The Chase

This isn't about chasing my children around the house.  It's not about chasing a boy as a youth in the hopes he would become my boyfriend.  It's not about a chase at all; it's about the lack of a chase.

When my husband and I built our house, we tried to think of everything.  We got a lot right, prepared for contingencies that most likely will never arise, but in a few cases we totally missed something obvious.  Today, we discovered one of those oversights.

Our builder has decades of experience and he made suggestions we're glad about now.  One of the things he told us was helpful was adding a chase tube from the attic all the way to the basement.  A simple PVC pipe from the top of the house to the bottom of the basement is a great way to save on problems in the future.  We have two of those chases in place.

Let's say we needed to do something crazy like wire a speaker at the far back of the basement from the television at the front of the basement.  The Floor is poured concrete.  The ceiling has joists and the walls have studs.  It's a messy proposition all around.  But, we could use our handy chase from one side of the basement, up to the attic, across the attic and then down the other side of the basement, plug in the speaker and disco, we have sound.   And yes, that's an outrageous example, but we could do it if we had to.

Today we were talking about the remote control situation in the great room and how there were some issues that might be addressed by the newer model universal remote.   We looked online, discovered a "way cool" option that would not only provide the features we wanted, it would remove having to point in multiple directions with the remote when you used it for some things, and there was an app for your phone if you didn't even want to use the remote.  Oh, and it was inexpensive too.

That's when my husband realized we had a problem.  We would need to have a new connection from the television over the fireplace to the cabinets off to the left.   "Ah, we can use our chase," I said.  Guess where we forgot to put a chase?

But we eventually worked through a solution.  There was long bits of copper wire involved and some red string.   We were lucky to have a three inch square hole in the side of the cabinet that held a fan that vented hot air into the chimney space from the components.  (As an aside, that was a cool idea of my husband's--putting a standard computer fan into the wall to vent heat.) 

We strung up a flashlight and hung it down into the empty space behind the fireplace and we jiggled a wire until we finally caught it with the hook and pulled the long string through.  When we got everything back in place, you can bet we left that red string there in case we need to pull something through in the future.

But back to the new remote control system.  I'm in the basement right now but if I wanted to turn on the television upstairs, change the channel and lower the volume, I could do so without even being on the same floor.   I almost want to go watch something right now just to play with the controls.

The Big Boy Update:  I don't really know that I want to put what my son said today here, but it was both innocent and horrifying so I think I'm going to to.  He was hungry and about to sit down to eat a snack.  He also had an itchy crotch.  I asked him if he needed any cream to help the itching when he said, "I like eating penises.  Penises are good.  Mommy, you eat my penis."  See?  You're horrified, right?  I told him that probably wasn't a good idea and was there another way I could help?  He said, "yes, go get the cream as fast as you can!"  And so I did.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  Daddy was playing hide and go seek with my son yesterday.  My daughter was upstairs with me getting a change of clothes and was in no way participating in the game.  But her mind was.  She heard her brother trying to find daddy and said, "I can't find daddy.  Daddy's hiding."  Then, after another few seconds of my son running around my daughter told me what was going to happen next, "Daddy wanna whistle."  She was right; daddy whistles when the children can't find them to help them figure out where he's hiding.