More advice and a Sis-in-law update

My sister-in-law is doing well. She is in and out of it due to medication, and still on a ventilator, but the pacemaker has been removed as they determined she didn't it. It was inserted as a precautionary measure. Hopefully she will be off the ventilator and they will attempt to have her up and walking a bit tomorrow. Thank you for your prayers and good wishes.

Are you ready for today's advice?

Don't put more than a few scrapings from a dinner plate down your garbage disposal.

I know better. Honest, I do. But for some reason last night I put a larger quantity of too old leftovers down the disposal. I ran it for a long time, thinking that would do the trick. Today I ran the dishwasher while at a meeting. I came home to water standing in both sides of my double sink. Uh-oh.

The disposal ran fine but the water didn't go down. I tried plunging without success. My oldest son stopped by. He tried plunging also. Still no luck. I called Bill and broke the news to him. He came home with a snake. Bless his heart, he never said anything harsh to me over this. I guess he knew I felt bad and I don't typically cause these problems. The last time was 20 years ago and carrot peelings were the culprit.

He ran the snake, and in dismantling the pipes under the sink found one that had corroded and broke off into the U shaped pipe. After believing the snaking effort a success, he left to buy a replacement T shaped pipe. Checking once more for a blockage before assembling the new pipe, he used the garden hose fed through the kitchen window. My job was to turn the faucet on and then off. When he mumbled that he didn't know why such and such was occurring, I came in. I heard water dripping and looked up. Water was dripping from the trim molding at the ceiling over the cabinets to the right of the sink.

Big uh-oh.

Twenty three years ago we had the kitchen remodeled. A wall was removed. The plumbing vent ran through the wall that was removed. The vent was recessed between studs on the outer wall but had to elbow in just before the ceiling. Don't ask me why, and pardon me if you know plumbing and I am using incorrect terminology. The bottom line is that water backed up the vent pipe which normally is just air. When the water couldn't go anywhere else, it came out the top...into the upper part of the cabinet...and dripped down through four shelves of dishes and some seldom used glasses.

Since our snake is either not long enough or for another reason is incapable of solving this problem, we called a plumber. We were told he would be here by 6:30. It is 8:17 and he just arrived. I hope he will be able to take care of this without deconstructing something. To say I am sick over this would be an understatement. Once this is taken care of, I have dishes to wash. Lots of dishes. Today is not a good day to be a dishaholic.

I have hopes of looking back on this day at some point, and turning a funny spin on things. Right now my humor is hiding under a dark cloud.

Still, things could be worse. One cabinet over and it would be food that had dripping water all over it. Also, I could have a husband who likes to yell and I would be reduced to tears by now. As I type this, I am listening to him and the plumber actually laugh over how convoluted our problem is.

With luck, I will be posting tomorrow as 4 or 5 loads of dishes go through the dishwasher and I will be bringing even better news about my sister-in-law.

If not, feel free to send prayers and maybe a bottle of Scotch.