Electrical Adventures

Since my mom plans to move into my grandma's basement, she's been bringing over much of her office equipment...all of which requires a three-prong, grounded outlet. The only outlet in one room was still two-prong. I went over on Saturday to change it out...only to discover my mom had neglected to purchase a three-prong replacement. (She had a multioutlet plugin to plug into a three prong outlet, but not the outlet itself) Naturally I discovered this after getting the old outlet out.

Note 1: If I am going to do this on a regular basis, I really need to acquire a wire-stripper. Stripping wire with a plain ol' pair of pliers is a right pain. At any rate, I did get the two lengths of wire to connect to the ground prepared on Saturday night.

Note 2: Anyone who wires a house with two-prong plugs and cuts off the ground wire as far is it can go needs to be shot. No, they need to be drawn and quartered. Or possibly have their fingers slowly, slowly crushed over a ten-year period. I had to pull out the cord as far as it would go, cut it open, and extract as much of the ground wire as I could into the outlet box. I was not happy.

Okay, so I went back over on Sunday night (when I knew for certain my mom had the necessary equipment) and got the first outlet changed. Started on the second...which leads me to:

Note 3: Anyone who puts up wood-panelling over an outlet and does not cut the hole large enough for later extraction of said outlet also needs to be taught a lesson. I think locking them in a room with a small hole in the wall not quite large enough for them to get a piece of food through it might be appropriate.

Since we lacked a small enough saw to cut through said panelling without making a major mess, that outlet is not changed yet. However, I did change out the socket in an old lamp. New experience for me, and quite interesting. Also much easier than switching outlets (and under normal circumstances, that isn't hard either)

Oh, the most amusing thing was my mom while I was working on the outlet that did get changed. Every time I moved, she jumped, terrified that I was being electrocuted or something. "Mom, we turned the power off. Look." I touch the live wire. "Yes, but you moved back so fast!" "Huh? I was adjusting my position so I'd have a better angle." And so on.

In other news, my mom took me out to dinner for helping her move furniture. The strange thing is that I really don't mind moving furniture: I think it's rather fun. When she asks me to do something that I find distasteful (like turn pages for her at church), she never even considers compensating me. *shakes her head* We tried to eat at Mandarin House...only to find that an inept employee had overbooked them (or booked them for times that weren't supposed to allow reservations, or something weird), so we went to Chang's instead. Good food there. I decided I was tired of my usual (curry chicken in coconut cream, CK7) and decided to try the green curry (last CK on the list) instead (after making sure it didn't have soy sauce in it; soy sauce has wheat in it, if you didn't know).

Mistake. It tasted very good. It was only after eating half of it that I realized it had ginger in it. Here's the thing: I love the flavor of ginger. But last June, I tried using it as a replacement for decongestants. It worked, for a while, but then I started feeling tired and achy, kinda like a cold was coming on. Eventually I made the connection to the ginger, and have been limiting my exposure ever since. Every time I've gotten even a little bit, I've been tired and out of it the rest of the day. This wasn't a little bit. On Saturday when I woke up, I felt like I had a hangover. After getting up, having tea and taking a decongestant, I felt well enough to make it to taiji class. However, the headache has persisted on and off ever since. It is much better this morning. Presumably it will go away once my body clears the last of the ginger from my system.