Month: February 2005

bookmark_borderThe Right to Change My Mind

Posted on by PaulaO

I changed my mind. Again.

I was thinking, a nasty habit I have, that it was out of place for Kelly and Grace to work on a car. Kelly is, afterall, a handywoman, not a mechanic. So now they are going to work on a different thing together.

Problem is, I am not sure what that is. Grace lives in a rental house, which is how she and Kelly meets. Grace just got a job at a construction company so what would she need Kelly’s help for there? I was thinking of having them put in a doorbell together but that is such a simple thing to do.

Originally, Kelly makes Lucy a desk. Perhaps Grace can help her with that. Right now, Kelly has a busted hand (a new addition in the rewrite) so Grace helping her with it would be logical. Hmmm.

In the original, they go together on a late afternoon job: a rabbit pen collapsed under a tree. They work on it together and Grace sees how good Kelly is. Perhaps I can keep that scene and have Grace do more work on it, since Kelly has the busted hand. Hmmm.

Okay, enough with the thinking and on to the writing!

bookmark_borderWriting again

Posted on by PaulaO

I actually got some writing done today! Since I had to take several days away from it, when I sat down to get back at it, my brain froze! I hadn’t a clue where I thought I was taking it. So I stared at it for a few days and today starting typing.

Since I am adding in scenes to Butch Girls as well as moving some of the original ones around, there are several scenes that should happen but haven’t yet so I’m trying to get them in. I think I found a way around one, which leads to several others (hence its importance).

In the original one, Grace’s car breaks down; the carburetor needs to be rebuilt; she and Kelly work on it together; Grace feels empowerment after doing something she never thought she could do. While I like the idea, I wasn’t too thrilled with parts of it. For one, she needed to have an old enough car to have a carburetor but it couldn’t be so old it was infeasible. I may have fixed that situation too, although it’s not quite there yet.

In the meantime, Forward Motion has a monthly challenge and I took part (am still taking part) in the February one. It’s showing two characters meeting for the first time and demonstrating that push/pull of romantic interest. I took a character from Butch Girls and invented another one and had them meet. Kinda cool, actually.

One last thing before I go: DON’T FORGET MONDAY IS VALENTINES DAY! If you get in trouble, don’t blame me.

PS For a trip down memory lane, here are some of the cars I considered for Grace’s dilemma:
’79 AMC Spirit
Ford Pinto
Dodge Omni
’86 El Camino

Also, for the February Challenge, I had to look up old trucks. Much more fun!
Old GMC Trucks
’52 Chevy truck
another ’52 Chevy truck

bookmark_borderDamn Country Living

Posted on by PaulaO

We decided today that is was a good thing we don’t have a grenade. We would have tossed it into the pump house already.

Got the pump hooked up to the tank. Got the pipe going into the reservoir hooked to the pump. We were feeling good. We were thinking we were on our way to taking a shower. And then all the fun ended.

Remember that pipe I broke? The one that goes from the pump to the house? Well, we got it reset where it enters the pump house. However, with the pump being a difference size than the old one, the angle has changed just enough that we cannot get the pipe from the pump and the pipe out of the ground to connect. We finally went to Lowes and got a black flexible pipe and the connectors. Cool we thought. But the black pipe isn’t flexible enough to make the bend we need it to. And, being so eager to get it done, we went ahead and glued on the connections. Which means we are stuck this way. Tomorrow I’ll put the black pipe in water to heat it up so it can bend better. We don’t even have a blow dryer that we can use to heat it up with.

Writing? What’s that? The one good thing about this adventure is that I am getting good fodder for Butch Girls.

bookmark_borderCountry Living Part III

Posted on by PaulaO

We didn’t get it fixed today, dang it.

Got the old one out, which was an adventure. Took out the other pressure tank, which wasn’t as much an adventure. Left the other old pump in place because we were not wanting that much adventure at once.

We had to take the new pump in and out of place several times, trying to get it at the right height for the pipe going to the pressure tank. Then, on one of its trips back into place, I broke the water line. We were having to lift the pump up and over it and I didn’t lift high enough. Broke it even with the ground which meant we have to dig it out and replace about two foot of it. Aaarrrgggh!

Then, of course, getting the parts before all this was yet another adventure. If you’ve never tried to do plumbing, you just can’t truly understand. The key thing to remember when putting in retrofit piping is: In plumbing, you can’t get there from here.

The outlet on the pump is a female 3/4″ metal opening. We got a male 3/4″ elbow joint to make the turn toward the tank. Problem 1: the primer plug for the pump is in the way. You can’t put it all the way in, cause you gotta prime the pump once everything was ready. But, you can’t prime the pump until all the pipe is on. Follow so far? Problem 2: in taking the plastic part off and on trying to find a solution, the plastic threads were stripped against the metal threads of the pump.

So you’d think we could just get a piece to make the elbow up higher, say a male/female piece. No, you can’t. What we wound up with, and it was the only way we could do it without pitching a hissy fit right there in Home Depot’s plumbing aisle, is: 3/4″ male adapter that goes to 1″ that is connected to a 1″ ‘T’ that is connected to a cap on the horizontal end and another adapter on the other which is connected to the elbow which will need a coupler if the old pipe isn’t long enough.

Which is to say, we didn’t get it done today. We are determined to get it done tomorrow before the Super Bowl. And that means we’ll be out there before the frost is gone. brrr!

But I did manage to get some writing in tonight. I dropped in on some word wars in the FM chat room. I got 1104 words as I worked on the February Challenge also on the FM site. I like how it went and maybe it will be yet another book about the community of High Pond.

Well, time to get this aching bod into bed. Or at least into a more comfortabler position in order to play Zoo Tycoon 2! 😀

bookmark_borderCountry Living continued

Posted on by PaulaO

Good Gravy! Do you know how hard it is to find a non-well type of pump? We called a few professional places and got prices that were outrageous. We called Home Depot too and they could get it in by the 11th. So then, shudder, we went to Lowes and found what we needed for a good price ($157). Tomorrow we cut the old one out, clean up the connections that are left, then put the new one in.

Yes, I said ‘we’. A friend of ours, a great all around good feller, came and took a look at it. He just put one in at the farm he manages so he had good advice. So, we are going to give it a try. We have the pump and after getting the old one out and all that, we’ll go to the hardware store to get all the pieces parts.

Used to, I was able to tackle stuff like this with out hesitation. I rebuilt a carburetor of my ’84 Jeep Grand Wagoneer by using the diagram in the box and the Reader’s Digest Do-It-Own-Damn-Self book (aka Reader’s Digest Fix-it Yourself book). That is an experience I am putting into Butch Girls. The wonder of doing that, putting it all back together, then turning the key…it is exhilarating. And since I used to fix a lot of our own stuff (cheaper to buy a book than to pay someone to do it for us), it is not difficult to come up with projects for Kelly to do. And helping Grace with her carburetor just fit right in.

Anyway, just thought would update. Gonna have fun tomorrow!

bookmark_borderCountry Living

Posted on by PaulaO

(scroll down for update, if you have already read this.)

We live in a rural area, although not as rural as it was when we moved here in ’92. We own about 3 acres, the last piece of a huge farm that had been divided up and sold. We have the original farm house, about 100 or so years old. We live at about 2100ft elevation in a dip near the top of a ‘hill’.

We are also blessed with an abundance of springs. Once we hand dug out a section of the stream behind the house, each foot sprouting a different water tunnel. There is even a spring coming up through a crack in the cellar. The biggest spring is across the stream (in our ‘back 40′). It is piped to a cinderblock reservoir located on this side of the stream and all the way down at the end of the garden, about as far from the house as you can get on this side. This spring and its reservoir used to supply four full houses until they were all sold off. The reservoir is covered with this 6″ x4’x4’ thick slab of concrete which is then protected by a little building (aka pump house). On each side of the slab is a water pump and pressure tank. One is not in use and hasn’t been for a very long time.

One problem with this is that the pump is electric. When the power goes off, so does our water. I grew up on a farm and we had gravity fed water from a spring way up on the mountain. Water pressure was not a problem! Another problem is that the pump is at least 12 yrs old, most likely close to 20. We think it died this morning.

I got on the ‘net and did some research – pumps range in price from abou $130 to $200 or more, depending on their capabilities. I then rechecked the breaker (Lorna had before she left for work) and hobbled down to the pump house. The pump was still there (perhaps it didn’t die, but moved away?) and I couldn’t see anything visually wrong (sometimes the resevoir over flows and shorts out the pump) but the light was on so there was power getting there. As I started to put the door back on, the pump started buzzing. It is still alive! However, ain’t no water. Why? I dunno. That slab and I don’t like each other.

Worst case scenerio is that the spring went dry. That possibility is slim to none. Next worst case would be that the spring changed direction and is no longer in contact with the pipe. More possible, complicated fix. The most probable problem is that the pump is clogged or hung up on itself. The pumps themselves may not be too expensive but paying someone to put it in can be.

I joked with Lorna that what we need is Kelly, the fix-it woman from Butch Girls!

UPDATE:

It’s the pump. Funeral plans have not yet been made. We are going to look for a plumber tomorrow. Oh well. See what happens when you save up money??

bookmark_borderFebruary already??

Posted on by PaulaO

Where did January go? Anybody seen it?

I got some good writing done yesterday, spread out in bits here and there, I wound up doing about 4K. When I write first drafts, I have the basic idea of where I am going and I have ideas of what should happen along the way. But in between, I quite often just…write. I let the words just come out as they want to. Most of the time the result is good for the novel. Other times, I seem to have just wandered off and gotten really off track. But every one gives me an idea for the novel, whether I use it or not.

Butch Girls is a great case in point. It was my NaNo project, done with heavy emphasis on the word count and light attention to the story line. As a result, there are huge chunks of ‘stuff’ I am cutting out. Which means I need to fill those places in. This time through, however, I am doing a much better job of keeping my wandering down to a minimum.

Until last night.

I was in several word wars and, frustrated with the pieces to of the puzzle, I decided to just write and see what happens. What happened was way off track but actually turned out to be just what I needed. Kelly is a tough broad. She is mentally strong and solid which at first was looking to be a problem. If she is so damn strong, how come she’s spent the past two years in mourning? Easy! Most people who are mentally strong and solid have ideas that are pretty much locked into cement. They build a base to stand on and go from there. Kelly got it into her head that Anna is St. Anna, not Anna the bitch. As time goes on, little cracks start to form in her cemented view and she feels anger coming to the surface more and more. Then, on the second anniversary of Anna’s death, she feels that rage just explode out of her – and she beats up her kitchen wall. As a result, her left hand is all busted up (she’s a lefty).

Kaitana and I discussed it and she suggested that perhaps Kelly needed that external pain to reflect and release the internal pain. Her mind needed that kind of tap on the shoulder. More like a two by four upside her head.

I let it sit over night and I am about to go re-read it to see how it feels.