Always Something

 Yes, it is always something.

I return the Lebanon mom cat this morning, and they tell me they don't want the gray girl kitten, that they claimed to really want two days ago.  Plus they'd caught another kitten, the 8th.   

I dutifully load the kittens up and bring them home.  I already passed six of them to a Portland woman.  I met her yesterday in the parking lot at the Woodburn Walmart, to hand off the last three.  She took three others the day before, when I drove them and the mom to Portland.

I then waited, parked under a tree, in the parking lot, there in McMinnville, for a Salem woman, who drove to Portland to pick up the mom cat for me.  She's quite delightful, I must say.  This is only the 2nd time I've met her. She mainly tries to get dogs fixed.  A really tough endeavor in Oregon, where low cost spay neuter is in very short supply.  She too just had knee replacement in March.

That's when I thought all the kittens were caught and the neighbors of the vacant house were keeping the gray kitten.

So now the mom is back where she was trapped and fixed, but I have two more girl kittens.  One black, one gray.  Both darling.

  

I told KATA I'd pick up their cats this afternoon and did.  I'll tell you traffic was hell, even between Albany and Salem.  It was so bad, I decided to return back roads, to avoid the freeway.  

Buffy, the mom cat I trapped in the park July 2nd, early early in the morning, turns out to have been already pregnant again. KATA has held her til she could be fixed since I trapped her.  Her boy kitten, now with KATA, is probably ten or twelve weeks is all.  And she's going to spit out another litter?  Not her fault.  She's also not a young cat.  Her estimated age (by teeth) is seven.

Poor old girl.  Stupid a-holes who never fixed her and probably dumped her there.  She only appeared a few months back.  I'm kind of tired of some of the people around here.  They behave like they have no brains and have never heard of personal responsibility or basic right and wrong.

Anyhow, after taking back the mom and getting the two kittens, but before I went to pick up KATA cats in Salem, who had been fixed, including Buffy from the park, I decided to replace the faulty oven bake element.  It fried about a month ago and I've been unable to use the oven since then, but have been using the range top.  However, I did so only occasionally because I thought I could smell a burning that was not associated with anything I was cooking atop the one burner I used.

Oven bake element, the spots where it shorted out a few weeks back, in a spectacular fireworks display in the oven.  There was no fire, but I still threw baking soda in there.

This is where the bake element connects.  The left side connector retracted into the insulation lining the oven wall, which prompted me to clean the range top, instead, and remove it and then see the other badly scorched wiring.  

Turns out I was right, that I smelled something abnormal.   The instructions for installing the bake element warn against letting the connector that comes out of a hole in the back of the oven, pull back through the hole, into the insulation.  Well I did just that, on one side of the new element.  Shoot.

I tried to find it with a short wire.  I bent the end to a hook but couldn't "feel" it.  I then decided to take off the range top.  I hadn't cleaned under it in a long time.  I don't know why.  Time constraints I guess.  It was kind of dirty but not too bad.  I cleaned it up then removed it completely to see if I could see down the back to the wires that go through to the element.

That's when I discovered scorching on several wires, in the area where the burner element wires and oven element wires join together, before becoming the cord that plugs in behind the oven.  Ok, I thought, this oven/stove is done for.  It is.

Its about 36 years old, maybe 38, I can't remember.  It's original manual came with the  house.

I guess that's old enough.  Can't believe it lasted that long.  A replacement when I find one won't last that long.   My brother said he'd replace it and was eager to just do it, over the phone, until I told him its not a stand alone, but a slide in.  Complicates things.

Last night, worried over the range replacement, since the size is odd, and now very tough to find, and how much slide ins cost, compared to say a free standing, I stood back and looked at the range and thought how slick it looks, even though so old, very attractive and clean looking.  Waves of nostalgia plagued me then.  How I become attached to even an appliance (until its replaced) confounds me.  

I woke myself out of it, ticking off the reality.  I've replaced the burner element knobs, at least once. I've replaced some of the burners, the burner cups, and even the "brains" of the burner control unit.  It has only one oven rack.   The oven light has never worked to my knowledge nor has the clock or the timer.  The oven thermostat is very questionable.  Oh gawd, I thought, I should have replaced that a decade ago. 

 It's an insulated box that heats up when two tubing elements are supplied power.  That's it, for gosh sakes.  Same thing with the range top burners.  The range isn't some complicated appliance.  The elements can burn out with age, so can the burners.  The burner or element controls can get gunked and fail, or, as in this case, the wires are scorched, so got worn down, couldn't carry the load, pulled loose and shorted another, who knows.   It's not a computer, just a simple appliance.  

I think to myself, I could probably fix the problem by getting it a new wiring tree.  I think to myself, guessing because I don't know, that the biggest problem would be where the power to the elements gets interupted and controlled by the switches.  Those can get gunked up, corroded, even break off.  Or the wiring, because the insulative plastic coating can get hard and crack and break off with age.  I could fix this, I think.   It's stupid to replace an insulated metal box, for a thousand bucks, that heats when supplied power.  I like this unit and it looks so neat and clean.  Oh brother, the way I think.  

My maglite broke too.  A couple weeks back.  I watched a video last night on how to fix the maglite switch.  Or you can order a replacement switch.   The batteries and bulb are both fine, which leaves the switch as the problem.  They're plastic now, like everything else.  The tube itself is metal.  I hate the cheap crap flashlights, that fail after a month or two, like you really want to buy disposable flashlights.  I bought a pack of three six inch long allegedly waterproof lights at Costco.  One month later only two worked.  Now, a year later, only one works.   

WTF is wrong with the way things are made these days.   Disposable everything.  The mag lites usually last.  I don't like LED flashlights.  The light seems fake and is far too bright.  Give me those vacuum tube bulbs.  I'm old and I like them.

Oh well.   It's over 90 again and will be next few days.  Who needs to cook anything at all?  Besides, I do have the tiny toaster oven and also camp stoves.  I told my brother its not an emergency thing, so he would not stress.  I have many ways to cook here.  Including three different camp stoves.  I have my Sterno stove.  I have a pan stand that screws into a single small propane tank.  And I have a two burner Coleman propane stove.  So big deal about the range, for now. It can wait.  It's off at the circuit breaker now.  There's no danger from it, but there certainly was before.  I am lucky the house didn't burn down.

Heartland is taking the two kittens tomorrow.  I'm very thankful.

I hope to get to the lake/river again before the water is too low in it.   I can't go up there on the weekends, too many people, nowhere to park.  I hope I find time next week then, leave all else behind.  The break is officially beginning now.  Won't be drawn in anymore, for awhile.