So today is crazy-er than usual. Heck, the whole week will be, for reasons already stated. BUT….
Passing thoughts in no particular order:
-If we ever fill a room with furniture so that I can’t SEE most of it (the room is packed with it until dining room’s floor is done) it can’t be that way for more than a week. Also, if I can’t get there, neither can the cats.
We found where Euclid has been peeing. I could smell it, but couldn’t find it. Except, of course, I happened to be on the stairs at the right moment. Then I shifted heavy furniture around till I could get to it. He’s probably been going there for MONTHS. It’s clean now, but I feel like I bathed in cat pee, and have to take a shower. (Probably its aerosolizing in contact with hot water? I didn’t touch the stuff.)
In the future, any room that’s filled with furniture, should be for no more than a week, and hopefully less. I need to be able to see every corner and clean when cats are bad.
It’s possible this will resolve when Euclid dies. The others have been known to follow him, but Euclid has always had a problematic relationship with the boxes, since we got him when he was 1. He’s now 19.
I think I’m getting him a kitty-cage, three floors, and keep him confined, pain-killed and happy. We’ll take him out to cuddle in the evenings. Honestly, mostly he sleeps, these days. It’s that time. Since we have another 3 cats and the youngest is 9, my guess is the cage will be used now and then over the next 10 years.
It’s also possible the others never engage in this kind of hooliganism. Euclid was never too sure about the box (he seems to have been trained to paper) and he’s gotten worse. Most of our elimination problems with the last batch disappeared when Randy died. Pixie only had this problem when he could no longer walk much. So… We’ll see. But for now, Euclid will be confined, so I don’t kill him.
-Making a joke about Trump being the tar baby president, I found the book my kids had of Uncle Remus stories (not given by us, but I assumed it was THE BOOK, you know. So I never noticed) was “expurgated” meaning my kids don’t know a lot of references. Apparently Uncle Remus is “racist” despite its being mostly African legends. I find this bewildering. I mean, it was one of the first books I was read (so before 4 or 5) and things like the Tar Baby and the Briar Patch are my family’s references, as much as anyone else’s. I hate bowdlerizers, whether from moral, historical or politically correct reasons. I will accept things like “The Bible for children” ONLY on the understanding that they’re an introduction, but at some point children get the real thing. And you never lie to them that the pale imitation is the real thing.
(Shudders at the idea future generations will try to bowdlerize Heinlein. Well, me, too probably if anyone reads me in the future. BUT HEINLEIN would be a crime.)
– Somewhere along the line, I’ve missed some things about being an adult in the US. Mostly because Dan also didn’t know them or assumed I knew them, and when I couldn’t find them when I first moved, in small town NC, I just assumed they didn’t exist. Apparently, though they don’t go door to door, there are people who professionally sharpen knives in the US. I’ve just been using the knives till home-sharpening no longer works, then donating them. It’s fine, most of the sets were cheap, but our first set was good. Oh, well. Took me thirty four years to find that out. I wonder if it’s just me, or other people have such blind spots? You don’t even know what to ask, because you don’t know there’s anything to ask.
– looking decent takes a lot of time. I’m divided between continuing to only care about it when I have a special occasion like, oh, a wedding, and resuming just dressing in things that cover all crucial areas most of the time, or, you know, actually trying to make an effort to get to base level, now crazy child raising years are past, and then just maintaining. Um… part of me thinks my husband deserves something better to look at than me skulking around in jeans and oversized t-shirt. What to do, what to do… (And yes, sexissss. Well. I like looking at him too, so turnabout is fair play.)
-This week we’re having warm weather, though I’ve heard of a snow storm approaching this weekend. (March, comes in like a lion and goes out like a wolverine, apparently.) I find I’m very anxious for convertible weather to get here. Convertible weather is when we quit working at five or six and Dan says “Hey, want to go out in the convertible?” Usually we drive the scenic route to the park and go for a walk. Yeah, lame. But also wonderful. Of such lame things is life made.