"Violin-y" is an under-rated, but actual, mood. (3 Good Things From 3/22/10)

Without too much ado, here they are:

1. This version of "Such Great Heights" came on my Pandora yesterday: I was listening to the Regina Spektor station, and out of nowhere comes The Section Quartet:



It was one of those songs that made me wish I played the violin. But don't tell Sweetie, because she'll make that face she makes whenever I mention the sometimes-desire I have to play the violin, a face that says You're really kind of a geek, which I am, but she doesn't have to lord it over me.

2. I was able to exchange the coffee pot for one that works. Much of last night was devoted to correcting things that had gotten screwed up in the days before, and the first of those was that I had to take back the coffee pot that I'd gotten on Friday, a coffee pot I'd bought to replace the one Mr F broke. The new one didn't work, either: It leaked water out the bottom, so I had to take it back last night, waiting in line at the Wal-Mart behind a woman who had one of those too-convoluted transactions going on: a pile of things, some of which were being returned, some of which were being exchanged and some of which, I'm pretty sure, she just brought in to chat about with the clerk.

When it was finally our turn -- Mr F and Mr Bunches came with me, but were impatient about being in the customer service area instead of the toy department (or, as they seem to think of the latter, their own personal playground) -- the clerk graciously said I could go exchange the coffee pot, but warned me that because I was returning only the pot-and-maker, he was going to keep the new box and instructions.

I assume that's a precaution against me forming a grand ring of schemers devoted to getting free coffee-maker boxes and instruction booklets.

3. I finally got that sink fixed! The other thing that took up all my time last weekend and yesterday was the upstairs sink. Last week, trying to avoid brushing his teeth, Mr Bunches had kicked the bathroom vanity and knocked loose a door. In putting that back, I noticed there was some water dripping onto the bottom and checked to see if the sink was leaking... and the pipe crumbled in my hand.

That led to a trip to Home Depot, where a guy helped me (and Mr F and Mr Bunches) get a package of pipes to repair the sink -- he looked at the old one I'd brought in with me (I always bring the old one with me, because I don't know how to measure a pipe to determine the new one I need, and after the whole measuring-a-refrigerator fiasco, I just take a sample into the store.) The parts the guy picked out for us didn't work, so I went back later that night and got different parts, on Sunday night, but those didn't work, either.

So last night, I loaded up Mr F and Mr Bunches again, and we headed out to Home Depot, where they looked leery about coming back to this store a third time in 24 hours. Things got worse then when we got to the plumbing aisle and I realized that I'd left my wallet in the car, so I had to escort them back outside to get the wallet, at which point they thought they were leaving, and got excited about not being at Home Depot, only to then get dragged back inside, where I had to try to pick out the right part while simultaneously dealing with Mr F's high-pitched protests and Mr Bunches' attempts to escape (he did get away at one point by crawling through the shelves into the next aisle, so you can see where I might get distracted and not get the right part.)

But I did get the right part, and fixed the sink, and people are able to once again use the bathroom faucet/kick the vanity doors to avoid toothpaste without fear of leaks.

103 down, 10,642 to go: Because I'm still in a violin-y kind of mood, here's "Violin" by They Might Be Giants: