Oru Baffroom N Howss Adbvwnetru, Sweet 16

On Sunday morning, having heard nothing from Suddenlink despite being promised that we would, I gave them a call. They seemed surprised that we’d not been contacted, but pointed out that local offices probably had fewer technicians on the weekend and even fewer on mother’s day. They said they would put a dispatch order through to the local office and give them instructions to give me a call immediately about the situation. Going without internet was one thing; going without phone was another. (Never mind that I was calling them on a cell phone from my home, so it wasn’t like I was without communication ability.)

Early afternoon, we started on the new bathroom lamp.

We'd been in love with the new bathroom lamp from the moment we'd first seen it online. And, in person, it was just as impressive as we'd hoped. Our major theme in the new bathroom—beyond the muted green, white and earth tones color-scheme—is chrome and this light certainly qualifies in that department. It looks like three smoked glass flying saucers, each wrapped in a ribbon of chrome, suspended beneath two horizontal, deco-lookin’, curved chrome bars that are attached to a chrome wall-mount disc at the rear of the structure. It's a modern twist on classic design elements that we think tie in well with the antique-ish looking fixtures. (And, on that note, we even contacted Price Pfister about the fact that the sink faucet drain pull and the tub faucet drain pull, both from the same exact line of bathroom fixtures, DO NOT MATCH. They seemed surprised by this, but agreed to send us a replacement in the design we like for free. Yay Price Pfister!)

Naturally, as our lack of preparation had come to bite us when it came to the dimensions of the vanity, only after the light was in hand did it occur to us that it might not fit the space in which it was to be installed. Our new vanity is in the corner of the bathroom, and is more or less affixed to the wall with caulk and by the relatively immovable pipes beneath. We hadn’t measured the space before ordering the light, so it was very possible that the mid point of the light in relation to the side wall would be well to the left of the midpoint of the sink below it, throwing off our groove. Fortunately, things worked out well and it lined up almost perfectly, even leaving a little space between it and the wall. Unfortunately, we’d not counted on the fact that the three flying saucers hang well below the level that our crappy old single-bar light had previously, meaning the new lights would essentially hang in the face of whomever stood at the sink and would block off a great portion of any mirror installed there. We would have to raise the installation point with the wall, it seemed.

Again, though, the wires leading to the light were threaded down from the attic, so we knew we could raise it without much problem. We even went so far as to buy an electrical box in advance, which we thought we would need to anchor the light. Turned out, though, that there was a stud just to the left of the ideal installation point, which would have required the box be set in too far to the right for the light to actually fit in the space. Instead, we just cut a small roundish hole where we wanted the light to be installed, pulled a loop of the bound wires through it and, with the breaker securely turned off, cut it there. Then we affixed the lamp’s mounting disc to the wall, connected the proper wires and fastened the lamp housing to the disc. Super sweet. A short time later and we had all three lamps aglowing in their new home and the whole thing looked fantastic and cast a very cool glow over our carefully chosen cool color scheme. (The picture at right does not do the light justice, as the glow cast by it is not really yellowish at all and does not depict the color of the paint well.)

Late in the afternoon, having heard nothing from Suddenlink, I gave them another call. Again they seemed mystified that I had not been contacted by the locals, as the lack of phone service was an issue that was supposed to be moved on within 24 hours and we were already pushing 36. They said they would bypass all their previous methods (email, I think) and put a call in directly to our local branch and give them the what for. Hopefully, they said, we would be contacted very quickly. However, if we’d not heard anything by 7p, they were likely not going to come and would get to us first thing on Monday. And, of course, we heard nothing, so I was again stifled in my hope to see either a matinee of Star Trek or even the 7p show. We had to make do with takeout and an evening watching Slumdog Millionaire.

I really liked the movie, but found it difficult to watch the depictions of poverty and exploitation while sitting my comfy home, eating an Outback cheeseburger and drinking a Sam Adams while still whining internally about our lack of phone service for two whole days and how I'd missed out on spending what has become a stupid amount of money on movie tickets to see Star Trek.

(2 B Continued...)