Lovely day. Even the Committee on Greatest Day Ever, which meets quadrennially in a secure location in the Pyrenees, will be required to consider it for an international honorable mention. It only gets the purple ribbon because it is an especially cold day. This is unnecessary, and will be waited-out until a pleasant April day comes along.

Late breakfast at the Barbecue House, where the place was empty and thus the hash browns were plentiful. Mr. Price, if you’re keeping track, is back to not remembering me. He asked if we needed a menu. No thanks, I’ll just have the usual.

Stopped by world headquarters of The War Eagle Reader. We visited with one of Jeremy’s daughters, talked about tomorrow’s stories today and met Torch, official co-cat:

Later I visited Lowe’s, because they’ve offended me less than Home Depot. (The next time I need a hardware part I’ll visit Home Depot, because I hit up Lowe’s this time.) I needed to address an issue in the kitchen sink. Not the sink itself, but an attachment, that retractable spray hose. Not the spray hose, though, but rather the little plastic circle bracket it rests in.

The old one cracked in two before the holidays. I removed all of the cleaning supplies that live under the sink, crawled inside, reached around and through the various pipes and traced the hose up to where it attaches to the plumbing. There was no easy way to get to it, everything was by feel and felt awkward in every way. This was not going to be an easy task.

So at Lowe’s I walked around with the Confused Looked of Resignation until someone in a vest stumbled across my path. I’d been in three sections by then, when he asked “Can I help you find something?” I was surrounded by sinks at the time, but this was the wrong place to find a sink accessory attachment, which was four aisles away.

The good news, the gentleman told me, was that this is attached at the hose, not under the sink. That’s much better. But you have to buy both the nozzle and the flange. Used to be, he said, that you could buy just the flange, but no more. I picked up the cheapest one, which almost matched the one in our kitchen thinking, That might explain somethings.

There are instructions inside. On the outside it says you’ll need an adjustable wrench, adjustable pliers, needle nose pliers and pipe thread tape. I have the tools, or can make do, but I needed the tape. Found it two aisles over, nearer the sinks, so things are well organized. The tape cost $1.06.

Got home, where we had company. Visited for a while, talking of football and jobs and weddings and things.

Later we visited Target, where we received a gift card for Christmas. We decided to pick up frames and continue the house decorating. We walked out with seven frames, two of them will hold a trip we took to San Francisco four years ago. We framed a lithograph from Rome and two pieces from Greece, from our honeymoon two years ago. Good prints take time, you know. You have to study these things, consider them for taste and durability, before you commit them to a frame.

And then, like later tonight, there’s the pulling out the paper examples, replacing the mattes, cleaning the glass and making it all fit together again. And then there’s the difficulty of finding the proper wall. Where will the sun accentuate the proper setting? Will the ceiling fan reflect off this frame?

These are difficult questions.

Anyway. Saw this at Target:

In one swift, 8×10 motion the designer managed to offend at least two different groups of people. Keeping calm having to do with the Blitz, rocking on antithetical to the stiff upper lip of the English establishment. But when rock has become over-produced pop, and with rocking on now meaning a third thing entirely, we’re really just dumbing down the argument. There is no need, the artist suggests, to understand the origin of these expressions, their historical antecedents and how these two things are actually tied together by pushing against one another. Just appreciate the juxtaposition and this wicked awesome line art of a Flying V. And so it will be that a 13-year-old will have a cute, possibly ironic mantra for the Twilight generation.

Later still I returned to the sink fixture. Turned off the water, made the source pipe leak. Emptied the entire two cabinets in a hurry, mopped up the water, fixed the leak and carried on. The instructions tell you to remove the old sprayer, but not how. (It unscrews. Not to worry, though: I have an advanced education.)

Popped off the little clamp, removed the washers. Dropped one washer down the sink, where it fell perfectly through the drain.

Pull the hose out of the sink, putting the flange in place, feeding the hose back through. Insert the new washers, apply the new clamp. Screw on the new nozzle, turn on the water, give everything a try.

It works!

And then I completed reorganized the things under the cabinet.

Thing I’ll take the pipe thread tape back to the store. It never appeared in the directions, nor did any of the wrenches or pliers, so now I’ll be awake all night wondering if I’ve managed to manufactured by own leaky faucet.

Even still, wonderful day.