So, the US election is… closer to over? Obviously the dumb as two rocks white supremacist orange super-spreader is still trying to contest the election. “But we cheated! Everywhere! We can’t have lost!”
No, you slimy barrel of rotting eels, people just really hate you that much that even though you cheated, even though you fucked up the post, even though you made it near impossible for BIPOC to get their votes in, they did it any-fucking-way.
You lost, now fuck off.
Anyhow. There’s a measure of relief which I felt the moment that the race was called in Pennsylvania. I know there’s still endless fuckery going to go on, and Trump will scorch and salt the Earth on the way out of office; I imagine he’s hoping that someone will grant him some kind of immunity from his crimes (although I’m not sure he really understands that what he’s done is criminal). But until him, the vampiric homophobe and his cadre of awful people are out of office and Biden/Harris are in place and actually governing I don’t think the snakes are leaving my stomach, and my shoulders will probably continue to occupy space up next to my ears.
I also am very much holding my breath on whether we’ll get progressives and the lefter-wing of the centerist dems pushing for some kind of actual consequences for the white supremacist autocrat administration; or whether we’ll get old-white-guy “that was very bad, don’t do it again” nonsense which will lead to white supremacy getting a tighter grip on the US than it already had.
At any rate, we’re currently working on the assumption that Biden/Harris actually do get to take office, and so we’re starting to plan out our next few years, and not fleeing the country. Which is nice.
And yes, we had (and have) stuff packed to leave.
Yes, it’s been fucking scary.
Yes, I seriously had been preparing for civil war. Or to need to run.
I didn’t think it was a given, but it was definitely a serious possibility. Still is, I guess. Although I think some of the less rabid Nazis Trump supporters have accepted that he’s lost.
Anyhow, so, like I say, we’re starting to shift back to working on the house in a more… reasonable way. I’m still working on tiling the floor in the main space. I’m hoping to get it finished this week (although I’m being a little slow today because I did an extra shift this week, yesterday, and so I’m a wee bit tired).
Because the house is so unsquare, Kathryn and I spent a lot of time futzing around with masking tape, measuring tape and tiles trying to get a compromise alignment where the tiles didn’t end up vastly off square on any wall and where they should have, theoretically, met up pretty well by the front door.
Theory turned out to be true, and all that hard work has ended up with us having to space out to loose about 12-15mm across the run of tiles that goes across the front door (which is about 3m). The joint spacing is bigger – but not so huge or dramatic as to scream “SOMETHING IS WRONG”.
I’m still working my way round though; we’ve got all the tile down in the kitchen except for a bit under the fridge; we’ve got the dining room done and both hallways (although there’s a bit of grouting to do); but the join between the office and the hallway is still missing a few and there’s the sections into all the cupboards and the laundry to do. There’s also the section under the sofa. So still a fair bit, but I feel I’ve broken the back of this job, which is nice.
Kathryn’s been sealing it while I’ve been at work these past few days, and it’s looking pretty f’ing good, imho. Given the unevenness underlying it all; and the unsquareness of the house, I’m pretty proud of how the main space looks.
I’ve also done that joyous maintenance task of replacing the sump pump under the house.
A job that I would categorise as ‘loathesome’. While it’s much cleaner and seems not to be rat infested now; which is a marked improvement, grovelling around in the cold and having showers of glassfibre drop on your head while trying to replace a half-assed pump (held up by string) with a markedly less half-assed pump (although I grant, standing it on the rusty piece of scrap metal that the old pump had underneath it is somewhat half-assed) is not my idea of fun.
I’m also now paranoid that it’s not doing anything, but without going back under there I’m not easily able to tell. Thing is the new pump is more powerful and much quieter, so it probably pumps out the water in a more effective way, and probably does so quietly. I know it does turn on, because I gave it a couple of seconds of test, but there wasn’t any water under there when I installed it.
So… I guess at some point I’ll need to look.
Thing is – the modifications we made (having the water actually flow away from the house) do seem to have largely resolved the crawlspace swimming pool issue, at least for the time being, so it’s much harder to say whether it will work when needed.
Ah well.
Anyway, I should get on with…. tiling.
When the tiling is done and we have our main living space back I shall be scaling back to a less ‘OH GOD THE COUNTRY IS ENDING WE NEED TO LEAVE’ level of work, and actually try doing some fun things.
If I can remember what they are.
