Door Guts and Apple Pie

Two posts ago I mentioned taking down a tree in the yard. The tree really wanted to fall on the house. I really wanted it to fall about ninety degrees from that. To persuade the tree to lean more my way I used rope and my truck. Worked like a charm. The only problem in the whole operation came from the geometry of my yard. In order to get far enough away from the tree so it wouldn't land on the truck I had to drive under the swing set. After the tree was down I backed the truck through the swing set and one of the swings hooked on the passenger's side mirror.
And ripped it of.
Damn.

Well, nothing ever seems to go absolutely perfectly. Off came the door panel, unplugged the mirror from the door wiring (power mirror, very nice) and figured out that with some epoxy I could easily get the studs stuck back in the mirror and get it bolted back on. Yesterday was the epoxy, cure overnight and today was bolting back on. If this all seems pretty casual, it's because 3 years ago Hurricane Ike blew through and dropped a branch on the truck and knocked off the driver's side mirror. I'm now an old hand at disassembling the door and putting mirrors back on. I wonder how many people have managed to have both mirrors ripped off a vehicle while they owned it?
Pretty straight forward morning putting the mirror back on. Door panel off, bolt the mirror on, plug in the wiring, door panel back on. 20 minutes. Sweet. Better make sure it works. Dammit.
Door panel back off.
Mirror back off.
Multimeter out.
I have my wife come out wiggle the mirror adjusting switch while I make sure I have power in the door. It's really hard to hold two probes on two wires while reaching allllllll the way across the truck and wiggle the switch. Especially when I'm too lazy to look up the wiring diagram for the truck to see which of the 9 pins are actually the ones used to move the glass. I have power in the door.

So now I have to figure out what I broke in the mirror. I check things over and can tell that I stretched the wires pretty good. Probably broke one. Yup, I can see that one is broken. Probably 3 of the 5 actually. So I cut them and splice them and check. Nothing. Dammit.
Now I have to use a pair of butter knives to pry apart the mirror to figure out if I broke something inside the mirror. Inside the mirror is another broken wire. Fix that. Motion! Yay!
Tape all of the wiring back up. Put the mirror back on. Check that it still works. Yay! Put the door panel back on. Check for extra parts. See a foam gasket that is supposed to go between the mirror and the truck. Dammit. Take the door panel back off. Take the mirror off, put the mirror back on, put the door panel back on. Check the mirror. Yay! Success.
That was my morning.
This afternoon I made an apple pie. I don't brag much but I do brag about my apple pie. It's awesome. Full, made from scratch double crust. It's awesome. Part of that I attribute to my life changing pie plate. I'll write a lot about that later. It's really awesome.Part I attribute to my mad skills at making pie.

There is a contrast to my morning and my afternoon that is common to my life. I fully engage in the manly arts of fixing and building things. I also fully engage in the domestic arts of cooking, cleaning and child rearing. Well, I partially engage in cleaning, but I fully engage in the rest of it. I have a feeling that any person who can fully engage in both the domestic arts as well as the manly arts is more valuable as a stay at home spouse. Don't get me wrong, I don't think there is anything outside of birth and breastfeeding that is the sole realm of one sex. Anyone can do anything. I will argue in the future though that I think that men are more likely, and maybe more capable of engaging in the whole spectrum of things that need to be done around a house, and that maybe we should be the ones at home.