I'd like my life back, please.

This is still what it feels like, living at my house. I didn't realize until the other day how mental it's making me not being able to sew or craft or create or, at this point, even just sit in my own living room and watch television.

Three makes a collection!

Pretty bad timing for this acquisition (see: house torn UP!), but once again, my good friend Colleen came through with a sweet-ass score for me; my latest rain lamp.

I was at lunch when I got this MMS with the message, "At estate sale, $15, you want?" I said HELL YES without asking any more questions. I could barely see any detail on my iPhone, and from what I could see it looked pretty rough, but for that price, I decided it was worth the risk.

A couple of days later, I got it from her, and was a little surprised. The pagoda top is plastic, as well as the base, which was disappointing but not too shocking; it's clearly a late-model cheap knockoff. (Which at least makes it much lighter-weight than my other two.) More of a surprise – and delight – however is the goddess. She's transparent. !! This, I had never seen!

As soon as I got her home, I filled the base and plugged her in. There are two lights; one under the pagoda and one – you guessed it – under the transparent goddess herself. And they are switched separately.

The lights both work, but unfortunately, there was no pump action. Not so much as a hum.

Since I'd ultimately wind up taking the thing apart anyway, to make sure that nothing internal was gummed up, I set to unscrewing bits and bobs to take a gander at the pump assembly. This is when I was presented with a couple more surprises.

For one thing, the pump isn't just a pump; it's a small motor assembly, running a couple of gears. Oh yes, to my absolute horror, the transparent goddess, she... she rotates. Or would, in an ideal world.

What I found next mitigated the pointlessness of the revolving goddess. Between the lower bulb and the underside of the goddess base was a tiny little color wheel. Oh come ON!

Now I have GOT to get this thing working. I mean, it's like the tackiest possible version of an already tacky object! It's also the first one I've gotten that I haven't immediately been able to get working, so my inner MacGyver is all riled up, wanting to safety-pin-and-electrical-tape something together.

Plus, this is my third rain lamp, which officially makes me a collector.* And let me tell ya, I don't collect junk.

*A well-established fact. Ask anyone you know. This number was originally given to me when I asked a half-dozen people "how many animal skulls in my living room before it's a 'collection'?"**


**Okay, to be fair, a couple people answered, "Too many. However many you have, it's too many."

Progress

I think my siding is peeling.