How to get ABS glue off an acrylic tub

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My contractor is just prepping to install my brand new, beautiful acrylic tub. Not sure quite how it happened but he called me in asking about comet or a green scrubby sponge. “That’s not safe for Acrylic, is it?” He said, “It’s an emergency… this stuff is already drying!” Alas! Several drips of black abs glue were marring the surface of my new bathtub.
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Delayed Reaction

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I don’t know whether it’s a talent or a curse. Probably a bit of both. But my emotions — especially strong ones — tend to lag significantly behind reality.

I’m not easily shocked or disgusted. I’m often able to diffuse difficult arguments. I take a terribly long time to fall in and out of love. And today I got to enjoy some delayed social anxiety, though in this case I’ve had plenty of anxiety beforehand as well.

About a week ago I was discussing Net Neutrality on our city’s Facebook page, urging folks there to get in touch with our congressman to see if he could help any initiatives along. He reached out and asked if I’d be willing to organize a meeting to discuss the issues. That happened today. It went well enough, I think. Everyone who went with an open mind likely learned something helpful. I’m grateful John Curtis was willing to talk with us and especially that he seems quite willing to listen. We’re going to talk more.

After everyone had left, I had dinner with a few friends. And as soon as all but one had left, my face started to heat up as my brain overwhelmed me with reminders of every little thing I may have said or done that could have been seen as weird or contrary. “Things everyone else has already forgotten?” my friend asked. He has a point. And amazingly that calmed me on the spot.

Lines

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I noticed my first real, deep wrinkle before I turned 30. It streaked across my forehead, a rogue disclosure of the pain I was trying so hard to hide back then. Two more wrinkles—perpendicular to the first—developed in just a few turbulent months in 2014.  I don’t furrow my brow much anymore, and certainly don’t feel as sad these days, but the lines are still there in spite of every effort I’ve been told I should make to get rid of them.

I’m noticing some new lines now: laugh lines around my eyes, and some little crinkles around my mouth from too much time spent smiling to myself.  You know what? I think I’ll keep these. I’ve earned them.

“How much of our youth do we squander worrying about not being young any more?”
—Ashton Applewhite, The New York Times

I lost some texts…

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My poor old phone almost died the other day at dinner. I happened to have a nearly empty charger with me, so I plugged it in to get what juice I could.  Bad move: Verizon apparently decided it was a good time to automatically update my system. It ran out of power mid-update. When I charged the phone again, it was stuck in a loop. I had to reset everything to get out of its soft-bricked state.

A few days later my friend asked if I still had some old texts. They were gone with the reset. But what a story to remember. So I figured I’d document it as well as I could.

I’d gone to dinner with said friend, Beandog, aka Weird Steve (we know several Steves). We were waiting and chatting about this and that: he’d got a second phone for work, and I was mulling about a weird network issue I’d bumped into earlier that day.  Somewhere mid conversation, I got a text, which I ignored. We kept chatting. And we tried not to discuss the fact that some random dude had pulled up in the table right next to us in the otherwise empty choose-your-own-seat dining room. Why did he choose to sit right there?

We’d only started eating when Steve stood up and said he needed leave right away to pick up his mom from the airport. Okay, maybe we should have gone with fast food? Whatever though. So I’m left there alone, with only my sandwich, Steve’s soup, and Mr. Random Dude at the next table.

This started to feel a little awkward. But after a few minutes, I remembered I could check that text.  I’ll reconstruct the conversation as well as I can:

(text) : sup

Huh. The number was local, but I didn’t recognize it at all. I had changed phones not too long ago though. Play it cool, right?

(me) : Not much. My phone’s kinda new though and doesn’t know your number… who is this?

(him) : John

(me) : Which John?

(him) : how many Johns do you know?

(me) : My brother, for starters…

(him) : We met at a party a few years ago.

Uh… this wasn’t ringing a bell at all. I’m bad with names, but I’m also usually pretty careful about giving out my number. Surely I’d remember this guy, wouldn’t I? Unless he’d ghosted me — I try to forget those. And maybe John here was trying to rise from the dead. I decided to eat Steve’s soup and see if anything would jog my memory.

(him) : I really like what you’ve done with your house, by the way.

Commence eating faster. This was getting weird.

(him) : Especially the bathroom.
(him) : BTW, who’s that guy you were having dinner with?

By then I’d ditched the soup as well as my sandwich and was bolting for my car.  Just as I sat down and locked my doors I got one more text:

(him) : trolololololo

STEVE!!! I’d totally forgot about his new work phone. He’s teased me about it ever since. ;-p So when it came up again the other day, he said I should blog about it. Done 🙂 And if any of you feel like trolling me, too, now that my phone has been reset, you’ve got the perfect opportunity. 😉

Literal Piano Man

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A computer parsing voice and instruments into a single midi track. It sounds really terrible, but hang in there to see if you can hear the “vocals” — who would have thought you’d ever hear a piano “singing” Piano Man? Fascinatingly freaky.

HT to my son for finding this. Some families have different definitions of quality time. For us today, it’s flopping on the couch with our laptops & sharing what we find. ❤