Don't go chasing waterfalls, please stick to the rivers and the lakes that you're used to

Our kitchen is being remodelled. Normally this is done when tenants move out of the building and the apartment is vacant, but apparently there was some sort of plumbing problem that required the removal of our kitchen cabinets and the creation of a bigass hole in the wall. My landlord figured that since they had to do that much anyway, they may as well do the whole shebang and give us the kitchen that new tenants get. Instead of old metal cabinets we will get nice new wood cabinets. Instead of a... um, whatever type of crap flooring that's impossible to clean we have in there now, we'll have a brand new gleaming tile floor.

The work started on Friday when the metal cabinets, the sink, and the counter were ripped out. It was a good thing I was watching a film with subtitles (Water, it was a very good film, you should see it) because there was no way I could hear dialog over that racket. When the young man who is doing the work left, sure enough, there was a bigass hole in the wall, exposing all of the kitchen pipes.

Of course, no work was done over the weekend. We were left with a bigass hole in the wall, no cabinets, and a spout. I am not pipe savvy, but I think the spout is what connects to the sink pipe that forms a U-shape. We bought a pizza on Friday for dinner. We washed the two plates we used in the bathroom sink. While it technically worked, it was kind of gross. Once all the water drained from the sink there were little grease marks from the pizza. That is something you expect to see in your kitchen sink, and it's fine, but for some reason seeing it in the bathroom sink grossed me out a little bit. We then decided that we would buy paper plates, bowls, and cups, and that the only things we wanted to wash were silverware. We bought food that is easily microwaved, even though our stove works five, because the bathroom sink isn't big enough to clean most of our pots and pans. And let's face it, if a little bit of pizza grease in the bathroom sink grossed me out, I don't want to even think about what it would look like after washing a wok.

Needless to say we are a bit inconvenienced, but when I think about cooking in a nice kitchen I feel a little better. That thought came to an end when I was sitting in the living room on Sunday and heard a trickle. Yep, water was coming out of the spot. It was only a little. It left a puddle about the size of a puddle that would be made if a big dog peed on our floor. We put a bowl under the spout and let it go.

The nice young man came back yesterday to work on it again. He would come in and out. Apparently the plumbing problem that necessitated this whole situation affects more than one apartment, and I could hear his power tools being used in other apartments when he was gone. All of a sudden, I heard rushing water. I went into the kitchen and discovered water coming out of one of the exposed pipes. Most of it wasn't falling onto the floor, but into the wall. It was quite a bit of water. We had our own little waterfall!!! Some people pay a lot of money to go on vacation and see a nice waterfall, but we had our own. Too bad there were power tools in the way because I could have put down a blanket and we could have had a romantic little picnic in our kitchen.

Ultimately the nice young man fixed that, and we got a shiny new pipe in place of the old one. I know this because there's still a bigass hole in the wall, and the new pipe looks so shiny and pretty compared to the old dingy pipes surrounding it. The nice young man stayed until 9:30 last night, working over 12 hours, bless his heart.

I wonder what will get done today. Perhaps a patching of the bigass hole in the wall? I don't think that's a lot to ask. I'm just looking forward to having a sink and a counter back. We were supposed to make a nice meal on Thursday for Valentine's day. That might have to be postponed for a bit.