If you've got the time, I've got the timeless clock
They say that what goes around, comes around.
And that even a broken clock is right twice a day.
Whoever they are, they sure are full of clichés.
At any rate, many round things in my house seem to be breaking at the same -- or around the same -- time.
The first to go was actually a clock.
To be specific, my extra-large battered-looking round green metal clock that hangs over the fireplace hearth.
It runs on a single AA battery that will keep it ticking for several months.
But inevitably, enough time will pass that I'll look up to reference said oversized timepiece and notice that something is off.
So it was around a month ago. My clock had stopped and while I may be able to take it down and replace the battery all by me onesie, no way can I put it back up without assistance.
Cherica were over one night and I asked TG and Chad to take the clock off the wall. I trotted to the kitchen to get a AA battery.
The men complied and in no time, the clock was back on the wall and I set it to the correct time.
Except, later, we noticed that while the minute hand was diligently working its way around the dial, the hour hand hung limply at the six.
I did a cursory inspection and found that the hour hand had somehow become disengaged from whatever gear controls it, and was attached to nothing that would enable it to make the trip around the clock's face once every twelve hours.
Since we have no idea what to do or how to fix it, our extra-large battered-looking round green metal clock now claims, whenever you consult its face, that the time of day is six something.
Which begs the question: Can this clock still be right twice a day? I have near about worn me pirate brain out trying to come up with the answer.
Would the real frother please come froth
I mean, I get it if the clock is STOPPED. Like, at six minutes after six, in the A.M. or the P.M. The correct time will roll around twice a day. Faithfully.
But what are the chances that, with only one of the hands moving, the correct time will ever correspond with the time registered on the clock, at any given moment? Even once? Surely not twice? Per day, I mean?
Your thoughts are welcome.
Oh and not for nothing but this was the second round clock to suffer a profound (but in this case, not permanent) disability during this calendar year.
The other is a much smaller wall-mounted timepiece (Have you noticed that I have a thing for circles, and circular things? No? Well I do.) that hangs in the kitchen, not far from the door leading out to the garage.
It came from Dollar General and thus was cheap but it was so attractive that I had to have it.
Only, last summer, TG -- while working on the aforementioned door leading out to the garage -- stumbled and, since he is so tall (six foot four), bumped the clock with his shoulder and knocked it to the floor.
I rushed to pick up my clock and noticed that the plastic rim was cracked, but not so as you would necessarily notice unless you already knew the crack was there.
Which no one is going to do because they won't know. I mean, you know now but if you were to come over, I would dazzle you with charm (and food) so that you'd forget all about looking for that crack in the clock.
And since the clock was still merrily ticking and keeping accurate time after I tenderly retrieved it from the hard floor, I carefully hung it back up on the wall.
And politely suggested to my beloved that he get a grip and take it easy on my stuff.
Whereupon he continued with the door project until its completion and as I recall, made no response to my timely recommendation.
Ah. Some things never change but love makes the world go 'round. So we're good.
That's it for the round clocks. Circling back, next to go was my round mirror.
Now, we have three baths and each has a round mirror on the wall. The half bath has a round mirror that's twenty-four inches in diameter and edged in black rubber.
This mirror was so bougie ... until it broke
The guest bath has a round mirror on the wall that is forty-eight inches in diameter. It's a whopper. Also framed in black.
And last spring, when we remodeled our master bath, I chose yet another round mirror -- thirty-six inches in diameter, and frameless, but with a special feature.
It's backlit.
This mirror is positively enchanting. In fact I was so taken with it, I'm not sure I would have cared what it cost, but in truth the price was reasonable for such a gorgeous thing.
Except, after the mirror had been on the wall and functioning as intended for less than six months, one day it simply did not work.
As in, when I touched the indicators at the bottom of the mirror to activate either the LED light or the defogger, or both, nothing happened.
And this was just from one day to the next. The classic now you see it, now you don't.
Ugh. I was so upset.
The maddening part was that the two circular indicators at the bottom of the round mirror were themselves still illuminated. But pressing them produced no result.
Since the mirror was hardwired by the installer, we got the bright idea to turn off the electricity to that room, effectively killing power to the mirror. We waited about a minute, then restored the power.
Then the indicators were no longer illuminated, but a creepy vague noncommittal glow now emanates from the back of the mirror. All the time. You can only see it in the dark.
I had bought the mirror on Amazon and it was long past the time when one could return it -- which I didn't want to do anyway, since the packaging was no doubt in a landfill and how does one wrap up and return such an unwieldy thing?
So I did all I could do, which was write a one-star review.
I said, the mirror is beautiful. All I hoped for and then some. But after less than six months of working, suddenly and with no warning, it no longer works.
After a few days, my review was published.
This one took the proverbial licking and ... you know the rest
And do you know what happened? The seller reached out to me via email to ask whether I wanted a refund, or a replacement.
I processed my amazement and answered forthwith that what I wanted was a replacement, since I was still thoroughly enamored with the mirror.
To be honest, I'm not sure I believed that they would send me a replacement mirror, just like that.
But they got around to it right away and a week later, a new mirror had been delivered to my door.
I amended my review to five stars simply on the strength of the seller's response to my one-star review.
And now it only remains for TG to install the replacement mirror, and we will be back in business.
Let us keep our collective fingers crossed that this mirror functions as intended for a good long time.
Especially since we can't say as much about my favorite milk frother.
It's a Bodum and even though it cost only ten dollars, it was a gift to me from our Stephanie many Christmases ago.
And it takes two AA batteries, and works beautifully to do its intended job, and has done so for all the time I've had it.
(I pour the heavy cream into my cup, heat it in the microwave, froth the warmed cream, then make or pour my hot coffee right over the top of that.)
But a few weeks ago, after I had fed the Bodum frother with two brand-new AA batteries because its vigor seemed to be flagging, it simply refused to work.
At all.
As in, I knew I had put the batteries in correctly because they go in the same way every time, and it's not like it's a difficult concept to begin with; you pop the old batteries out, pop the new ones in, replace the cap on the end, and froth away.
But not this time. No matter what I do or say, my Bodum frother is dead in the water.
No little circular wire frothering thing is going to go around and around any more, frothing anything.
Never underestimate the power of a backup frother
The pirate did, not, however, despair.
That's because a few years ago, Andrew and Brittany gave me a gift of something I'd wanted for a long time: A stick immersion blender.
(I had never had one! I told you, I am usually the last woman in the Western Hemisphere to jump on the bandwagon of a trend. I didn't have a microwave oven until the late nineties.)
But oh how I loved that stick blender! It was so handy when I made my homemade French-style tomato soup:
In a medium-size heavy saucepan, to one large can of San Marzano whole peeled tomatoes add one-half of a stick of butter, one medium yellow onion cut into chunks, and two cups or so of chicken broth. Bring to a boil, then simmer with the lid on for forty-five minutes. Blend (either in a blender, or with a stick immersion blender) until smooth, and serve.
But one day about six months ago or so, I noticed that my stick immersion blender was no longer blending. As in, you'd immerse it in whatever you wanted to blend, and press the button, and there was sound but no action.
Turned out, there was a tiny plastic piece that had broken, and said piece fit somehow at the base of the blender's blades, and without it, the blades would not turn.
Ever again. As there was no way to repair the plastic piece, I threw it away but kept the stick blender because it came with clever attachments.
And one of those is a milk frother.
So, recent narrowly-averted disasters notwithstanding, we are once more in business when it comes to frothing milk for the morning coffee.
It's a minor annoyance that I have to haul the large stick blender out of the cabinet and plug it in -- as opposed to reaching for the small, lightweight Bodum frother -- but the good news is, it works.
Works exactly like the Bodum frother did, as a matter of fact. Six of one, half dozen of the other, type thing.
Let's unbox this bad boy and get it up on the wall
In a roundabout way, all really is well that ends well.
Except in the case of my extra-large battered-looking round green metal clock, which is still claiming that it's six-something at basically all times of every day.
Is there anyone around who's got my six on this thing?
If so, speak truth to power and help a pirate out of a jam. Not to mention a sinister time warp.
And that is all for now.
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Happy Tuesday
