Restoration - Velvet, Galactic Alignment and the Bathtub Drain

Velvet moves home today.
I'm not sure if Cupcake will be joining him or not.  I made a point of inviting her since she's kind of scared of me and may not come with him without a specific invitation.  For the record, I like it that she's kind of scared of me.

The apartment project is at a stopping place for a few days.  A woman from the tub refinishing company is coming today sometime after 3:00 to examine the tub and make some recommendations.  I'm still not into reglazing, refinishing or otherwise fucking up the porcelain any worse than it already is by coating it with some ugly white acrylic shit no matter how many times people tell me it's great.  However, there is an issue with standing water near the drain.  The drain is antiquated and unusual.

As you can see, the drain is not flat on the bottom of the tub.  It's in the side and looks like a belly button, if you ask me.  There is a teeny little ridge inside that seems to be acting like a teeny, tiny dam.  Andy the Contractor says the pitch of the tub itself is a little off kilter, too, which contributes to the formation of the puddle.

It may be that the tub refinishers have a suggestion about the drain.  I feel like I've fully entered an ongoing episode of This Old House especially since Velvet's picturesque closet is about 1/4" too shallow for a standard size coat hanger.  Fortunately, a bookcase slid right inside which solved problem of storing the linens without a linen closet which I have been pondering for some time.  Now Velvet's closet is an outstanding linen closet, and I'll be spending more money at Ikea or Overstock.com on a small wardrobe for him.  He needed a new dresser anyway - and at this point, what's another couple hundred bucks?  He'll have to wait through a payday or two before we get said wardrobe, but the wardrobe box from the movers is perfectly fine until we can buy another piece of furniture.

In case you're wondering, here's the stopper:

The water goes through the belly button and down through the pipe in the floor.  To close the stopper and take a bath, you release this mechanism at the top of the chrome pipe.  You can't really see it on account of the flash - but you get the idea:

Athalie at the plumbing supply recommended I get this jazzy chrome stuff under the sink.   Much more attractive than typical pipes.  Here's the sink and the hole in the wall where the medicine cabinet will go when it ever gets here.

The front of the medicine chest is simply a flush beveled mirror.  An 8" towel bar is on the way, too.  I guess it's going to the right of the faucet since it won't fit anywhere else.

The contractors will be back to finish the bathroom once all this stuff ever gets delivered.  Meanwhile, Velvet and I will be celebrating the galactic alignment tonight.  I hope Cupcake is here too because it really is a time for all of us on the planet to appreciate our connection to each other and Earth, the mother.  Those two can appreciate their connection to me while we're at it.  I'm glad to be connected to them, too.

The question of who will be the first man in the new apartment (not counting the contractors) has been settled as well.  As it happens, Buzz Kill will be the first man to cross the threshold.  Not that he's staying.  He'll be here with Velvet later this afternoon to take a couple of pieces of furniture to his own apartment.  Now that Vagina Dentata is comfortably installed in the old folks home on West End and 74th, Buzz Kill can call that apartment his own.  He's been doing some restoration work himself, but I haven't been paying much attention to Buzz Kill's restoration.  He may be hooking up a window alarm while he's here.  I needed Velvet to bring me one of those window alarm kits to go on the window in the kitchen that leads to the fire escape.  I'm not having a big, ugly gate across the window.  Sadly, window alarms are not available at the hardware stores in Buzz Kill's neighborhood, so he ordered one for me online and, as I said, will hopefully be hooking it up today while he's here.

Hopefully, he'll be gone by 4:20 since that's when I declared the New Age begins at Menopausal Stoners World Headquarters in Harlem.   All that outdated, patriarchal bullshit can go straight down the drain.  As with the bathtub drain in my own house, some residual bathwater may linger a while - but when you consider that we've been hearing about the dawning of the New Age since the original cast album of  Hair was on the Billboard charts, a decade or two of residue makes sense.   And besides, that metaphorical puddle near the drain reminds us not to throw the baby out with the bathwater.

I'm looking forward to Velvet's first night in our new home.