, as if it hadn’t even been remotely deterred by whatever plumbing adhesive had been used to secure the pipes.

I yelled outside again, the rushing water stopped.

He came in, shaking his head in disgust. He said it’s getting pretty wet down there, he’ll need to clean it up. He hauled in his shop vac and dragged the hose down into the crawlspace. He sucked up several gallons of water and dumped it out in the front.

Once it was all cleaned up, he said he wanted to try once more, and did just that. By now it was getting late in the day, and we were all worn out – us from stress and worry, him from manual labor and frustration.

He went down through the access for one last shot. He used all of his glue and all of his determination. We waited for 25 minutes for the glue to set.

Still it wasn’t enough – even after all of that, the pipes did not hold, and the pressure of the water pushed past it all like it was nothing.

“I think we’re done here. We appreciate your efforts but I think we need to wrap it up,” I said. He offered to clean up the water in the crawlspace, and we agreed.

After he dumped out his shop vac and loaded his tools in his car, we paid him $200 for the parts he used, and said our farewells. We watched as he disappeared down the road and out of our life.

My wife and I stood in the entryway still completely shook from the acute trauma of hearing so much high-pressure water blasting into the space under our home. I could not imagine he could have possibly gotten all of it using his shop vac. There must still be a lake lying in dank stillness just beneath the floorboards. This supposed “Top Pro” did not in any way fit the moniker of “Professional”, in my opinion. He was maybe a handyman, and though I’m sure his cousin Bubba was happy with the job he did on the Doughboy in his backyard last year, this man could not be considered a plumber.

We were no closer to tasty baguettes than we were this morning. In fact, we were several steps back at this point. We did not have running water, we did not have an operable stove, and we had lord knows how much abuse inflicted upon our infrastructure.

We needed real help, and not from Angie’s List.

Bread and Plumbing: Part Three

 

Steamed

Even in a big town, there are only a handful of well-known appliance dealers. The one we just crossed off our list was one of the biggest and most respected, which made the sting of warranty rejection all the worse. What do you do when you have no recourse? No remedy?

You turn around, shove your hands in your pockets, hunch your shoulders and shuffle off, enrobed in bitterness, kicking rocks as you mutter sour grapes.

There was absolutely no way we were buying at the big box place, nor at Sears (which even ten years ago was only a shell of its former self).

Luckily we were able to find a local mom and pop appliance showroom in a neighboring town, so one Saturday morning my wife and I took an excursion to go check it out. The store was neither huge nor glamorous in any way, but it was friendly and boasted rave reviews.

We were greeted by the owner, a seasoned-looking but genial guy who could be your uncle Dave. He asked what brought us in, and I said we were looking for a new range (though I fought off the urge to say “our minivan out there”).

The manager brightened and began gesturing toward various models with a sweep of his hand, and we began to walk through the rows of appliances. He touted the pluses and minuses of the typical offerings from Samsung, LG and Fridgidaire; nothing we hadn’t seen before. Then he happened to call attention to another brand we were familiar with for their superior vacuum cleaners: Miele. And as he gave us its story, we began to realize that it seemed to be a complete stand-out, boasting a ton of very smart features: front-side controls, high thermal output burners, a convection oven and a wifi connection.

Then he said the words “Baguette Mode”.

Say what now?

Yes, its true. This Miele range had a mode that was specifically for creating baguettes.

This is where I wanted to stop him and say “Shut up and take my money.”

That’s all I needed to see. No price was too high! Baguettes! No doubt it would do a perfect job making them, because how else could you tout a mode just for this type of bread?

I tuned back into his spiel as he mentioned where the water line attaches.

The what?

Yes, a water line. Into the range. It uses water. To make steam. Because baguettes need steam, as I mentioned earlier.

I pursed my lips thoughtfully, stroking my chin as I squinted at the ceiling, thinking hard about how it could be accomplished, given our fairly recent kitchen remodel. The range would have to drop into the custom range slot we had already created very specifically for the dud currently occupying that position, but fortunately the width of the new range was exactly right. And then it would need a water supply line and valve in the wall behind it. I recalled that before the remodel we had kept the refrigerator in the place where the range sits now, and there was a water line in the wall at that time. I figured it couldn’t be too hard to get that all hooked back up. After all, the pipes should be there already.

We said we were sold on it, plunked down the cash up front and purchased it right then. Delivery schedule depended upon manufacturing and shipping times, which put us out about two months in the future. That should give me plenty of time to work out how to get the water service re-established in that wall.

Later that weekend I sat down and scanned through some old videos I had taken during the remodel process, paying particular attention to the scene in which I scanned the walls where the refrigerator and cabinets had been. In the bare studs it was easy to see the electrical service that was roughed in, the gas line and the conduit for the range hood. But the one thing that was missing made my heart sink: they completely removed the old refrigerator water line. I had video evidence that showed conclusively that any plumbing that had existed for the refrigerator had been completely and aggressively removed, with prejudice. Like razing the village and salting the ground. No more refrigerators here, by jiminy!

So that complicates things a bit but doesn’t ruin it completely. Any plumber worth his coveralls can install a water line. And the job should be simplified by the fact that we can exactly point out where the previous pass-throughs and hangers for the old pipes are.

All I needed to do was find a plumber worth his coveralls. How hard could that be?

Bread and Plumbing: Part Two

A Slow Failure

So our range started failing.

It wasn’t that old, but it was apparently not the highest quality despite it’s well-known brand name.

It was one of those dual fuel things: a gas cooktop sitting on top of an electric oven. We had chosen that specifically because we had become convinced that gas was superior for cooking in terms of efficiency and heat output. So, after our previous electric cooktop ran its course, we opted to replace it for the dual fuel variety.

The gas burners were amazing: instant heat and a lot less costly to run, if not the easiest to clean. And for much of its life, the range’s oven was suitable for roasting, making casseroles, broiling garlic toast, baking pizza and doing just about everything else. It usually ran about 15 degrees cooler than what it promised but otherwise performed adequately.

Until it didn’t.

At first, there was the random failure of unknown error. This happened if the oven control touch screen was ever splattered with spaghetti sauce or splotched by simmering stir-fry. It would simply beep and display the ominous warning: “Call for service”. This happened frequently as this touch screen was inlaid on the top of the front panel, in close proximity to whatever might be boiling or sizzling on one of the front burners. Fortunately it didn’t take much more than a quick wipe down of the touch screen to clear this error.

The range would also frequently warn of “low fan speed” as the oven’s convection fan began to fail. I learned that we could get around this error by just not using the oven in convection mode. But it wasn’t too much later that even this solid strategy failed to keep the errors and warnings at bay.

The range was just plain giving out. After fewer than five years of use.

Because we had smartly purchased (that is, we were talked into) an extended warranty from our trusted local dealer, I called them to request service. Since I had all the documents with me, I knew that the warranty was still very much active for our purchase, and I expected them to say something along the lines of “Oh, yes sir! We’ll have a technician out immediately with the proper parts and we’ll get your range back in tip-top condition.”

But after an eternity of looking up our purchase and the exact terms of our warranty, the gal on the other end of the phone merrily chirped that they were unable to cover this as a warranty service. Apparently, the extended warranty did not include the parts involved. Seems like a rather convenient omission. What else would need to be covered? It’s made of parts. Parts that wear out.

She went on to offer us a very minute discount on a brand new range if purchased from their store within the next three months.

I said, in words that I could not proudly broadcast here, “heck no,” and hung up.

We decided that we wouldn’t be patronizing this particular dealer any longer, and instead would be visiting some of the other appliance shops in the area. 

Bread and Plumbing: Part One

A New Hobby

Not long ago, during a certain global "situation", like most good folks who were concerned about the thought of our modern comfortable lifestyle being slowly eroded as we were forced to embrace a paleolithic existence of trapping squirrels for meat and hunkering down to quench our thirst at mud puddles while growling at encroaching neighbors, I decided to occupy my newfound abundance of free time and take up a hobby that I thought would be profitable and delicious.

I started making bread.

It’s a simple thing, really, blending flour, yeast, water and salt to produce what many have referred to throughout history as “the staff of life”. Bread is miracle in its own right.

And as I learned more about bread baking, I discovered the noble art of crafting baguettes.

Now, despite their appearance, baguettes are not a simple thing to produce. To the casual observer, this long, narrow loaf of bread looks as though it is simply constructed of a piece of dough rolled long like a snake and baked in a moderately hot oven.

Not so. As it turns out, they are so much more. Baguettes are a culinary engineering marvel, carefully constructed in such a way as to produce conflicting structural tensions that result in a singularly wonderful crusty exterior while simultaneously maintaining a soft, airy interior. It must do both very well, or be considered nothing more than a mistake.

The ingredients, the incorporation, the proofing, the kneading, the rise times, the shaping and the final cuts from the lame (pronounced ‘lamb’) are critical. As is the timing of the application of steam to produce that perfect crust.

The only practical way to achieve the requisite blast of steam in a conventional oven is to toss a cup of hot water into an already heated pan in the oven simultaneous with sliding the baguettes onto the rack. Poof, steam! Shut the oven door immediately to trap it, and let the magic happen. The crust forms as the exterior structure tightens, the interior expands and the crust strains. It is a delicious battle of proteins and chemical reactions, and the only winner is the one who pulls the completed crusty loaf from the oven and slathers that fresh-cut, still warm slice with butter.

Fresh baguettes are sublime and there is nothing like it for comfort food. Along with a pasta dish or a bowl of chicken noodle soup, it's the perfect companion for a lunch or a dinner at home.

Thus began my manic plunge into bi-weekly baking binges, producing loaf after loaf while perfecting my artistic skill.

Unfortunately, one unintended side effect of all of this baking was the steady deterioration of our range.

Higher Education

This morning was different.

In an enormously significant way.

Today, I did not drive Michael somewhere. He went on his own.

For the first time in his life, our son has driven himself to a destination for the purpose of learning, without our direct supervision or control.

It was just this year that Michael graduated high school, got his driver's license, got a car, took a friend to a movie, and started in the summer program at the local community college.

For his entire life, he had been struggling to find his interest, his occupational passion. But the last two years of high school offered him the chance to get into Materials and Manufacturing, which included working with metal - something he's always been interested in, to some degree. He discovered that he was very interested in welding. We discovered that when people around us heard he was interested in welding, they became interested in providing suggestions about how to get into welding programs, unions and career paths.

One random guy at a welding supply store overheard us while we were buying welding gear for Michael,  and offered to guide Michael into the local pipefitters union, because he himself was extremely short staffed. "We lose a lot of welders to other states; around here, very few new welders join up so if your son got into the supply, he'd have all the work he could handle." 

And in one of the oddest but heartwarming coincidences, it turns out the instructor of Michael's community college welding 101 course is none other than the husband of the lady who ran one of Michael's preschools (earlier stories here mentioned "the book"). He asked Michael if they'd met, and then described his mom and me, and explained who he was and how they were connected. So Michael has a familiar friend now at the conclusion of his school career, someone who had been there at the start of it.   

Last week, we had been driving him to school and dropping him off. 

Yesterday his mom helped him navigate the incredibly frustrating campus web site to buy a parking pass.

And today, when I asked his mom if I was driving him, he piped up "I'm driving myself." 

This is huge for him. A monumental step in his evolution as a person, as an adult, as a man. He's taking his first wobbly steps into real adult life. He has a goal, a path and a good start.

And just maybe, I can start actually planning on what his mom and I will do when it's just the two of us. 

Cats and Evidence

Michael has reached the ripe old age of 18, which is incredible to me. It seems like it was only a few years ago that he was running around the house pouring perfume on his head, cheating at Hungry Hungry Hippos or cutting up placemats.

He's in his senior year of high school, has a bank account, and he's learning to drive. 

But, being a kid on the spectrum means he's got some extra challenges.

Some of them are easily blended into the typical teenage boy behavior gamut, such as lack of attention to anything that doesn't appear on a screen, being constantly hungry, and "forgetting" to do his regular chores. Every parent battles those problems.

But he also adds in a healthy dose of obsessive compulsive disorder.

His current obsession is our cats, and their "safety". By this I mean whether they are inside or outside of our house.

Before I delve into this too far, let me make it clear: our intention was never to have outdoor cats, but during our home remodel project, which lasted eight weeks, there were walls and doorways missing for extended periods of time. There was simply no way to reliably keep them inside and still go about our daily business. Once they got a taste of the big wide world out there, it was useless to try to contain them. Fortunately they know where their meals come from, and they stick close to home.

However, in spite of their habits of roaming during the cool hours of the morning and returning each night before supper, Michael insists he has to keep track of them, and becomes incredibly worried to the point of near panic if one or the other goes missing for what he feels is an extended period. Like, two minutes.

It does no good to talk to him about it. Reassurances fall on deaf ears. Repeatedly pointing out the evidence that the cats return to us EVERY SINGLE NIGHT is useless. 

Each morning, either his mom or I will let the cats out. They're practically clawing through the sliding glass doors at this point, and shoot out of the door like rockets once the crack is wide enough to admit a slightly chunky cat body. 

Following directly on their heels will be Michael. He needs to be right with them at all times to know where they're going and what they're doing. And if one or the other climbs a fence to visit a neighbor's yard, Michael will be plastered to our side of the fence making kissy noises hoping to lure it back.

Every day this summer, you can find Michael outside - either in front or back - walking around stalking the cats. Some neighbors have been suspicious of the apparently aimless teenager walking back and forth along the sidewalks, and he has been confronted on occasion by a neighbor wondering who he was and what he's doing. 

I've reminded him that at 18, he's now responsible for his own actions, and if for some reason a neighbor gets concerned and calls the police on him, he's going to have to talk his way out of it himself. 

But again - all of my warnings, advice, reassurances and admonishments are unheeded. 

He insists that the only way to keep the cats safe during the day is to follow them and monitor their activity. 

He can only relax and return to his normal, cheerful, talkative self once the sun starts going down and we bring the cats in for their evening meal. With the cats in and their doors locked, he calms down.

This is what OCD does to a person. An otherwise reasonable, rational person will throw logic, facts and evidence - despite the depth and repeatability - out the window if that person has determined in their mind that the feeling is more reliable. 

By this point the groove is cut very deep. He is entrenched in his routine. His habits and rituals are strong and he shows absolutely no desire to break free.

Our task is to try to break the ritual and thus disrupt the habit. One way is to vary the time each morning the cats go out. One of his OCD ritualistic behaviors centers around being exact with time. If the cats don't go out at exactly the same time each day, this confuses the OCD process.

Another way to break the ritual is through distraction or removal. We get him involved in something else (an extra chore or helping a parent with something) to distract him from his self-appointed duties. This shows the OCD that it is not in control.

School will be starting up soon, and he'll be forced to be away from the roaming cats for hours each day during the week. I know he won't like that; it's bound to cause anxiety. This can be therapeutic, though, for the same reasons as above: it breaks the ritual.

He's crafted a strong and harsh prison for himself, but he holds the key. He's the only one who does. The walls and bars are impenetrable from the outside.

My prayer is that he will soon decide he's had enough of it.

Dreams and Visions

Do you ever have intensely vivid dreams? Dreams so real that it almost hurts to leave it; to re-enter the real world seems somehow foreign and obtuse?

Recently I had been reading and old journal entry from years ago about a dream I'd had. My recollection of the experience of this dream flooded my memory like it had happened just the night before.

The dream began with a simple family outing in our minivan. "I'm going to show you where I used to live," I said as I spontaneously took a freeway exit to drive through my old neighborhood. As we slowly drove the desolate streets, I regaled them with tales of this wonderful place; the shops and businesses, the amenities and local scene. I parked the minivan and we got out to stand in front of the largest of the remaining buildings, a three-story shopping and apartment building. I began describing in detail each shop and facility, where I lived and how we all worked and lived together here happily.

Then suddenly the dream changed from a narration to a flashback: I was at once whisked away to a brighter, happier time when the place was bustling with activity and merriment. Here now people lived, worked, laughed, loved, planned, built and prospered in a close-knit community under sunny skies. And then the dream changed into a news report with a montage of  images of shops being closed and families moving out of town, while the voiceover narration described the tragedy in sequence. Soon all that was left were darkened buildings, closed doors and empty streets. 

As I came out of the flashback and my own narration trailed off, I looked up at the desolate cinderblock edifice which stood on a wild, overgrown field while the cool wind and harsh sun pressed hard on it to yield back to the soil. The kids ran through the grass oblivious to the depth of significance the memories held for me. My wife stayed at my side and held my hand, listening and smiling kindly.

When I woke, the meaning of the dream hit me immediately. 

Just a week before, our company announced major budget cuts and devastating restructuring. Our group was one of many that would be impacted, meaning we would be focusing on new projects and new methods. It would also see the exodus of a vast majority of the team I'd hired on with. The "old team" was no more, and all that remained was a crumbling ruin of what we'd had, and bittersweet memories for those of us who decided to remain.

I think the dream is a lesson. Life is a journey, an adventure down a highway. There are stops along the way, but nothing permanent. Our experiences stay with us as memories, and they can be sweet, but it's important to not dwell where life used to be.