fixit

-------------------------the bowels of the machine---------------------------------

our blog buddy phil recommended a post by doghouse riley, in which he hilariously takes to task the oster corporation for a shoddy toaster, which reminded me that i had occasion recently to do a bit of appliance repair. ok. not really repair. correction of stupidity is a closer description. several nights ago, in taking the cooked rice out of our wonderful rice cooker, my attention wandered and instead of turning the rice into the waiting serving bowl, out of the removable metal pot that sits inside the cooker, i dumped it into the rice cooker itself. oops. sticky rice in the works. robin tried to pick out all the grains, but some rice had gotten way into the bowels of the machine. if the only bad outcome would have been the smell of burnt rice next time we used the cooker, maybe ok. but i was concerned that the mechanism that signaled the end of cooking had been compromised.

i have been fixing appliances large and small since i was a teenager, and i have seen the downward slide of quality in toasters (smite oster, riley), irons, washing machines, dryers, stoves, bathroom fans, hair dryers, radios, tvs, and even computers (well, not computers in my teen years). imagine my surprise then when i exposed the innards of our rice cooker and found a substantial machine. there are washers AND lock washers on every electric and mechanical connection. i got the thing apart, cleaned it, and reassembled it easily. we gave it the smoke test and it passed. no smoke. perfectly cooked rice! it was a nice distraction from the craziness of packing and the worrying about close of escrow.

in other news from chez bums we are about 95% packed and ready for the big truck friday. afb u-pack will drop off a 28' semi trailer. we will load it over the weekend and they will return monday and haul it away to eureka, ca and store it till we find suitable digs, hopefully within a month.