Rats!

So I let myself be talked out of my shopping excursion on the Night of Horizontal Snow. I figured if People Who Drive were telling me it was a foolhardy project, it behooved me to listen so I went to Walgreen's instead. I now have (a) light over my sink again and (b) a bathtub that drains in a reasonable amount of time, but not (c) freedom from rust stains on my toilet yet. That's tonight's mission, after I get back from Lincoln Park's Big Box Shopping Mecca.

I was hoping to have monshu, who's taking today off to cook, join me so that we could make an Outing of it, which would cushion the disappointment if it turned out un- or only partly successful, but there's some plumbing crisis in his building today and he has no water. I tried to encourage him to shlep the goods to my place, but I suspect he's unwilling to cook in a strange kitchen where he doesn't know where anything is or what the equipment specs are. So it may be just me and my books on the way there and back.

Fortunately, I will have music again: Yesterday morning, the awesome noise-reduction headphones he bought me snapped and I haven't had time to attempt a supergluing. At least now the tinny little earbuds are in my pocket so I have some recourse if some gum-poppin' seat-thumpin' dildohead across the aisle is preventing me from concentrating on my Witold Gombrowicz or Shen Congwen.

I slipped the latter into my bag this morning in order that I might regain some Chinese before I have to write a formal letter: That kind-hearted calligrapher we met two years ago is sending us copies of his new book and we want to be able to thank him properly. Hopefully, even though Irish will have to take a back seat for a while, I won't fall out of it completely. If only I knew when An béal bocht would get here!