Last Day in Livingston

Today is our last day here for this trip, so made some preparations to leave. We returned the DVD of Bowling for Columbine we had borrorowed from the library here. We picked up our mail at the mail window so we wouldn't have to pay to forward the junk. Then we went downtown to the library and returned the DVDs and books we had borrowed (except that when we got home, we realized me had missed one, oops, so we'll have to take it back tomorrow). We picked up some groceries and some windshield washer fluid with bug remover.

The last item is not to clean windshields, actually, but to dissolve bugs on our end cap. Pretty much every time we travel, some bugs splatter on it and are a pain to get off. I found a suggestion on a forum to try the windshield cleaner. When we got home I put some in a spray bottle and checked it out. It did seem to work, but we'll have to wait until we have a full crop of stubborn bugs to see how well.

We've been having an ongoing problem with our refrigerator, with water dripping from the fins into the refrigerator compartment. The drip tray seemed to regularly overflow or freeze rather than directing excess condensation toward the drain hose at the back of the fridge. We had looked at the back of the fridge before but were unable to see what was wrong. Today we just reached in and pulled the end of the hose out so we could see if it was plugged up. Sure enough, it was. Curiously the plug was a molded plastic piece that looked like it was made to go in there, but we could see that the water couldn't drain with the plug in place, so Ken pulled it out with a pair of pliers.

We nearly tossed it at that point, but I made one last search of the web and chanced upon a forum discussion that mentioned that the plug should have a small drain hole. I poked a needle through, and now ours does. It must have been defective from the beginning. The plug is in place to keep insects out of the hose. We are so proud of ourselves for solving another problem through persistence and detective work, especially since we don't see ourselves as being especially handy.

During lunch we watched the bonus material DVD that came with E.T. The footage and description of making the original movie were very interesting, especially the way Spielberg worked with the kids. The material on the creation and working of the alien was quite amazing. We always know that what we see on the screen is an illusion, but seeing behind the scenes to view the ingenious ways that E.T. was animated was really eye opening.

This afternoon I won an Ebay auction for a Corning spouted saucepan to replace the one I broke a couple of weeks ago. Yay! If I'd realized how hard it is to get these things, I'd have been more careful with the original one. I lost another auction for one last week when someone outbid me by 50 cents at the last minute, so this time I was glued to the screen as the seconds ticked down.