Darkoshi

The brown silicone caulk I applied to the rim of the tub 2 years ago worked as I had hoped, in that during these last 2 years, no signs of mildew appeared on it. The brown color was truly unattractive, but it was better than seeing mildew.

Recently, however, a section of the brown caulk came loose from the tub. So I replaced the section with (not-so) new brown caulk. Unfortunately, that caulk was too old and never hardened. So it had to be replaced again...

At the hardware store, this time I found silicone caulk in a metallic grey color. Surely gray would look better than brown and would hopefully still be dark enough to mask any mildew that might appear over time.

So I decided to remove all the old brown caulk and replace it with the new gray one. I also removed the older light-colored caulk in the other sections, as it had gotten visibly mildewy in the meantime too.

The light-colored caulk had been the "Polyseamseal" brand. It was so well stuck to the surfaces that it was a right pain to remove. I had to use a razor-blade scraper with a lot of force. The razor blade ended up breaking.

I began to worry whether I was doing the right thing, using a silicone caulk again this time, as there had been other previous occasions where silicone caulk had come loose. Silicone caulk never seems to stick very well for me. The Polyseamseal one seems to stick much better. Yet I'd had other problems with the Polyseamseal one (like cracks in the middle, and it being a right pain to remove!!!)... Yet everything I read says that silicone caulk is the best kind for tubs.

As I had already bought the metallic gray silicone caulk, I went ahead and used it. The metallic gray color truly DOES look much better than the brown color did.

This time, I even caulked around the ends of the 2 handrails, which never had been caulked before. I had to first clean out a bunch of rust that had accumulated around the screws under the end cover-plates.

I know it is in vain, but I hope NEVER to have to caulk that tub again.

I had a mini-breakdown/tantrum while laying down the caulk. All this work! And it might all come loose again anyway! I went through all this work already in the past; why am I having to do it again and again?! Why do I have to do this kind of work during my vacations?! I hate this! It hurts my hands having to press down the trigger on the caulk gun! And no matter how much effort I put into it, and in spite of having more experience each time I do it, it still always ends up looking like sh*t! The bead never comes out nice and even. Even after I smooth the bead, some sections end up being a total mess. And then I have to spend time with toothpicks and q-tips trying to make it look better, but that only helps somewhat. Is there really any purpose to this caulking? Does it really even matter if water gets into the seams? The old silicone caulk that I removed seemed damp underneath, even in the sections where it hadn't been loose... maybe water gets underneath it anyhow. Maybe I'm going through all this effort for no good reason! Other people don't do this! What am I going to do when I get older and am no longer capable of putting so much effort into these tedious tasks?!

Sigh. I managed to get past the break-down with only a few tears, and without hitting anything, though I was tempted. What is it about rage that makes one want to hit things?

.

I also finally replaced the toilet fill-valve which had been malfunctioning for over a year, but still technically working. Then I also had to replace the flapper which suddenly wasn't sealing well anymore. Then water starting dripping/leaking from the supply line! But it seems it may simply not have been tightened enough - hopefully I've fixed that now.

.

Before (with part of the old brown caulk already removed):


After (nice and silvery):



Update (2014/01/12):
I'm really pleased with the new caulk color. Its silveriness, and the contrast between the color of the tub and caulk, looks very fancy. It looks just as good, if not better, than white caulk would have.

Damn those fucking dogs.

They tore up all my grass, so I wanted to lay down some new sod. It's hard enough keeping grass alive without dogs tearing it up. Qiao got me 10 squares of sod. Just a small area at a time. It took me a couple hours yesterday to dig up the earth and lay the sod. Then it took another couple of hours trying to hook up the hose and sprinkler to the faucet. Then while the sprinkler was going, I went to work drilling holes in the mortar in order to put a hose hangar on the side of the house. Because I can't leave the hose on the ground or the dogs will chew it up. And it's damn heavy to be carrying back and forth to the garage all the time. And the sod has to be watered every day to begin with

Today I finished putting up the hose hangar. And I went to buy more fencing, because I didn't have enough to surround the new sod. The metal fencing would have been $30 for 50 feet. I instead got plastic fencing, which was $10 for 25 feet and twice as tall - I could cut it in half and have 50 feet worth.

After getting home with the fencing, I looked out the window to see Serena already pulling up a piece of sod and trying to tear it apart. I yelled at her in fury and tied her up on the other side of the house. Then I got the plastic fencing up around the sod. The fig tree seems to be dead, so I took the tall folding fence that was around it, and instead put that around where the lantana flowers will be growing, to keep the dogs from ruining the flowers. In addition to the plastic fencing, I had gotten 4 pretty little snap-together pieces of plastic decorative fence, so I put those around the fig tree instead. Then I went to work trying to put the hose on the hose hangar, and hooking up the sprinkler again. Not 10 minutes into that process, I look over to see Serena chewing off the tops of my pretty little snap-together fence. GRRRR!!!!!

And now they'll probably tear down the plastic fencing and tear up the sod, and all that work will have been for nothing. And I'll have nothing but a big ugly muddy yard. I've already got a big muddy yard, and the soil is starting to wash away. I used to have nice grass in the back yard at least, but it has disappeared. It was thinning out even before the dogs moved in and started trampling everything.

And I still have to finish laying down bricks around the whole perimeter of the outside fence, to keep Serena from digging under it.

Those dogs make my life so damn hard.

I have been unsuccessful so far in teaching Zorro not to bite on our limbs and clothes.

This page says:
"Some people advise trying to emulate a 'puppy squeal' to discourage biting too hard.
I don't know why, but people just don't seem to be very convincing with their squeals, so I don't recommend it as a training technique. What's more, some puppies seem to enjoy it when their human squeals and will get more excited, resulting in more biting."

Yeah.... when I yelp in pain, Zorro might stop momentarily but then she goes right back at it. Earlier on, I tried growling in a mean tone of voice when she'd bite my clothing... that worked a few times, but seemed to lose effectiveness fairly soon.

Whenever I grab her mouth to get her to let go of my clothes, the moment I let go of her, she jumps and bites them again. I have to literally squeeze her mouth shut with my hands and drag her with me to where I'm trying to go, or pick her up and carry her with my arm under her neck (she's getting too big and heavy for that) to prevent her from continuing to jump and bite and tear my clothes before I get into the safety of the house.

No matter what I do, I can't seem to teach her that I don't want her to bite my clothes.

I've taught her to sit when I say "Sit". If she's biting me, and I tell her to sit, she may back off and sit for a moment. But it's just for a moment, and then she'll go back to trying to bite.

The same page says:
"A different, yet highly effective approach is to say 'ouch' in a neutral tone of voice (not loud, not high-pitched and not angry) then walk out of the room, shutting the door behind you for 30 seconds. This marks the exact behavior you are trying to punish, then gives a time-out as a consequence."

This does not work, as I am not able to walk out of the room (or rather into the house), without her continuing to bite at my clothes on the way. The more forceful I am at pushing her away and/or yelling at her to stop, the more frenzied she gets in jumping and biting at me.
Often, my intent is simply to walk into the house in the first place, or to walk to the garbage bin and back, or to walk to the mailbox and back. If I wasn't trying to play with her in the first place, then even if I get away from her successfully, it isn't a "time-out", it's a sigh of relief and I certainly don't want to go back out in 30 seconds in order to be assaulted again.

Staring up at the sky or ceiling works rather well at getting her to stop biting for that moment. But when I look down again, or try to walk, she usually starts biting again.

Sticking a toy into her mouth does not work. She drops it and goes right back after the clothes and limbs. Unless it's rope. She likes playing tug-of-war with the rope. But I have to be careful to keep the rope between her and me, so that the easier target for her is the rope.

Pushing her down on her side and holding her down for a little while sometimes gets her to stop biting; sometimes it doesn't. It doesn't keep her from doing it again later.

She doesn't *always* bite. But the more time I spend in her presence, the more likely she is to start trying to bite me.

I was planning to wear my long hot-pink t-shirt yesterday under a sweater. But then I remembered Zorro, and that if I wore that shirt, it would end up with holes in the bottom, since my jacket would not cover it completely.

On Christmas-eve day, I wore my nice velvety violet shirt. I forgot to protect with my old torn-up jacket before going outside to the mailbox. Zorro jumped up, bit, and I ended up with a hole in the shirt.

I reinstalled XP SP2, but Windows Movie Maker still locks up when saving a recorded file. The file gets saved, but WMM stays locked up until I reboot; trying to kill the process has no effect. It used to work; something between now and June of last year broke it. I had already tried a couple of other things, but that did not fix it either. Using the QuickCam software is difficult, as it saves vids as very large avi files, which I then need to open in WMM and convert them anyway.

I had thought of things to talk about, too, in a video. Not that I couldn't write them just as well or even better, but maybe some people would prefer watching and hearing me talk instead of reading text. I generally prefer reading - it's faster; but it is also sometimes nice watching a person and hearing their voice and seeing how they look and how they move.

But this seems to happen fairly often when I feel excited about recording or editing vids or audio... the technology does not cooperate. Excitement fades into frustration. And after a while it doesn't seem to matter anymore, because I know even if I had been able to do what I looked forward to doing, it wouldn't have made much difference.

So I post some vids; so a few people watch them. Does it make a difference? So I post some vids and they get hundreds, thousands even, of hits. Does it make a difference? So I post a vid where my chest is bare; do people see me as I see me? No, they just see breasts, which titillates them. Does that make a difference? Perhaps one in a thousand or ten thousand people would come close to seeing me as I see me.. but even if some of those few people watched my vid, would it make a difference?

I doubt it.

.

Supposing there is some supernatural being purposely causing me frustration, what would be its purpose? To get me to notice it, because nothing else has caused me to notice it? But why would it want me to notice it? Why? What does it have to offer me? And if it had something to offer me, why wouldn't it just come right out and say so, instead of resorting to unfathomable bother?

Eh.