Merry Christmas

Here we see the lovely Manon modelling one of her early Christmas gifts: a pair of Christmas light ear rings. One red and one green.

More Signs: Grouchoes

Fieldwork from Real Grouchy reveals that the "Lookin' Good" sign was part of a series. For reasons I don't understand, he has decided to call these signs "Scrimshaws". While I am flattered, I feel awkward about it because the anonymous artist might resent my receiving credit for them and I already have an artform named after me.

I swung by Gladstone Avenue this morning and discovered that there are more mysterious signs on the phone poles. These signs don't have the positive messages of the ones put up in October and the artistic style is, to put it politely, less sophisticated.

While I hate to discourage any phone pole art, I'm not sure these even make sense. "Keep it real" "Or be grouchy" Is that a true dichotomy? Couldn't you be grouchy or not grouchy whether you're keeping it real or not? Whatever keeping it real means?

Anyway, when I see signs like these, I'm going to call them "Grouchos".

Lookin' Good

I walked past this sign back in October.

"Thanks," I thought to the anonymous artist, but I wondered how they knew I'd be lookin' good when I walked by.

My Water Feature

I've always thought it would be really cool to have an indoor pool. With a water fall. Or even a little fountain. But I've always figured I couldn't afford one.

However, it turns out, all that had to happen for me to have my own little water feature was to get a leak in the 90-year-old pipe that brings water into the house.

At first I was unhappy because it was this spreading puddle of water that I had to wetvac every day. But then several professionals visited my house and we established that it was a pipe leak and one of those professionals dug out around the part of the pipe that is inside the house.

This created the little pool that I have photographed here. A $70 pump and an old garden hose means I no longer have to wetvac 160 gallons of water every day.

I'm sad to say that I'm not allowed to keep this water feature. Because the leak occurs before the water hits my water meter, the City told me I have to fix the problem within 90 days. And since the really cold weather is coming, the excavating company wants to fix it next week.

This reminds me of something you homeowners might want to know. If you need to fix or replace a pipe that is outside your house, don't go to "plumbers" in the Yellow Pages. Go to "excavators".