Murphy's Law

On Tuesday, while I was gone teaching English, something happened. Actually "something" always happens when I'm not around and it's still my fault. It's amazing how that works. This time the cap of one of the plastic bottles for blowing bubbles fell down the drain in the bathroom sink. There are a million reasons why this would not happen in a normal house but in our house we had taken out the stopper for the sink because it kept getting backed up with hair and we're too lazy to clean it out on a regular basis and I kept the bubbles bottles on the shelf, right above the sink, because then they were up out of the reach of the kids but still in a convenient place for me to reach them (because I'm lazy). It should be obvious by now what is contributing to our problems but there it is, chaos waiting to happen. Also, coincidentally, the cap is just smaller than the drain so it fit in perfectly and fell out of reach but still continued to block the water at random intervals.

In our typical fashion, we ignored it for a day, hoping that it would just go away but on Wednesday night it was still occasionally giving us problems so Chikara decides that he wants to call a plumber. I think this is ridiculous because they'll just charge us a fortune to say that they can't find it and plus Chikara's dad is doing this type of stuff now so before we drive ourselves to financial ruin we should ask him to take a look at it. Right? This makes perfect sense to me. Fortunately Chikara is busy right now and calling the plumber will take more time than calling his dad so he chose the lesser of two evils (I'm guessing that no self-respecting guy wants to call their Dad about this type of stuff). Since Chikara's parents come each Thursday to take the girls out for the evening, the timing couldn't have been better.

Or so I thought. I have to admit that in the summer I'm not very faithful with housecleaning and such. It's just so hot in most of the house that after ten minutes of minimal exertion I want to collapse plus Natsuki's mobile now so I have to bring her with me and basically all of this is a recipe for disaster (I wish I had taken a picture of her trying to climb into the toilet head first). It's funny because a lot of people I run into say that they respect me so much for being a mother of four, etc., but if they could see the state of our house on any given day, they would probably be horrified. I'm not sharing this as an excuse, this is a fact of my life, I have to decide each day what I'm going to do and then abandon the rest for another day (or month!).

So how does this relate to my story? Well, the bathroom is in horrible condition, especially the sink, where my father-in-law is going to be working but I figured my in-laws would come to get the kids late, as usual, and then come back and look at the sink later after I had cleaned it. You can imagine my shock when they appeared early and unannounced in my living room. There were toys everywhere, the 3 ft of counter space in the kitchen was covered with recycling and dishes, I didn't have a bra on and the bathroom sink was still not cleaned. I cannot even guess what they were thinking but they looked unaffected and Dad went right to work while Mom played with the girls. Fortunately Natsuki woke up so I gave her a bottle and then fed her while all of this was going on. Dad never did find the cap but he was able to force water through the pipes and we haven't had any more problems so I guess it's floating off towards the ocean somehow and will soon join all the other garbage in the sea.

It's sad. Not only are we lazy but we're also not eco-friendly.

In other sad news, I ripped a hole in the knee of the only pair of pants that fit me. I guess I'll be asking for money for my birthday so I can go shopping.

Some pictures from this week: