getting closer not quite there
Not much to report today, except . . . I guess I can mention the state of the shower drain clog: still clogged!
I stopped at Pacific Supply Hardware store on 12th Avenue on my way home from work yesterday, getting on a #49 bus at 4th & Pike to ride at least the stretch from there to Broadway. The rain had let up, thankfully, but the air was still very wet and it was very windy so I was fucking freezing and happy to get onto a warm bus for a few minutes.
I went in looking for a snake tool, but the guy who runs the place, who has been doing so for years and clearly knows his shit, steered me to a product called "Hair Away," instead of the snake. The only snakes he had in stock were plastic and he said there was risk of breaking it down inside the pipe, which we don't want. He also said Hair Away works way better for hair clogs than Drano, and is a lot better on pipes.
I'm kind of kicking myself now that I did not buy the larger of the two size bottles; the directions generally say to leave one cup of the stuff in the drain overnight, so I thought a smaller bottle, which clearly held two or three cups' worth, would suffice. And then, when I was paying for it, the manager/owner guy said he'd recommend I pour the entire bottle down. So, once I did that, I was all out, and now it may be several days before I can buy more. Damn it!
That said, the stuff, while not quite getting there with one go, clearly made some headway. With standing water still in the shower at the end of the day last night, at the hardware store guy's suggestion, I first scooped all that out, and removed as much of the water from inside the drain itself as I could, and then poured the bottle down it—at which point the water drained all the way down to the curve of the pipe almost immediately. This really gave me hope, and I left it to soak for the rest of the night.
This morning, though, when I poured a pot full of hot water down the drain, I could actually hear it draining like normal for a minute . . . and then it filled up and created a bit of standing water again. It was all drained again after a few minutes, but this means there is still clearly a clog there. It would seem as though it has been largely disintegrated and dislodged, however, and even the Hair Away directions says that repeats of the process may be needed in "extreme cases." So, now I need to buy one of the larger bottles.
I thought perhaps I could order one from Amazon, that could even be delivered tonight itself. No such luck: this specific brand is apparently obscure enough that it has no listing whatsoever on Amazon, and I don't want to gamble on yet another brand when I know this one has worked best thus far. The problem now is that I have plans right after work both tonight and tomorrow night, and apparently every hardware store in existence closes at 6 p.m., Pacific Supply included. We'd have to leave after less than an hour visiting with Mala and Vega tonight in order to make it on time, which is kind of unlikely. I finally did shower in the guest bathroom shower this morning, and I suppose having to do that for a couple more days isn't the end of the world.
Anyway! Shobhit made a potato and paneer dish for dinner along with parathas, delicious, which we ate while watching about two and a half hours of TV: the series premiere of the new HBO show Avenue 5, which could stand some dialogue improvements but had a lot of visual gags I very much enjoyed and was overall actually better than I expected; and the first two episodes of The New Pope, Paolo Sorrentino's follow-up to last year's The Young Pope. Curiously, they are listing it as a stand-alone season of a new show, even though it's basically season two of The Young Pope. This causes some confusion when looking up information about it, but, whatever.
I also had a glass of wine. No snacking to speak of all day between meals. I weighed in at 155 lbs even this morning—a whopping 0.1 lbs less than yesterday. I'll take it; it's still in the right direction, and actually the more slowly and steadily it happens the greater the chance of keeping the weight off. I've been moderately constipated for several days and I really think that's also having an effect; once I get back to some normalcy on that front I suspect the weight loss won't be quite as slow. And with that lovely note on the state of my bowels, I'll leave you to the rest of your day!
[posted 12:26 pm]