We went up fucknorth yesterday to help with the house. The handyman was there when we arrived, doing the main bedroom walk-in closet door & frame. Ev was contemplating outlets and had tested some of the breakers to see what part of the house it switched off. She had a tidy grid in her notebook.

She had done a GFCI outlet before we arrived. It was beyond my ken, but Belovedest stepped in and troubleshot. They walked her through it, and through another, and we were feeling pretty good.

Then: The Kitchen Light Switch.

First was the pen-shaped current detector, shining a cheerful red and beeping. Huh. That breaker did not control it. It was supposed to control the kitchen?

Belovedest stationed me in the kitchen with the pen, and hollered from the garage as they flipped breakers. Nothin'. Nothin'. Merry fuckin' nothing.

Unless there is a hidden breaker in there, the only breaker that controls this fucking light is the MAIN BREAKER, WHAT THE FUCK.

Belovedest opened up the switch, swore, summoned me to take pictures, and closed it up again. The colors didn't make sense to them, there were more wires than they were expecting, the ground wire was present but not connected to the switch, there was a wire coming out of the back of the switch in a way that looked integral... NOPE.

The cluster of 3 switches in the dining room was also chaotic.

CALL THE LOCKSMITH ELECTRICIAN!

Ev finished up doing another outlet by herself, we shuffled some stuff around (the portable AC is now in the garage, ready to deploy as needed) and went for a quick hardware store scope-out and then dinner. Yay.

Useless Phobias: I am terrified by the prospect of changing bathroom vanity bulbs. I am unnerved by any changing of lightbulbs in a context where I cannot physically disconnect the power, regardless of my likelihood to stick my finger in the empty light socket or the likelihood of the bulb turning on while I am still touching it but it is not securely screwed in yet. I am doubly unnerved by any prospect of handling very delicate breakables at any height higher than head-height. When the two are combined, cue the irrational terror. The terror is made slightly more rational by the simple fact that at one point I broke no fewer than two lightbulbs (in a row) while attempting to install them in a bathroom vanity socket (I panicked and dropped them. Both.) but it is not a smart fear and it is not a fear that people are likely to understand (like spiders, and centipedes).

How bloody useful is it that the guy with the expensive degree in computer information systems can't get a job in his field, and the woman with no degree in the same field is reasonably likely to land an entry-level position? Of course, the difference is that he got completely traumatized by inbound sales, to the point where he's more likely (than you think) to take a McJob than an inbound sales/tech job.

I discovered my favorite shocking purple lipstick. I'd lost it. Unfortunately, I'd lost it in my pants, and I discovered it in the dryer, post-drying. So that was not helpful. At least all the clothes in that dryer were black, and therefore unlikely to be ruined by having shocking pink lipstick streaks baked in. Darkside's mom keeps losing phones, then finding them again. She lost her old one and found it at Darkside's dad's office. She lost another one (I think it was a newer one) and Darkside found it in the dryer, already having been washed as well. I pointed out the lack of swimming pool time this phone had gotten; that was at least a plus. (They don't have a swimming pool at this house; their old house had one.)

gameboyguy13 got shanghaied into easalle's crew on pirates night. He has yet to realize the full implications of this event. There will be deceptively nothing for quite some time, and then there will be a sudden crew call-up, and near unto the entire crew will assemble for something eldritch and bizarre. meacu1pa took a far better photo of the JD in pirate gear! ( Arr. )

My bathroom is once again fully lit. Two bulbs in the vanity blew fairly recently. These were two of the three original; clearly, they used two-year bulbs. I dug through the Box of Lightbulbs and discovered that I had two compatible colorless bulbs. The one remaining original is a frosted 40W incandescent globe. The first new one is a transparent globe, same other ratings. The second new one is roughly equivalent to the output of a 40W incandescent light, but is fluorescent and in the shape of a bare square stick.

I'm experimenting with the cat box. ( Details. )

The recent fannish activity makes it near-impossible for me to answer every comment that's come in related to that thing, and is in fact holding me back on finding the comments that I should probably have answered two days ago. I'm going to try and sort through them all by the time the weekend's over, but my capricious mind may well decide that scrubbing the base of the toilet has priority. Not to mention vacuuming the hall rug, because I noticed that it was looking skanky when I went to leave this afternoon. And doing the dishes. And mopping the kitchen floor. And ... well, you get the drift. Not that doing these things is more pleasant than answering comments, but these are the things that have to be done, and answering comments from people I don't know really doesn't have to be done. And while not strictly necessary, the installation of the palmtop upon the laptop would be a great plan.

gameboyguy13 has informed me that the Jerk City quote on my freezer door is in fact misspelled. It needs more of the letters 'h', 'u', and 'a'; it already has plenty of 'l' and 'g'. Aside from the initial 'h', it has none; it has no vowels at all. This will need repairing. Perhaps it even needs some '4'.

Darkside still claims that I beat him more times than he beat me today. I don't see that, but OK. Unlike other games, I don't sword-fight to lose. Not even duct-tape sword fighting.