What isn’t Apple, audiobooks, or alcohol is probably cats.
“That Luigi is a fat, filthy, disgusting animal. What did we ever do to deserve him?”
“I don’t know, but you must have been very bad in a previous life, because you have him, Basta, and _me.”_
“That Luigi is a fat, filthy, disgusting animal. What did we ever do to deserve him?”
“I don’t know, but you must have been very bad in a previous life, because you have him, Basta, and me.”
Luigi has this alternately amusing, endearing, and irritating desire to sleep in between Rochelle and I. He likes to be the meat in the sandwich. Given that he sleeps on top of the covers, and weighs 18 pounds, it means he essentially separates us into separate compartments of the bed. Almost like a chaperone.
Luigi has this alternately amusing, endearing, and irritating desire to sleep in between Rochelle and I. He likes to be the meat in the sandwich. Given that he sleeps on top of the covers, and weighs 18 pounds, it means he essentially separates us into separate compartments of the bed.
Almost like a chaperone. We’ve taken to calling him the abstinence kitty.
Like I said, alternately endearing, amusing…and irritating. ;-)
Billie has developed a new trick: hailing cab rides.
Billie is our littlest, sweetest cat. She’s a shut-in. Trapped in our bedroom by a roaming Basta policing the hallways (and any other room she’s not been chased out of), and frequently harrassed by a doting Luigi, who just wants to be her bestest friend, Billie retreats from the world when we’re not home, spending her time on her cat condo, under the bed, or in the closet.
That doesn’t mean she’s lost her curiosity, or thirst for adventure. She loves to visit other rooms in the house, especially the office, where we’ve set up a semi-permanent (but movable) bed on top of the printer, close to Rochelle. And she loves to go out to the back deck, and chew on whatever plants Rochelle is currently torturing.
But, how to get to other rooms, or the great outdoors, when the highways and byways of the house are controlled by the Evil Basta? There’s really only one way that’s safe from ambush: a cab rid on our shoulders. Billie loves to jump up — from the bed when she can, from the ground when she must — and cling to our shoulders, neck, or back, and be transported at a safe altitude to other, more exiting places. We’ve come to recognize the look on her face that says she’s coming aboard, and usually manage to crouch down lower, so her leap doesn’t involve quite as much claw when she lands.
The thing is, we’re often not in the bedroom. Mostly not in the bedroom. So, when we’re too far away, she’s taken to hailing us.
It’s a distinctive, insistent lowing that borders on a whine. She’s used it for some time to tell us she wants something, but it’s usually been food or attention. We know what it means in a general way, but lately it’s been more specific: come get me, and take me somewhere. Her chariot arrives, she leaps aboard, and the game’s afoot. Fun!
Tonight, she even started giving directions. When I came to pick up my fare, she kept on yelling, especially when I headed in the wrong direction. When I finally realized she wanted the back deck, she quieted, and lept off immediately when she arrived at her intended destination.
No tip.
It started with the idea of replacing our 12 year old (hideously cat vomit-stained) carpet. After searching for a while, Rochelle finally found a great carpet that should be durable and look terrific. But then, the real scope of the project became, if not clear, at least a topic of discussion. We would need to paint all three rooms that were getting the new carpet. And the hallway.
It started with the idea of replacing our 12 year old (hideously cat vomit-stained) carpet. After searching for a while, Rochelle finally found a great carpet that should be durable and look terrific. (Rumors that we color-matched against current stains can neither be confirmed nor denied.) But then, the real scope of the project became, if not clear, at least a topic of discussion. We would need to paint all three rooms that were getting the new carpet. And the hallway.
This past weekend was phase 1 of what will surely be a 5+ phase project. Colors were chosen, paint and tools acquired. Rochelle took Friday off, and we emptied our bedroom, and started prepping the walls. Which led to the second unfortunate discovery, that the wallpaper under the paint was sagging and bulging in places, and basically came off like peeling a bad sunburn. Three hours later, we had stripped off two of the four layers from half the bedroom, and sensibly called a halt to further destruction.
(Side note: the first unfortunate discovery came weeks earlier, when Rochelle went to start stripping off the wallpaper, and discovered she was peeling the paper off the front of the sheetrock that had replaced one wall. After she’d peeled half the wall. We became convinced there was no wallpaper in the room. We were wrong. The only place without wallpaper was where Rochelle started peeling. Unfortunate discoveries are a part of home improvements if your home is a Victorian…)
Saturday David arrived, took charge, and made us start painting what we could. Nothing is more motivating than seeing fresh paint on your ceiling and walls, and we got a lot done (while also going through three bottles and one magnum of sparkling wine).
Sunday, supposed to be the last day, it was back to the damaged walls. Lots of Fix-It-All and sanding. And dust. Lots of dust. This was a lot of work, and while we put a second coat on the ceiling and picture rail, and a first coat on one wall (which looked terrible, because we stupidly decided not to take off the last layer of wallpaper), we didn’t paint much.
Monday Rochelle went back to work, and I finished stripping walls, and then painted like crazy. Finally the room was starting to look good again. Tuesday saw the “final” coats of paint, followed by some hole patching, that will require, you guessed it, another coat of paint. I am very, very tired of painting.
Tomorrow I’ll paint one last time, one wall and some touching up, and tomorrow night, barring more unfortunate discoveries, we’ll move our bed back into the room, which should make the cats, if not happy, on the road to happy. (Ironically, the cats have not been taking the project well. Billie was so stressed out the first night that she, you guessed it, puked on the floor.)
Then it’s on to the parlor and office, both of which are bigger than the bedroom.
I think 2004 is going to be the Year of Paint.
Our youngest cat, Luigi, has really stinky poo. He used to wake us up with his poos, but we got wise, and he doesn’t crap in the litterbox that’s just off our bedroom anymore. Instead he uses the box in the water closet, across from the bathroom. The problem is, he likes to do it when we’re taking a bath. As you might guess, this makes the bath a lot less enjoyable.
OK, fair warning, this is a cat poo story.
Daily Home Improvements: ransom notes?, basement dumping, general cleanup, mite shit removal, and a new jungle gym for the cats.
DHI 72: I started the list and instructions that we need to give to our house cleaner, because she’s been doing a pretty sucky job lately, and I don’t want to have to fire her…
DHI 73: I finished the list, incorporating input from Rochelle, and formatted it and printed it for our house cleaner. These instructions apparently caused much anxiety due to not completely understanding it, as our cleaner’s native language is Spanish. Perhaps a translation will be a future DHI…
DHI 74: I moved a few things to the basement, and generally rearranged the parlor, so that it would be easier to vacuum.
DHI 75: A (very) little help to Rochelle, who was on a roll Saturday night, under the influence of our decorator, some booze, and Disco Saturday Night on the radio station she listens to sometimes. Our parlor is nearly completely cleared out, and will be available for use by company and other civilized folks, instead of just me and Basta.
DHI 76: This one’s a little gross. While watching basketball I cleaned out Luigi’s ears using some Q-Tips. He had ear mites when we got him, and while those are gone, their crud remains in his ears. He doesn’t like having things stuck in his ears, though, so I only got a little way through the job. I’ll do more next weekend, while watching more basketball.
DHI 77: Rochelle and I went out to B & B Pet Supplies, a pet store on Geary, and picked out a groovy new cat climbing tree for Billie. It’s five (cat) stories tall, and Billie has already learned that she can defend the top story from all attackers, which makes her very, very happy.
So another week without a full list of achievements, but considering I took Thursday and Friday off to watch basketball in a sports bar, and sat in bed all day Saturday and Sunday, again to watch basketball, this is an amazing level of productivity.
Daily Home Improvements: power upgrades, pillow talk, the framers, sticking my battery where it belongs, peace talks, and the inevitable blog tweakage.
DHI 64: I cleaned a bunch of crap out of my car, replaced the batteries in my car flashlight, and fixed the terminal clip for my portable jump-start unit.
DHI 65: I’m gonna count this, because we really did try. We wanted to try a more stable frame for the bed, and bought a really heavy-duty frame at the Salvation Army the other weekend. Tonight we tried to put it together and move the bed to it. Unfortunately, the frame is a king size, and we have a queen mattress. Ah, well…
DHI 66: Carried a bunch of stuff down to the basement, including the heavy-duty bed frame that didn’t fit our bed, above.
DHI 67: Charged the portable jump-start unit, and put velcro strips on it so it can be mounted in my trunk, and mounted it.
DHI 68: Met with two cat behaviorists, who are helping us achieve peace in our own time. Amongst the cats, anyway.
DHI 69: Tweaked my blog a bit more, and fixed a problem with my RSS syndication feed.
Another week of only six DHIs, but this is actually amazing given that I watched nearly 10 basketball games over the week and weekend. What will be really interesting is to see how many I achieve this coming week, since I will be watching basketball nearly continuously from Thursday morning until Sunday night.
Billie has the soul of a killer. Mouser that is. And proves it again while we’re in bed reading the Sunday paper.
Rochelle and I were enjoying a wonderful lazy Sunday when Billie made Rochelle scream. Rochelle was coming around the corner of the bed to pet Billie, who was innocently grooming herself.
Then Rochelle screamed and ran out of the room.
She scared the daylights out of me when she did it, since I was still in bed reading the paper. From how it happened, I knew something was on the floor, so I rolled over and looked.
Sure enough, Billie has racked up another kill. This time the mouse wasn’t quite dead, or as they say in The Princess Bride, mostly dead. But clearly on its way out, so we’ll give her the points.