Toilet Parts

I was today years old when I learned that the inside of a toilet tank lid has a list of the replacement parts and part numbers for your toilet.

So for a few weeks, if not months, one toilet in the bathroom has been leaking water into the bowl and this causes it to flush a few more times every day when not in use. 

I tried looking at the parts inside and knew that the flapper needed to be replaced but couldn't figure out what part to buy. I've replaced flappers in my old condo before and I've always just bought universal replacements but the one in my tank doesn't look "universal" at all. It wasn't until recently that I got annoyed enough at all the waste that I actually sat down to do research. 

Leaking toilet is the common bathroom, these photos are from the master bath which I also replaced because the flapper also looked like it was melting.
 

President's Day

I'm sitting in my home office and happened to overhear my son in his virtual class. They're talking about President's day and this reminds me of the time, long ago, when Swe-cha first learned about George, the first president. 

Swe-cha: The first President of the United States is George.

Me: George what ?

Swe-cha: George!

Me: George Washing...  (giving him a hint...)

Swe-cha: ... the dishes ? 

Resolution

Organized our groceries  (food pantry) in our basement yesterday and had to throw out a lot of expired goods. Boxes and boxes of expired snacks and goods.  Sayang, if I had kept better track of them, I could've given them away before they expired. 

I should have a better way of keeping track of supplies AND not buy too much. I'm not one to make new year's resolutions (or not much anyway)... but if I have to make one, I will make it a goal to have less, if not 0, waste from now on. 

Super sayang talaga. 

Winter Storm Gail Preps

We're expecting Winter Storm Gail tomorrow and into Thursday. Around 12-18" of snow is expected. 

So, we've prepped the gas for the snow blower.

The husband has yet to start up the snow blower. Sigh. I do not know why he keeps putting it off,... in  any case, it'll be more of his problem if it doesn't start up tomorrow. 

Separately, I picked up a portable heater and a four-pack of propane cylinders. I've actually been itching to get my hands on a portable inverter generator from harbor freight but this was an easier decision (cheaper too!).  

We may still get the generator at some point but that's a whole different conversation.

Meanwhile, I've got to make sure that our rechargeable batteries are charged and that our camp lamps are ready. 

------

Edit: The husband found the snow blower manual and we got the snow blower up and running and by "we", I really mean him =) 

It works. 

The engine sounds loud. Hope it also means it is powerful.

and yes, the plastic wrap is still there, we haven't used it yet. Hopefully, we'll actually get to use it tomorrow. Whohooo!

 

Tribeca

Had a big scare last night. 

We had driven to our fave bubble tea place in Montclair and was on our way to McDonald's (a treat for our kid) when the Tribeca started sputtering, seemed to have lost power, lost the driving lights  and later, stopped working. Thankfully, we had enough momentum to pull over to the side when it eventually lost all power altogether, I am also thankful that despite it being a busy street, there were no cars behind us when we lost power.

If you can think of movies where an EMP goes off and the entire power grid - everything that runs on computers or has power - basically just shutting down and dying ? That's how it went with the Tribeca last night.

I immediately called AAA to ask for assistance, told them we were on the side of a dark but busy road, no streetlights, the street had no shoulder and we had no lights at all - the emergency lights weren't working. AAA gave us priority because of the situation. AAA does come to the rescue in around 5 minutes, guy loads up the Tribeca on his flatbed and we ask to have it towed home. Meanwhile, the 3 of us took an Uber home. Swe-cha was so well-behaved, he made us so proud!

Super thankful: 

- that God kept us safe and prevented accidents

- that Swe-cha coped really well with the situation 

- that while hubby goes to the office 2 days a week, I do work from home full time till June 2021. Swe-cha is doing remote schooling so technically, can really share 1 car for now (no pressure to get a replacement). 

So far, theories for what happened last night revolve around a bad battery, dirty / bad battery terminals or a bad alternator. If it's the batttery or terminals, we'll get this replaced. If it's the alternator, we'll have to look for a replacement. 

On Pinoy seryes and movies

 So I had a chance to take a breather recently and found a pinoy teleserye on Amazon Prime and I started watching "Karibal Ko Asawa Ko" In a nutshell, it's a story about Nathan, a closet-gay, knocked a girl up and got married. He wasn't happy with the marriage, he later started cross-dressing, liked it. He faked his own death and the death of their daughter and ran away to have sexual-reassignment surgery and changed his entire appearance. He became a transgender woman, Venus. Venus would get involved with a guy named Gavin who is unaware of his real personal, break up, Gavin meets and falls in love with Nathan's ex-wife, Rachel. And Venus/Nathan tries to get Gavin back.

What really enticed me to watch was my curiosity in how they were going to accomplish the "transformation into a woman" part. Obviously, they'd be switching actors, and you can explain away the differences by saying he had extensive surgery but one thing you can't change is height. The transgender woman, Venus, should appear as tall as the person who played Nathan. The actor playing Nathan, aside from being tall, was also muscular so I really wanted to know how they were going to spin this. 

I found myself engrossed with all 114 episodes - alternating between feeling aghast at Venus' propensity for evil and heckling the production staff for all the inconsistencies. 

These are the things that I noticed, in no particular order:

1) Nathan was tall and his post-transformation character, Venus, looked tall too which is good, but why would the show,  every now and then, deliberately show a closeup of her feet walking in platform stilettos (pa-suspense effect), edi nabuko na that she's not really that tall.

2) Home fixtures - at some point, the characters were supposed to be living in the Los Angeles and they were shooting INSIDE an LA home. Bakit yung light switch mukhang Pilipinas na light switch ? 

3) The timeline for the transformation from man to woman was unrealistic. Nathan left for LA when his daughter was about 1. they didn't say how long the transformation took but at some point, he became Venus, met Gavin and they lived together for 5 years. They broke up, Gavin went back to the Philippines and some time later, they were celebrating Nathan/Venus' daughter's 7th birthday. 

So if we backtrack a bit... if Gavin lived with Venus for 5 years, that means he met Venus just before the child turned 2. If Nathan left for LA when the child was 1, he became a full woman in 1 year ? 

4) The surgeon they talked to for Nathan's transformation described the extensive procedures and what they were doing in Spanish. When the doctor paused, nathan and companion looked at each other and companion said "are you sure about this ? This is a totally new person na" (or something along those lines)... and my thought was, "teka, naintindihan nila yun ? walang translator ?" 

5) Venus' child grew up in LA. Bakit hindi siya American accent mag English ?

6) In the beginning, when they showed Nathan living in his family home, the door frame had distinctive carvings / designs. Later, they showed Daniel in his rented room, the door frame had the same distinctive pattern.

I get that they used the same house for different locations but perhaps next time, they should look for houses with less-distinctive features.

After this, I wasn't sleepy yet so I started watching different episodes of Mano Po and I was flinching the whole time. 

1) the Mano Po movies I've watched always had Teresa Teng's The Moon Represents my heart https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3XXTUJJIsfA  BAKEEET ? 

2) A lot of the characters wear CheongSams and Changpaos. Ours must not be a typical Tsinoy family because the only one I recall seeeing in a cheongsam was my Ama and it was a huge portrait of her and my Angkong. I have never seen - EVER - any of my male relatives in either the Philippines, China or HK wear a Changpao. 

3) the way the elders speak in forced Chinese-accented tagalog. Annoying and a tad bit insulting.

4) And when the actors are try to speak their Hokkien ? hurts my ears. 

5) And why do these people walk around in their homes in shoes ? Again, ours must not be a typical Tsinoy family because we walk around in comfy slippers at home. Shoes are removed at the door and we change into slippers. 

Ceiling fan lights part 2 + remote control

<-- Before - we just had a ceiling fan, no lights. The switch that controls this fan is also in the middle of the room, far from the door/entrance.

Still on a high from yesterday's success with replacing the ceiling fan lights in the blue room, we decided to go ahead with the plans to DIY the installation of ceiling fan lights in the 4th BR - we had purchased the materials already and planned to have them professionally installed (or wait for Ahya to visit). 

This was a bit more ambitious because we also wanted to either have the switch transferred to the entrance area (if we were hiring a professional electrician) and/or have a remote control installed.

Since we decided to DIY, a remote control would have to do. It also works out well because we can always install the remote control holder near the door. 

For this, we purchased a Harbor Breeze 4-light Incandescent light kit for $33 - they also sell a 4 light LED light kit for the same price, we decided to go with the incandescent kit because of the higher wattage capacity (you can always install lower-watt bulbs) and a Yukihalu remote control kit. 

The Yukihalu remote controls both the fan and the light, got this for $18 at Amazon. Per the product description, they have the smallest remote module in the market, other brands' modules are much bigger (harder to fit in the fan housing).

This was a super simple project, electrically-speaking (is this a proper term?) as everything was neatly labeled. The hardest part was attaching the remote module and getting everything attached to the wires and getting it out of the way of the main fan. We eventually had to attach this outside of the housing because there was no way for it to fit inside.  

This isn't fully finished yet as it currently is using the 60 watt incandescent bulbs included in the kit. We've ordered 60 watt equivalent daylight bulbs from Amazon ($15 for two 3-packs).