The dishwasher door springs both broke and the heavy door slammed down if not snapped securely shut, and with the anchor broken off the washer tipped forward and the dish-laden trays rolled out with a jarring clang. Brian helped me pull the machine out and install the new springs and pulley cords.  Tracy helped fashion homemade counter-anchors from common elbow brackets—and they worked!  On advice from the Bosch store, I had bought an expensive new dishwasher base, but was relieved to find the old base had a built-in slot for the new springs, and I was spared the chore of disassembling the washer and the exasperation of not being able to see in my mind how to reassemble the parts back into the whole (an annoying life-long intellectual weakness).  As it was, You Tube was indispensable, even to replace the springs.  I felt thrilled and relieved we had succeeded in fixing the dishwasher, and thanked my Lord the repair was simpler than anticipated.  I had not realized the stress and pressure I was putting on myself to get the machine fixed.  But then Brian found a pool of water under the kitchen sink, dripping from a filter cartridge seal, dripping down a hole into the cavity above the finished basement, and we could not find the filter wrench.  The bowl I placed under the filter filled overnight and spilled again into the dark void in the floor.  Following with my eyes the various colored hoses (blue, yellow, red, black, and white), I discerned how to turn off the water to the filter and close the bladder tank valve—and the drip stopped, just in time to leave for church.  Staggering with his cane, Dad wondered if today would be his last day walking to our habitual pew near the front.  “My legs just won’t work.  I’m getting worse.”  Post-polio sets in like a heavy dense discouraging fog that never blows or burns off but grows only heavier and denser and more oppressive, and one’s feet become increasingly thick and leaden and mired in an energy-sapping sink.  He made it to and from church, today, with help under each arm.  Terry asked me how Dad was doing, not needing my response to see the truth, and knowing my unspoken thoughts as he offered, “I have a good wheelchair.  I’ll dust it off and bring it over.”  I thanked him, and suggested I would come get it so I could sneak it into the house unseen.  Dad thinks he likely will skip the walker and go straight from the cane to the wheelchair.  After church and rice casserole and a nap, Mom showed me how the DVD player would not respond to the remote or to direct button pushing—it had swallowed the DVD and refused to give it back.  She pried the tray open with a serrated Cutco knife, and the tray stuck stubbornly out, appearing much like a dead animal with its tongue lolling.  Remembering the no-longer-used basement entertainment equipment, I brought up the old combination VCR/DVD player, made before HDMI technology, and plugged the red, white, and yellow audio/video cords into the TV.  With new batteries in the remote, the old machine came to life, functioning correctly and obeying Mom’s commanding button bushes.  She was so pleased she decided the moment was right for an episode of NCIS, which she learned was also a favorite of Gabe’s other great-grandparents, the Scotts.  The word “surprised” describes my reaction to having fixed three broken appliance problems in two days—generally I am not very handy.  I only wish I could fix the only real problem of these four: Dad’s crumbling legs and feet and disintegrating mobility.  The best I may be able to do is to push his chair down the aisle at church to sit near our customary pew, on the front row, where space was left for a wheelchair.