progress!

As our little photo journal here shows, the fireplace is finally getting clad in stone, after a rather messy demolition and slow-motion rebuild. After the other half (and a parental unit) rebuilt the frame and put backerboard on it, I chickened out (i.e. 'wised up') and decided to call a pro to do the actual stone work. Twelve vertical feet of slate is nothing to fool around with, and I didn't want to spend the rest of my years in this house looking at my own foolish mistakes.

One of the (few) good things about an economic downturn is that because many good, talented folks are looking for a little extra employment, it becomes more affordable for normal folks to hire the best at still-affordable rates. (At least, I'm hoping I hired the best.) We actually ran an ad on craigslist.org; after getting nearly 40 responses in a week (!!), I selected the most qualified-looking emails (going mainly by literacy) and asked them to come scope the project for a bid. Probably about 7 different individuals/companies came out and submitted bids. We ended up with someone who was right in the middle and seems to have the right experience and attitude, and may be able to do some other projects in the house in the long run if all goes well.

So far so good; they're one day and two courses into it, shown in the last photo above.

And we are seriously excited to finally have some slate on the wall!

Stay tuned.

blast from the past

Some of you readers may know that I'm on Facebook. (I still have yet to see a MySpace page; being a woman of a certain age, I fear that merely clicking anywhere within TheirSpace will set off some sort of age sensor that will then send punishing electro-shocks through my mouse, accompanied by revolting visuals of stuff like emo-dudes in skinny jeans and hair gel and eyeliner and black nail polish, thereby teaching me a painful lesson to stick to more age-appropriate social networking sites like FB.) After having been tracked down by numerous former high school acquaintances, exes, and frenemies, I am constantly debating pulling my profile off and retreating to my default anti-social book- and cat-loving hermitlike ways. But still, the profile stands, and attracts people from my past.

This week, I was located by a certain ex of mine from about 15 years ago, with whom I had an extremely tumultuous relationship followed by a train-wreck end to the relationship. I harbored anger about things that happened for a good, oh, I guess 15 years or so. He's tried to contact me before, and rarely did I return the call. I just had nothing to say, and eye-rolling is not easily conveyed over the phone.

But something must have shifted in me emotionally, because this time when he found me on facebook, despite my initial impulse was a knee-jerk reflex to cringe and then run for cover, I thought about it. His email sounded nice; mature even (this is a BIG change). I didn't respond for a day. Next day, another nice email. Still, I just didn't know what to do. Do I want to blow this person off yet again, and hurt their feelings over something that happend over a decade ago? Did I want them back in my life, albeit only as a cyber penpal? Or maybe even a friend? I wrote back a short response, poking fun at his persistence and saying I'd be in touch when I wasn't traveling so much.

On the third day, another email, longer than the first two. He was genuinely excited and thankful that he had found me, and that I had responded. He was embarassed at so readily showing his anticipation at hearing back from me, and charmingly awkward in his writing. It made me feel genuinely ashamed that I had debated blowing off his earnest attempt at friendship, and ultimately, forgiveness.

So I called him today. We talked for an hour and a half. He was very much the same outwardly, same (almost comical) accent, same self-effacing sense of humor, same laugh. It was surprisingly nice to reconnect. Although my anger at what passed between us has diminished over the years, the scars from the experience remained, and we had never actually reached any level of friendship because of it.

I'm proud to say, we finally crossed that barrier. After reading his third email, I asked myself, am I really still angry at him, after 15 years? Is it benefitting me to still be angry? And does he deserve that, after all this time? We were both young, and both made mistakes. So right at the beginning of the conversation, which was only moderately awkward, I told him I'd finally moved past all of that anger, and was impressed by what I saw in his writing - that he's becoming more self-aware and taking responsibility for his actions, and seems like a good guy. So he audibly relaxed, although he told me he was nervous throughout the call and had been waiting all day for the phone to ring. Which was cute.

We just caught up with each other on what has passed in the decade and a half since we last saw each other, and reflected on the choices we'd made. He shared with me that after all these years, I'm probably still the person who got to know him best, and that what happened with us was his one big regret in life. Which makes me sad, of course, but he stopped me and said, "no, it had to happen. I'm sorry it happened to you, but I learned from it. And I paid for it, dearly. So I'm a better person for it having happened. Regrets aren't necessarily things that you wish didn't happen, just things you wish you handled better", or something to that effect. Wise words.

It's funny...I have friends, and I meet a lot of people and make friends relatively easily. What I don't do is keep friends easily. I have a requirement from those who want to be in my 'inner circle' - authenticity. I don't present myself as anything I'm not to others; I ask the same in return. (Ok, so maybe it's 'overshare' on my part, but whatever. It's part of my personality, and I choose to embrace it.) It's amazing how many people aren't authentic even with themselves, and are therefore completely unable to be authentic with others. These are the people you'll have a great time with out in a bar, maybe even have some semi-deep conversations with, then never hear from again. If that connection is authentic, sooner or later one of us should contact the other, right? I mean, I'm crap at keeping in touch, probably worse than most people. But I will say that the Electronic Age has made it easier. I'll shoot an IM or a text or a FB comment to someone I'm thinking of. And I think of my friends often. They may not know it, but people I really like, I have a hard time letting go of. My fabulous (and oft-missed) neighbors in Miami, co-workers in Pgh, my former neighbor in MD, certain classmates from design school...they're always circulating in my mind, especially when I need emotional support or wish I had a friend to share a fun moment with.

So the funny thing about it was, despite all the turbulent water under our bridge, I felt like my ex was really reaching out to me for friendship. Just looking for someone who understood him, and he knew that although I couldn't tolerate him at a certain time in my life, I understood him maybe a little better than he understood himself. I suppose he felt the need to have someone at that level of emotional intimacy in his life again, and thought of me. Whatever the reason, I'm glad he did, and I'm glad that I was a big enough person to stop holding onto that anger and look at the person he is now; not who he was then. And I know he's being authentic with me now, as he has nothing to lose; only my friendship to gain.

I guess it's no surprise that I have a few of my exes in my life, and they are really good friends. Sometimes when a relationship doesn't work out on one level, you've already invested so much energy in getting to know each other that it's a shame to walk away from it all. You really do build a friendship alongside the romance. It always takes time, but once the hurt over the death of the romantic relationship has passed, sometimes you can rebuild a very strong friendship, and move forward to a better future. I look forward to being friends with my ex, as clearly he sees me as a valuable friend, and nothing feels better than being valued by another human being who knows you well, and likes you anyway.

Oh, the joys of travel

I'm writing this from a hotel room in Chicago with very little insulation in the wall. I'm pretty sure the left side of my body is about 10 degrees cooler than my right (just so you know in case my typing gets weird). My trip here was such a typical pain in the butt, I just had to write about it to give you non-travelers out there a taste of my 'glamorous' life.

As I'm getting on the plane, a woman in first class was flossing her teeth. No, she wasn't just flossing her teeth, she was vigorously attacking them with dental floss. Angrily, even. In a manner that screamed "I HAVE AN OCD PROBLEM!" Not sure what those poor teeth and gums did to her, other than maybe harbour some stringy pork or something, but she was hell bent on getting something out of there. While seated in a first class aisle seat while 150 other people are walking past her to board the plane. Niiiice. I'm just hoping she didn't fling whatever she drilled out of there onto me as I passed.

Once I reach my seat back in cattle class, I notice a woman in an aisle seat diagonal from me sitting down and yanking the barf bag out from the seat-back pocket in front of her. She opened it with purpose, and proceeded to stare at the bottom of the inside of the bag as if she had every intention on filling it. Mind you, we're still stationary. Just seeing somebody like that put my stomach on high alert. Not much grosses me out, except for another adult human throwing up, or getting ready to throw up. I feel gross just writing about it. Yuck.

It turned out ok (for me, anyway), she just held onto that bag like it was her security blanket the whole 2 hour flight (all the way up to the gate, too), jiggling one leg nervously, and looking miserable in general. But she didn't do anything nasty, thank goodness.

Even if she had, I probably wouldn't have been able to hear it with the screaming, babbling two-and a half year-old seated in my row. Her mom was seated between me and the crumbsnatcher, but proved to be a lousy acoustic buffer. This kid literally babbled - LOUDLY - the whole entire flight. I will say that at least she didn't cry, but the mom really didn't encourage the kid to work on her shuttin' up skills, either. Which I strongly encourage all breeders - erm, I mean parents - to do when your rodents - uh, children - are in public with cranky non-breeders like me. Let's just say there's a really good reason I haven't reproduced, and it's not just to prevent more overpopulation.

I don't adore children, and I especially don't adore children who don't seem to have any rules given to them. There was a little boy seated behind me for a five and a half hour flight from San Fran last week, whose mother kept asking him permission to do things. I wanted to slap her. "Johnnie, we're going to have to sit still now, ok??" AAARRGH. No. That didn't work, not even a little bit. And for all y'all who are thinking, "But J, you don't have kids, you're not a parent, you don't understand...", I have one thing to say to you: BULLSHIT. (Wait, I have two things to say: what the hell are you doing reading my blog?) I WAS a kid, I've babysat hundreds of kids in my day, of varying levels of brattiness, and I remember what worked for me. You don't actually have to spawn to know certain things. Like, kids need rules. And you must teach them to respect you as a parent/adult, or they will grow up to be disrespectful little shits in a society that's already full of 'em. Parents do not need to be friends with their children. Not at the age of 3, anyway.

So back to my point, this little baby-doll-looking creature damn near split my left eardrum. That's really saying something, that she can actually hurt my ears above the whine of turbine jet engines. And the mom just sat there, not even remotely embarassed that her offspring was making people's ears bleed. Poor thing, she's probably already deaf herself and just didn't hear it. That's my theory, anyway.

But just because this kid is cute, that doesn't mean her behavior was ok. I didn't say anything, or even huff and puff and roll my eyes like I do when I get passive-aggressive mad, because I was in an ok kind of mood, and I felt bad for the mom having to travel alone with a little kid. Still doesn't make it ok, but I did my best not to make it worse for her. Actually, I gave her a magazine to read. Nothing like celebrity gossip to make you forget your troubles. And for those of you who are wondering why I didn't grab my noise-cancelling headphones, it's because it wasn't so bad until later in the flight, and I knew they'd be announcing our descent, and I'd have to take them off anyway. Just my luck.

So I finally make it to Chi-town, and pick up my rental car: it's some sort of Kia, a Rio or something. Which, ok, at least it's not a P.T. Cruiser, which makes me homicidal, but the friggin' thing has MANUAL ROLL-DOWN WINDOWS. And no automatic door locks. I'm not even kidding. I'm a Preferred member at Avis (oooooh, aren't I special!?), and this is what I get? Had I not been in a rush, and snow falling, and a ton of people at the counter, I might have gone back and asked for a better car. Instead, I'll just bitch when they send me the survey. But of course, they won't survey this rental. They'll wait until the one time a year I accidentally get a Cadillac or something, then ask me to complete the survey. That's always how it works.

Been a while, hasn't it?

Man, have I been busy! Still working on the house, and traveling like a fool. Not by choice, of course.

First and foremost, I'm sad to say that we've lost another furry friend. Sunny, a longtime family pet (and when I say longtime, I mean, like 20 years or so), crossed the rainbow bridge while my dad was visiting us in Jax. Funny how they always seem to go when you're not looking. I'm convinced it's them being kind to us - they really do prefer to pass in private. That's why many of them run away just prior, or hide. We're all very sad to see Sunny go, but glad that she had such a long, happy life and that this winter will not be so rough on her old bones. I know we'll all miss her - my sister used to tote her around just before bedtime and ask each of us to give Sunny her nightly "tail pet" before she went to bed. Rest in Peace, sweet Sunshine, we all loved you.

Well, back to work for me now. I have one more marathon-like roadtrip for work this week, then things should be relatively calm over the holidays. Lucky for me, my employer basically shuts down for two weeks around the holidays and allows us to catch up on life a bit.

In other exciting news, we've finished the hardwood floors in the house. And by finished, I mean, completed the parts that everybody can see. We still have some closets to finish. No big deal, just one more little detail nagging at the back of my head. Oh, and must stain and replace all the baseboards we removed in the process. Then the painting of the walls can begin...

We have also decided to hire a professional to install the slate tile on the fireplace and in the foyer. We realized that the investment we had made in the stone was too much to risk messing up due to our inexperience. And, slate is finicky. A lot can go wrong on a 12-foot high fireplace. I'm going to hire the best worker we can afford, and that way anything that goes wrong is his fault, not ours. :) I think it will be worth it in the end; I can imagine sitting in the living room in front of a crackling fire, absolutely fixated on a crooked tile I installed. Or worse, sitting under a pile of fallen slate tiles because I didn't know what I was doing, and gravity won. I'd rather not do that, so tomorrow more folks will show up to give us quotes on the job.

I just invested in a piece of home fitness equipment - a Schwinn 460 Elliptical trainer. I'm pretty excited because it's a new type of elliptical that lets you run, walk, sprint, or climb/step, all on the same machine. I hope it's worth the money AND the space it's going to take up in my office. Hopefully the other half will assemble it this week and I can start using it when I get back.

I also just bought a new external hard drive, a half of a terabyte. Wow. Add that to my other external 240G, plus my hard drive, and I'm pretty sure NASA might be calling me any minute now to borrow storage space for their rocket-launching programs. Hey, it could happen. My 50-mintues worth of VMWare files that I'm copying have just about finished, so it's back to work for me...I have a week's worth of demos to prepare for and haven't even started.

Sigh.

a tribute to Toonces

A dear friend and co-worker of mine has had to say good-bye to his cat of some 17 years, Toonces. She was a beloved family pet and will be dearly missed. Since I'm such an animal-lover, I can never hear about something like this without grieving a little bit myself, and wanted to commemorate her life here.

Alan, Barbie, and family: Toonces was lucky to have such a loving and supportive family that took care of her and made the right decisions for her - especially the hardest one. I'm sorry for your loss, but rejoice that she's in a pain-free place now and shared such a long, happy life with you while she was here. Thank you for loving and caring for one of the little kitties in this world, especially a Tortie, because we all know how special they are!

You're all in my thoughts.

A Bridge Called Love

It takes us back to brighter years,to
happier sunlit days, and to precious moments that will be with us always.

And these fond recollections are treasured in the heart to bring us always close to those from whom we had to part.

There is a bridge of memories from earth to Heaven above... It keeps our dear ones near us

It's the bridge that we call love.

- Author Unknown

the mea culpa begins

Remember in an earlier post where I said I thought "Trebuchet" (the name of the font I'm using here) secretly meant "adds excess line breaks when you're not looking"? I found out, thanks to my French-speaking coworker, that it means, "I trip you", or something to that effect. Heh. So I was close, kind of.

Anyway, back to our irregularly scheduled post. I was going to write about the progess I'm finally making outside, re-greening my yard after the mass destruction I invoked last month.

This little beauty is a Brugmansia, commonly known as an "Angel Trumpet". The flowers open at night, but stay open the following day. This is a photo from the second day of blooming. The flowers are quite strong-smelling when they first bloom. In a pleasant way of course.

If you look closely at this photo below, you'll see my new gardening assistant, Otis. Or, the way he pronounces it, Otissssssssss.

He's the skinny green and yellow guy weaving his way amongst the twigs I'm trying to get rid of. He was quite friendly and curious, he didn't seem to be afraid of me at all nor agressive. He'd wind his way up a branch near me and stick his head out in my direction and kind of sniff the air while moving back and forth. I bet that if I wasn't squeamish about holding squirmy things, and I held out my hand, he probably would have crawled right on and hung out for a while. But sorry, while I won't torment, kill, bother, or otherwise molest most critters, I won't really touch 'em either. Ick.

So I've been working on the landscape (more photos to follow) every free moment I have, and waking up with pain all over, especially in the carpal tunnel/hand region. I seem to just keep aggravating it more, but I can't stop landscaping - not while I have plants living in pots that I have to water every day. Once it's all in the ground, I'll take a break. Promise.

Right now, off to the chiropractor for some more adjustments and acupuncture.

and the curse continues

If you've been following my blog, you'll know by now that I'm fairly convinced ma nature is good and angry with me for some massive deforestation I did on my property earlier this month.

I remain convinced, as the curse continues to haunt me. Sunday, I spent about 14 hours working on (re)installing a hardwood floor in our master bedroom. I say (re)installing because when we first attempted this room, there was a slight mathematical problem matching up with the planks coming through the opening for the french door, and we had to rip up 12 rows (about 20 ft long each) of the engineered wood. Carefully, so we could spend the next 3 days cleaning the dried glue and trying not to lose all of the product.

So we tried a different method this time, using the existing planks as our guide and working our way out to the walls. Except that didn't really work either. I somehow ended up doing most of the work myself, and finally had to quit from frustration and exhaustion around 2 am, only about 85% completed. And still crooked.

The crookedness is part of the curse, I think. We did 3 rooms perfectly prior to the felling of the trees. Now? Hmmph. "Just try to work productively with wood now", she seems to be mocking me.

And that's not the worst part. I am so unaccustomed to this kind of physical work (kneeling on concrete, albeit with knee pads, and swinging a hammer), that I seem to have aggravated some latent carpal tunnel syndrom that was just waiting for an event like this to flare up.

I had to find a chiropractor, which I was going to do anyway, to find some relief. My right hand was numb all day Monday and most of the day Tuesday. Pretty unpleasant.

Hopefully somebody on Craigslist will come through with some free or cheap plants to I can re-foliate my yard and placate the angry forces that are tormenting me.

Pictures of crappy floor to follow, when I can bring myself to face it.

a special note to the bad spellers on Craigslist

I know nobody's perfect, and I occasionally fat-finger my posts too, and maybe even make a grammatical error or two, but seriously, folks? I did graduate from high school, and therefore know the following:

Stainless "still" does not exist. It's "steel", people. I grew up in Pittsburgh where we all say "stillmills", but even there we all know how it's spelled. Probably only due to the "Steelers" (pronounced "stillers", of course).

"Role" is a part you play in the theatre. It is not something you get with dinner, nor is it a verb. That's "roll". Gah.

It's really nice that you think you have "cloths" to offer, except that you actually mean "clothes". You're probably the same people that say, "I have to go bath [bathe] the dog now."

And a John Deere "ridding" mower? What exactly is it ridding you of, aside from your ability to spell?

Despite the rampant horrible spelling, I do love Craigslist. Where else can you tell people you want cheap/free tropical plants, see that someone is seeking one white cloth glove, or possibly adopt a wild boar (available as a pet or food)?

through rain or sleet or snow or control issues

Have I shared my stories about our local post office staff here in Jax with everybody yet? No? It's time.

Twice now I have had a run-in with a postal employee in the local post office. And when I say "run-in", I mean, he acted like a jerk and I did nothing about it (except send mental daggers his way). The Libra definition, if ever there was.

The first time I went, there was a short line queued up on the right side of the office, and two or three employees helping customers. Typically, once the customer finishes and walks away to the left, the next customer in line approaches the counter. You know, the same way it happens in banks and airline counters all over the world, basically. Sometimes you'll wait for them to say, "NEXT!" or make eye contact. sometimes you'll approach before the teller is ready and she'll say, "just give me a sec to wrap this up and I'll be right with you". Typically.

But not in Jacksonville. Nooooooooooooooo. At OUR branch of the post office, we have a Counter Nazi. And he must be feared (in his little twisted mind, anyway). We'll refer to him as A** for anonymity's sake, and because it serves as an approprite stand-in for both his name [WHICH IS ALAN, IF I SEE HIS LAST NAME I'LL POST THAT HERE TOO] and the word ASS, which is a very accurate descriptor of this little so-and-so.

So the bright and shiny day I first encountered A**, I had made the grave mistake of approaching his workstation at the counter before His Highness The Royal Queen of the Post Office summoned me. I had paused for a few seconds after the last customer left his station, giving him the requisite wrap-up time between transactions, which, at a post office, is what, 15 seconds? I mean, once it's stamped, it's stamped, right? What's left, dropping it in a box?

So I approached, smiling, awaiting his attention. I just stood quietly in front of his station for a few seconds, and could have waited longer if need be. But NO. That's not how His Highness works. He must summon you from the dirty unwashed masses. Until that moment, you are unworthy of attention, and shame on you for thinking you have the power to determine when you will be helped.

So the jackass sent me back to the line. I'll repeat that part in case you're not appropriately outraged yet. HE SENT ME BACK. Like an errant, overanxious child, or a hungry dog that can't wait for the food to be put on the floor, he literally avoided eye contact with me, inhaled deeply, raised one eyebrow in the univeral sign of queenliness, and all but put his hand on his hip. He also almost pointed to the line. (At which point, I would've snapped, jumped over the counter, broken off his finger and stuck it where the sun don't shine.) Lucky for him, he didn't point. He just wrapped up his performance by announcing to the room in general, "PLEASE WAIT IN THE LINE UNTIL YOU ARE CALLED". I'm SO not even joking, this actually happened.

If you know me, you know I was plum-colored at this point, from a mixture of outrage, embarassment and disbelief. Mainly disbelief. I actually stole a glance at the rest of the people in the line to see if this was their 'normal'. I saw a few people looking disbelieving too, but others who either didn't observe or react to the drama.

So the queen proceeded to futz around with nothing at all, doing things like rearranging stamps and tying his shoes and turning around at his workstation to appear busy and justified at having sent me back into the line. After a full minute of this, he composed himself, and announced, "NEXT". When I waited for another second or two just to make sure this was actually happening, he barked, "NEXT CUSTOMER IN LINE! NEXT TRANSACTION!"

Luckily, it was a simple transaction, not enough interaction was needed to prompt any conversation from me that might have started with "ARE YOU FOR REAL??!!". Just asking for the postage I needed. My total was something like $7.00, and when I handed him a $20, he bitchily asked me if I had small change. I actually did, but my little insignificant passive-aggressive way of getting back at him for being such a giant ass was to stuff my singles deeper into my wallet and say, "no, sorry, just the $20.". Boy, that sure showed him.

That was the first interaction. I was pissed as I left the post office. I mean, seriously? You're not supposed to treat people that way.

The second interaction was just as ridiculous. I had gotten in line to ship two gift packages, and this time WAITED for His Highness to summon me. (Some other poor girl in front of me made the same mistake as I did the first time, and when she got sent back to the line she looked around disbelievingly to make sure she wasn't the only one who thought it was inappropriate behavior. I met her glance and rolled my eyes to show my support.) Of course he's the only agent available when it's my turn. Again he starts barking, "NEXT". Because it takes me 3.2 nanoseconds to pick up my packages, he starts snapping, "NEXT!! NEXT CUSTOMER WHO WANTS A TRANSACTION!" Gah. So I put my packages on the counter and ask to send them parcel post. Which, when you have large-ish packages that need to go somewhere in no particular hurry, is a good way to send them.

So he ran down this big list of things (that I had never been asked before), "is there any correspondence, currency, written material, etc etc etc in these packages?" Not realizing it was a trick question, I said, "yes." Duh. One of the packages had a card with a gift card in it. Because I'm honest that way, and didn't realize his only objective in asking these questions was to set me up so he could shut me down. He gleefully informed me, "well, then these don't qualify for parcel post." And despite my having told him that I wanted the cheapest shipping possible, he insisted on starting his list with, "You can have it there by noon tomorrow for $36.00, the day after next for $24.00....blah blah blah". WTF??!!! Seriously, who the freak CARES if there's a damn card in my friggin package? Apparently, he did, since it makes him feel POWERFUL.

So as he's trying to ring me up for way more postage than I need, I get really pissed and sick of his shit, and say, "well, this OTHER package doesn't have any correspondence in it. Does it qualify for parcel post?" To which he cattily ran through the list again, just in case I was as much of a moron as he thought I was, to which I answered "no" to every item. Looked him in the eyes, challengingly, as I did so. Just daring him to mess with me again.

I think he sensed that I'd had enough, but he once again ran down the list of how quickly and expensively I could get it there (because that's the last little bit of control he could exert over me), to which I put my hand on my hip, tapped my foot, and waited for the last, cheapest, parcel post listing.

I, who make a huge point over always thanking people for their time and help, made an even bigger point not to thank him or end the transaction with anything other than a huff and an eye roll. Again, I really showed 'em there.

I'm actually dabbling with the idea of complaining about his behavior. While technically, he may be following all the rules of the post office, it's the worst I've ever been treated at a branch, and they should really do something about it.

Guess I'll follow the old baseball rule here, and give 'em one more strike. At that point, I'm putting my foot down. There's no reason I should dread going to the post office, other than the rising price of postage.

Progress report

You may recall the gaping, jagged hole we had in our wall where the fireplace rock wall used to be. We have since evened it up by trimming away the remaining drywall, and the other half built a box frame that we'll be enclosing in drywall (as he did on the bottom part already) so we can apply our slate tiles.

Not much else has gone on recently, unfortunately, as we've both been working and traveling a lot. Although we did finish laying the hardwood floors in both guest rooms and office. This week we are planning on finishing the same in the master bedroom. Pictures to follow when we hit this benchmark..

After the master floor is done, we'll also be carrying the hardwood through the hallway and dining room. Guess it's back to Lowe's for us.

...and boy does she hold a grudge.

I had to leave town while the worst part was done - the complete removal of the three beautiful twisty trees from the driveway. (The "former neighbors" referred to in the video. You can see them in the closing shot. They're gone now.) I returned from my trip, horrified, and in tears. I knew I would. The house just looks so...so...nekkid. Exposed. This house liked to be hidden behind those trees. It really enjoyed it, this much I know. So now the house looks and feels uneasy without it's protective cloak of leaves. I know we had to do it, but it doesn't make accepting it any easier. And it doesn't mean I have to like it.

So back to the grudge. After the workmen got stung by the angry yellowjackets (that I swear did not exist on my property until the day the workers showed up), then cracked a large picture window, and one guy did get knocked off of a limb but was saved by his lifeline, things seemed to calm down for a bit while I went on the aforementioned 3-day trip to DC. Then I came home. The guys had also (generously, for free) cut down a bunch of scrubby brush and vines that were strangling the life out of deliberate plantings in the backyard, and left everything right where they cut it. So the yard looked pretty much like it did after tropical storm Fay blew through. Having tired of writing large checks to workmen, the other half and I decided to clear the yard ourselves and drag all the brush to the front yard where they could collect it next week. A few times during this process it occurred to me that I should find my workboots and change them for the croc-like nothings I was sporting. But noooooooooooooo. I didn't.

And so, inevitably, I stepped on a rusty nail.

Of course it penetrated the rubber non-shoe, and my hoof-like foot bottom (must've been some nail!). Actually, it was a roofing nail. Which makes sense, as the house was re-roofed when we bought it 4 or 5 months ago, and I had seen a roofing nail or two elsewhere on the property. Silly me for not wearing my steel-bottomed jungle boots. I also managed to penetrate my plantar fascia, so it hurts more than it probably normally would have, since it wasn't that deep of a hole.

I still think it's a vendetta.

It was partly my own stupidity, yes, but a revenge move nonetheless. I've been stumbling around this planet (typically in non-steel-bottomed boots) rather haphazardly for, oh, a few decades now, and usually nothing too bad happens to me, I'm fairly lucky. Not anymore, it seems. Guess I kind of deserve it, even if I only did it out of self-preservation.

We're planning on re-planting the area, and some others, with trees that will not tower over the houses threateningly, nor throw nuts at our heads, so that will fill in some of the bareness and hopefully prove our mea culpa to mother nature. In the side yard, we'll be planting lots of different types of citrus, whatever can tolerate the Jax pseudo-winter. I hope the bad luck will stop then.

And yes, I did go get a tetanus shot in the arm afterwards, which now hurts worse than the nail hole itself.

Hardy-har-har, mother nature. Very funny.


This is what it looked like in progress. I just realized I don't think I have any pictures of the front of the house all the way from the street before the tree-ectomies. But you can tell even while it was in progress, look how different. So much sun coming in to that driveway for the first time in 20 years. Sounds like a positive thing. We'll see.

I pissed off mother nature today

Pretty sure I did, anyway.

Remember those beautiful, twisty hickory and oak trees that loom(ed) over my house? What with all the hullaballoo of tropical storms and winds and whatnot up here, the other half was getting pretty nervous about an exceptionally large, gravity-defying 60,000 lb hickory that would obliterate the master wing of our house if it succumbed to gravity. Which, I'm pretty sure, it eventually would have.

So as much as it sickens me to do so, I had to hire a crew to come in and dead-wood the back yard (which was raining big branches every time the wind blew), and take down the most precarious tree on the lot. A few others got serious haircuts too. I was very apprehensive about doing this, being that I'm one of those people who believe that nature is a living thing, and there's some collective conscious involved even though we don't tend to see plants as sentient.

The first thing that happened was that the crew (about 6 guys armed with chainsaws) discovered a large nest of something living underground very close to the deck. And by something, I mean a hive of angry, buzzing, extremely aggressive stinging things. Wasps or something. Not exactly sure what they are yet, but the bug people are coming tomorrow to figure it out and hopefully take care of it.

And when I say the crew found this hive, I mean they were in the process of scaling the tree nearby and they stirred it up and the creatures came after everybody in the yard. I was inside the house without a clue that this was happening. Apparently one guy on the crew got stung about 3 times and knew he had an allergy, so the boss took him to the hospital, where, sure enough, his eyes swelled shut and his throat closed and it was a very lucky thing he was already in the hospital. A few others were stung 5 - 7 times. I went back there later in the day, and although I gave the hive a wide berth, they still figured me out and chased me out of the yard.

So, I ask myself, is this revenge?

Maybe.

We haven't even taken the big tree down yet. That's tomorrow. I shudder to think...I think I'll just stay inside all day.

damn your eyes, Sarah McLachlan

If any of you have been watching Animal Planet or HGTV lately, you've seen the commercial: the one where Sarah McLachlan is mournfully singing about the eyes of an angel, and they're showing videos and photos of abused animals. Tiny little innocent puppies and kittens in bad shape. It's so freaking depressing, I'm not even going to link to it because I don't want to inflict that sadness on my friends. If you're that desperate to be suicidal, you can google it yourself.

Of course I think it's great that she's using her star power and talents to help such an awesome cause, but does it have to be so freaking sad?

I mean, seriously. Every time I see this commercial (which is like every 20 minutes on HGTV), and now every time I hear this song, I want to go hug my kitties, give all my money to an animal shelter, and fling myself off of a cliff. In that order. The other half and I will go sprinting from another room for the remote to change the channel when this video comes on, just hearing it bothers us so much.

I hate this commercial. I mean, maybe it makes some people give money, which is great, but to sensitive people like me (by which I mean mostly 5-year old girls), this commercial seriously gives nightmares and emotional damage.

Does anybody think this is effective, if it's so repulsive you can't watch it long enough to get the number to donate?

Look, but don't touch

So I was schlepping through the Charlotte NC airport the other day (because schlepping is what I do in airports; no walking, traipsing, sauntering, strolling or moseying. Just schlepping.), and decided I wanted some gelato from the little stand in Concourse B (it's so sad that I know where it's located by memory). I had landed in Concourse C, and had about 25 minutes before having to board my second flight, also in C. So, telling myself that if I was going to eat a bunch of gelato, hauling myself cross-concourse was probably a good thing to at least pretend I'm getting enough exercise to rationalize it. It's about a 6 minute walk each way, depending on traffic.

And by 'traffic', I mean the slow-moving oxen-like people who have little or no awareness of the hundreds of busy travelers waiting impatiently behind them when they decide to park it right in the middle of the busiest walkway in the airport just to look at their ticket again because they don't know where they're going.

Anyway, cattle aside, I make it to the gelato place, and get in line behind an odd-looking little man. He was odd because he looks like he was transported directly out of the early '50s; dress pants pulled up to his armpits (almost), yellow collared short-sleeved shirt with an indistnguishable print, and the most ridiculously large plastic-framed glasses, coke bottles of course, bifocals to boot, with smudge marks all over the lenses. Oh, and he had a greasy comb-over and gorilla-hairy arms. Enough said.

So little man is looking at each of the gelato flavors through both parts of his bifocals, first above, then below, above, below, above, below, 18 times in total I think. At which point I think he realized he had either no concept of what gelato is, or no idea which flavor he wanted. Oh, and I think he was foreign. By the time he finished inspecting each flavor, two more people had stacked up in the line behind me. I was starting to get impatient, and roll my eyes and shift my weight from one hip to the other.

None of this is particularly noteworthy, but all of a sudden, one little action of his made every detail about this transaction conspire together to PISS ME OFF. The nice, overly patient lady working behind the counter asked him what kind of cone or cup he wanted. This kicked off a 3-minute explanation of small vs. large cups, waffle vs. cake cones. All of which is printed clearly on a LARGE sign above the counter. Apparently that wasn't obvious enough for him, and he wanted to know how much a cake cone cost. To the fault of the gelato stand, they keep the cones in a decorative basket on top of the counter. They should be behind the counter, in a semi-sterile environment. But they weren't. SO HE TOUCHED ONE. A cake cone. With his finger. To ask how much it cost. THEN HE TOUCHED ANOTHER ONE, a waffle cone, to ask the same. Nevermind that it was printed above, and she had explained it. HE HAD TO TOUCH THE DAMN THINGS to understand the answer, apparently.

Has he never heard of pointing? Do they not point in Estonia, or whereverthehell he's from? I mean, really, now. Touching public food? Who does that?

He probably double-dips at parties too. And for the unenlightened among us (and yes, I know there are some), double-dipping is when you dip your chip into the communal salsa/hummus/bean dip, take a bite, then dip the SAME chip back into the communal bowl, complete with whatever residual drool you left on that chip after biting it the first time. At least one of you reading this right now is going, "oh, snap, do I do that?" Yes, if you're asking yourself this, you probably do. Now you've been enlightened, and you can stop doing it now. Please.

When he started fingering the public food, I added small dissenting noises of disbelief and quasi-outrage to my ineffectual repertoire of weight-shifting and eye rolling. Not quite as effective as I had hoped. It's times like this I really need to lose my filter, and just say out loud, either to the offender, or at least to the lady behind the counter, "HEY, HE'S TOUCHING OTHER PEOPLE'S FOOD!" And how do we know he wasn't just massaging Brylcreem into his nasty comb-over in the bathroom? Or worse? But I didn't. Noooooo, sir. I chuffed and shifted and eye-rolled, but nobody slapped him in the wrist or chided him. Myself included.

I'm pretty sure he was seriously ESL, and a good chiding would've been lost on him anyway, but still. I really need to stop giving a shit what random, inappropriately-behaving people in airports will think of me.

I did eventually get my gelato (after watching this 15-minute debacle), but was pretty skeeved out at the fact that his greasy little finger had probably touched my cone. I probably should've said something to the girl, like, "No, please give me a cone he DIDN'T fondle", but nonesuch. How very milquetoast-y of me. So although I ordered the cookies 'n cream gelato, I probably in reality ate cookies 'n Brylcreem. Ew.

there's no place like home...

And I mean HOME home, like da 'burgh, where I actually hail from. The longer I live out of state, the happier an occasion it is for me when I return here. Not that I think I'll be moving back anytime soon (sorry, folks!), but I've come to appreciate this little city of mine.

It sounds cliche, but I have to say, I think the nicest people are from Pittsburgh. The apparent lack of elitism is so refreshing after 3 years in the festering hell they call Miami. Jax is actually pretty cool too, from what I've seen so far, but I really do feel like Pittsburgh will always be home base for me.

I flew in late and got to the hotel around 11. I passed a Primanti Bros. restaurant almost across the street from my hotel. I wasn't really hungry and the restaurant downstairs had just closed, so I thought maybe the trademark Doubletree warm chocolate chip cookie (a.k.a. "calorie bomb") that they give you upon check-in would satiate me. It kind of did, until I started looking for driving directions for tomorrow's work festivities which includes lunch at none other than Primanti's downtown. Once I started seeing the stores, and thinking about it, I actually debated getting dressed again to bounce over for a big fat sammich. Of course, they closed just minutes before I realized how badly I wanted my usual corned beef with cheese loaded with hot sauce. Mmmmmmm... Primanti Bros...

So now I have to go to sleep to forget just how hungry I've made myself. I think drool on the keyboard would violate my laptop's maintenance contract.

G'nite.

I may be repeating myself at this point

But I'll go ahead and say it anyway: when you have more than one incident, you have incidents.

In my line of work, which involves helpdesk software, an Incident is a specific item. Anytime somebody calls a helpdesk, it is logged in a 'ticket' as an "incident". When you are talking about two or more of them, they are "incidents".

My irritation begins when somebody uses the word "incidences" to refer to multiple incidents. "Incidence" actually refers to how often or the frequency with which something is happening.

For example, "We will examine the incidence of microbial growth in sterile samples" means they are going to look at how often this is happening (frequency). "Incidence" is a singular noun.

To say, "We will examine these incidents of microbial growth in sterile samples" indicates that they will be analyzing each iteration of this event individually. "Incidents" is a plural noun.

But what everybody seems to be saying is, "We will examine these incidences of blah blah...".

I'm not sure if/when "Incidences" is ever needed or correct. Although "Incidence" is a singular noun, it inherently indicates repeated occurances of something, seemingly negating the need for a plural form.

I just heard it on TV, too, on "The First 48 Hours". A cop was talking about multiple murders, or incidents. And he said, "we need to look into why these incidences are happening". Argh.

Anybody want to weigh in on this? I would kind of love it if I was wrong so I could just get over my annoyance at hearing it over and over. But I don't think I am.

And now for something completely different

I went to a metaphysical meetup today. I mean, the meetup itself was physical, but the subject was metaphysics. There was a hypnotist there who first guided one person through a remote viewing session, then she guided the whole room of us (22 or so people) through visiting a past life of ours.

It was pretty fascinating, but the whole time I kept questioning myself if what was coming into my mind was coming from my mind, or if I was actually with my spirit guides and experiencing it. Either way, what came out of it was that I had been a 16-year-old girl named Annelise Crofton somewhere in England during Victorian times. I (she) was wearing these extremely uncomfortable boots that weren't very high-heeled but had about a million annoying buttons on the inside of the ankle up to the top of the boots, which were mid-calf height. I was wearing layers and layers of very feminine but structured clothing, petticoats and such underneath bustiers with rigid, uncomfortable boning in the seams. I had very long, curly red ringleted hair, and seemed to be wrestling with the knowledge that I was about to be married off to somebody I didn't want to be married to.

I think one of the first spirits to greet me was Miss Ruth, she was a sunday school teacher of mine. She passed when I was still pretty young, so it's not like I was close to her for very long. I was wondering why she might have been so close to me in spirit, then remembered I'm wearing her ring. My great aunt, who inherited some of the estate from Miss Ruth and her brother Earl (a sweet, blind elderly gentleman who used to type little rhymes on postcards and mail them to us on our birthdays and holidays) had given it to me a 5 or 6 years ago since I was so in love with it despite how old it was, and I've worn it continuously ever since. Earl was there too.

My grandfather was there, as was that great aunt. Also, her sister, her sister's husband, my great-grandmother and great-grandfather, all from the paternal side of my family. Maybe because I was closer to them growing up, or because i don't remember any of the maternal family members that have passed. I'm sure there were others there that I didn't recognize.
And just to be clear, I didn't 'see' anybody. It was more of a sense of their personality, their presence, trying to be recognized. There was a light, it was very white-yellow and not cold, but not hot either.

The hypnotist said to ask our guides what lesson we were supposed to take from that life. Mine seemed to be struggling with oppression and suppression. I had very strong ideas and was a willful girl, but I was about to have to succumb to the will of another, and had no choice in the matter. I wonder if that's why I've spent most of this lifetime trying to prove to myself that I can do whatever I want, no matter what other people say, and refusing to be oppressed. It would make sense. It would also explain my soft spot for Victoriana. I don't surround myself with it (anymore. I did go through a phase.), but I find myself drawn to Victorian things even though I embrace a modern, urban style now.

The things that were strangest to me were two physical occurrences that happened. At one point in time during the hypnosis, I felt my skin get hot. Not like when you're outside and the temperature is high so you start sweating. This was more like when you have the cold sweats and a fever, and your skin just all of a sudden feels hot then cold because it gets sweaty and the sweat starts evaporating. So although I wasn't focusing on my physical being at that time, my temperature change brought my attention back to the physical. And the room was very comfortable, I was sitting near a fan so it wasn't hot at all. It was like I had raised my energy level without moving, just by concentrating and relaxing.

The other thing was that when she was talking us 'down', back into the physical realm, there was a point at which my spirit guides started to recede and the weirdest thing happened to me - I felt tears forming behind my eyelids, and as the spirits faded away, I realized my body was crying. I wasn't sobbing, or catching my breath like I really do when I cry for real, it was like my body decided to do that as a reflex, independent of any decisions I might have made.

And before you go thinking I've gone off the deep end, I still have my doubts. I don't want to doubt, but it was all so...faint, that I have to wonder, did I conjure that up from my imagination, or did I really experience it? I still don't know. It's like when someone shouts at you from really far away and you think you understood what they were saying but maybe not. That's about how faint these ideas and signals were that I picked up. The tears made me think maybe I did experience it, because on my conscious level, I wasn't experiencing any emotion in particular, much less something strong enough to make me cry in public in front of 21 other strangers. Others said they experienced something similar when coming back, which is interesting.

I'm going to try to practice what she guided us through, the worst that can happen is nothing, and I just do a little deep breathing and maybe relax a little. Unless of course I visit my past again and discover I was a REPUBLICAN. That would be waaaaay worse.

What a handsome chap

Just thought I'd share a photo of my very handsome boy, Romeow. He's enjoying the screened-in back porch, and modeling his 'bling', although the "Harley Davidson" collar is hidden in his fur.

He always looks like he's just about to say something. I would guess that if he did indeed speak English, he would have some sort of European accent. Not sure why.

"I do say, mum, the view from this porch is quite fine on a loverly day like this."

I hate litterbugs

I was about a mile west of my house on a main street, and I looked into a little canal on the right, and lo and behold, saw a really big turtle.

As you probably already know, I get excited about things like this, but this time I wasn't sure whether I should feel excited to see such a large turtle in a canal...maybe he was lost? Maybe canals aren't good places for large fellas like himself? And that plastic cup/flotsam just made me sad.

Made me think of that commercial from the 70's with the Native American crying because of litter, remember, with the tear rolling down his finely chiseled cheek? (It's now commonly known on YouTube as the "Crying Indian Commercial", FYI).

So I was conflicted about Mr. Turtle. By the time I made it to my destination and turned back to go home, he had disappeared. Hm. Does that mean the turtle was actually moving faster than me? I know I'm out of shape, but...

go away

I'm not sure if the people in Jax are overly friendly, needy, or what, but twice in the last two days I've had difficulties getting RID of people in my house.

First, there were two elderly gentlemen who knocked on my door around dinnertime on Monday. I opened the door, only to have them welcome me to Jacksonville by name (my name does not appear anywhere on the outside of my house), and congratulated myself and the other half (whose name they mispronounced, of course) on our new house.

At first I thought they must be neighbors, and since we seem to be the youngest people in the neighborhood it wouldn't have surprised me. After a few minutes of ambling conversation, they got down to business. They were recruiting for Jesus. And had found us by reading the local paper which publishes home sales information. How lucky for us.

So after 5 more uncomfortable minutes of getting 'invited to worship' and asked about my religion, I made some vague references to the religion I'd been raised in (already been saved, thanks!), thanked them for their invitation and made shuffling movements towards my door.

Once inside, I chided myself for having opened the door in the first damn place, and not screening the old dudes to see if they were going to try to sell me something. How does one rid one's self of bible bangers without appearing to be a soulless meanie? I'm not one to slam the door in somebody's face unless I don't feel safe, I'm way too Libra to be that rude. But must I listen to every damn salesweasel who darkens my doorstep?

If you're wondering how often this could possibly happen, let's review a list of solicitations we've received at the house since moving in two months ago:

1.) Local security monitoring agency

2.) Lawn care guy for former owners

3.) Other local security monitoring agency

4.) Life Insurance sales

5.) Baptist church guys

6.) Exterminators

Okay, so it's not a huge list, but it's 6 more solicitations than I received in all 3 years in Miami. Guess I finally found something I like about that place.

Then there's the list of service providers who knock on our door, usually around 8:30 am:

1.) Mailman

2.) UPS

3.) Exterminators

4.) Lawn guy

So even though they've been 'invited' more or less, do they need to come so friggin' early? Don't they know some people SLEEP?

Not only that, but some of them are downright hard to get rid of. Yesterday I had a security monitoring company come to the house to assess the installed system and discuss monitoring packages. I COULD NOT GET RID OF THIS GUY. He was very nice and polite, about 6'4" with too many elbows and sharp collarbones, replete with bad teeth and a bad muttering habit. Your typical IT geek, he was. (I recognize my own kind.) He was very complimentary about the house (despite it's current ghetto-construction state), and perfectly pleasant, but STILL. I had a demo scheduled for later that afternoon, so I wasn't trying to hang out and chat. But somehow he managed to direct the conversation to anecdotes about camping with his church group ("Do you go to church? I mean, are you religious???" GAH.), his college education (higher mathematics), his former career (predictably, IT), and probably the price of eggs in China, but I'd already zoned out by then. I seriously couldn't get rid of him. I finally said, "Ok, let's do this contract, yeah?" Maybe that was his sales tactic, just barrage me with boring semi-unintelligible conversation until I relented and signed on the dotted line. (I would've bought without the blab-fest, FYI.) Sadly, I don't think that was a sales tactic. I think that's just how people are around here.

You know it's bad when I complain about somebody talking too much.

So the rule is, from now on, when somebody shows up here to solicit, invited or not, I'm going to let them know right away that I have "a phone appointment" in 10 minutes so we have to 'keep this short'. If they've knocked on the door uninvited, I think I'm going to ask them directly if they're recruiting for religion, and if so, say "thanks but no thanks" and actually close the door. I got sick of having the police solicitors calling my unlisted home phone and soliciting money out of me for the MADD campaign, etc., so I actually told the last caller that I'd already donated, and I really didn't care to receive so many phone calls soliciting for the police. I felt like a gigantic ass, but I said it nicely, and he quickly agreed to remove my name from their calling list. I really hate the hard-core charity appeals direct to your home phone during dinner time. It does NOT make me feel generous.

Frankly, it pisses me off. I knew Jax was a religious town, but should I have to deflect religious recruiters everywhere I go? When it comes to religion, I'm a big believer in doing your own thing and other people minding their own damn business. I also, rather cynically, tend to think that many people use religion as a crutch, so I'm not a fan of organized religion in general, despite the best efforts of the older generation of my family. I think I turned out ok anyway.

So the lesson here is, if you're going to visit me, call first and please, please, leave Jesus in the car.

it's a sham, all right

Is it just me, or are the people pitching gadgets on infomercials the most annoying people on the planet?

Just watch anything with Billy Mays in it - but be warned, you might want to cut the volume by HALF before he starts talking. He has VOICE IMMODULATION DISORDER. HE TALKS IN ALL CAPS. HE CANNOT SPEAK AT A NORMAL VOLUME. EVERYTHING IS LOUD LOUD LOUD. He also, regrettably, seems to have either a speech impediment or a Pittsburghese accent. (The two are sometimes indistinguishable). You'll know it when you hear it...they can't pronounce the letter "l" properly, at least not without tacking an extra "w" to it. Ok, I just googled him, and Wikipedia tells me he's from McKees Rocks, PA. Holy crap, I'm good. I spent the first 5 years of my life there, so that accent is embedded deeply in my subconscious (and in certain parts of my family, unfortunately).

And that ShamWow guy, Vince...don't even get me started. I'm already irritated anytime anybody thinks "chamois" is spelled "Shammy" (which 99% of the world does), so to use the phonetic misspelling of an object as part of it's name (a BAD name at that) is just hella-annoying. And we haven't even talked about the freakshow they have pitching this thing. He's like the creepy carnie bastard child of Willem Dafoe with one crazy eye and a fauxhauk wearing a Gap headset (what is he, on the phone? It's a TV COMMERCIAL! We all know they use boom mikes, so you can take your 1992 Plantronics model A60 off now.) because he's on a break from his day job greeting shoppers and folding button-downs at the Trenton mall. He is SO SLIMY. He just screams "snake oil salesman". I see him on the tv, and I'm instantly in a fetal position in my chair, holding my knees and rocking back and forth with my eyes closed looking for my 'happy place'. He just totally skeeves me out.

The first time I saw that commercial, it was so cheesy that I thought for sure it was like a mock commercial on a tv show, like making fun of informercials. But no! It's a real infomercial!

I particularly love it when, at the end of a particularly crappy informercial for a particularly crappy product, say, non-circulating currency from Guam with a 24-carat engraving of the twin towers on it, they say, "strict limit of 5 per caller!"

Yeah, right. Let me know how many takers you get on that offer. I got a bridge to sell them.

my latest obsession

River rocks! Having discovered that the countertop of my dreams (seen here) would end up costing me about $8k (okay, so I'd get some shower glass in there, too, but STILL), I started researching what it would take to make it myself. I talked to product vendors about finding an epoxy that won't yellow or cloud up, got advice on how to build a pour mold, and ordered 40 lb. of these shiny river rocks above, which I adore. I need them to be less than 3/4" high to fit in the mold, so about half of them will go in some other bathroom-related project.

So I'm planning on creating a channel along the back of the counter (the part that will be on the wall) that will house LED lights to light the whole thing from within, and it's going to be topped off with a 1/4" of glass to protect it, since one hot coffee cup would be all it takes to blemish it. Our sinks are surface-mount basins, so I only need 4 small drain holes for them and the faucets. I'll find a glazier locally to handle all of that. I just need to concentrate on building a watertight mold and pouring the layers quickly enough, then keeping the dang thing level until it cures. That's a lot of precision for someone who embraces, nay, specializes in imperfections. Well, I'm nothing if not creatively ambitious.

Yuck!

So this is pretty much the overall feeling about today's feline-related events: Yuck. Poor Roscoe, in addition to losing weight and some other symptoms, he's been scratching at his head in random places for a loooong time. Not very hard, just, you know, I-have-an-itch-and-I-can't-get-rid-of-it scratching. Until yesterday, when he scratched so hard his little ear started bleeding. That's when we realized he might have something more than an itchy head. So I called a nearby vet (less than 2 miles from the house!) who let me bring him in at 4 pm on a Friday, saw him immediately, and found a long-standing ear infection. And when I say infection, I mean INFECTION.

If you are easily grossed out, please skip the next paragraph. I am not easily grossed out, and what happened in that vet's office almost made me gag. No, it did make me gag. I just managed not to throw up. Barely. So, seriously. If you get grossed out, don't read it then complain to me that it's gross. I know it's gross. I lived it. And I've thoughtfully annotated the gross parts for you in red, so if you are gross-averse, don't read the parts after the red.

GROSS PART STARTS

The kindly veterinarian who saw us was the owner of the clinic, and he was soooo nice. Just really customer-service oriented, and you can tell he just loves the animals. The whole time he was working with Roscoe, he maintained a running dialogue. With Roscoe. Which I'm sure some people would consider crazy, but I happen to admire it. Hey, cats are people too. If you're going to be poking and prodding them, the least you can do is talk to them about it. So once he found that nasty, deep ear infection, he of course tried to clean it up by getting some of the muck out. (This is the gross part.) He puts the Q-tip in, and ook comes out. I mean, I'm sparing you the worst of it by just calling it "ook". He put some drops to help clean it in there, and again and again, removed more ook, much to Roscoe's displeasure. Then (here's the REALLY gross part) Roscoe decides to help and shakes his head really hard. Ook flew everywhere. I mean, ew. I want to gag again just writing this. And I seriously don't gag over anything. The poor vet tech, who was holding Roscoe down and is barely out of his teen years, got splattered. The vet got splattered. The table got splattered. Oddly, I, wearing a white t-shirt, somehow did not. I have never, ever, been so close to spontaneously throwing up in my life. Probably the combination of knowing that ook came out of my poor old kitty, and the fact of what that ook was made up of. I'll spare you all that description.

GROSS PART ENDS

So, sorry about that. I have a blog so I can express and overshare when I feel like it, and you have a close button (that little x at the top right corner) that you can exercise when you don't feel like reading it. :) And you can't say I didn't warn you.

I'm glad we're hopefully on the road to recovery with Mr. Roscoe now. I'm mostly just angry at myself for not intuitively knowing that my kitty repeatedly scratching at random places on the left side of his head meant there was a deep infection somewhere inside. I feel like a bad kitty mommy. But it's not like he hasn't been to the vet! That dang mobile vet...she claimed to give him a "full work-up" 2 weeks ago, (and I certainly paid for a full work up) so how did she miss a big honkin' ear infection that he's apparently had forever? I'm going to call her, and have her fax all of his test results to his new vet, and tell her she missed the ear infection. Being a non-confrontrational Libra, this will not be easy for me, but I think she needs to know that she missed something pretty obvious, and why I won't be calling her again.

Also, the new vet said that Roscoe's weight loss might be due to hypo- or hyper-thyroidism, can't remember which. He said that they get really really hungry (true), and eat a lot (also true) but continually lose weight (sadly, also true. He's down to 11 lbs from a robust 15 or so). So I'm very hopeful that with this vet, we can patch the ol' kitty back together and keep him well for more years to come.

Sigh. And this is only one of four cats. I have this to look forward to with Romeow, Frijol, and Boo-Boo. Rest assured, if they scratch more than twice in the same spot, they're getting rushed to the vet. The new, good vet.

Decisions have been made

Well, my fears have been confirmed, and we won't be getting our see-thru fireplace. Bummer. The fire box insert is much smaller than the opening we'd have and it would look inadequate. Also, there's ventilation and security concerns. Oh well. I have a new dream now.

Here's where I think the money formerly allocated to fireplace renovations is going to go:Awwwwww, YEAH! Now, we all know I have a water aversion. (Don't know why, I just do.) But this tub might just be enough to get me over my aversion to water. Tub isn't even the right word for it. Aquatic relaxation receptacle? Water-enabled multi-tasking portal? Still not enough of a description. But you can visit Overstock.com here and read the manufacturer's description for yourself. And if you're thinking, "J, you are not really going to spend all that money on a tub?!", you're wrong. I most certainly will. As soon as my plumber okays it. I think that a master bath needs something special, and right now ours has nothing special. We were planning a remodel anyway, to switch the location of the tub and the toilet. The image below is a snapshot from a 3d model I built in Google SketchUp. It represents basically what our new bathroom is going to look like, although some of the finish choices (tiles, colors, etc.) may change.

That empty room is the walk-in closet, and that weird box thingy floating above the tub in the model below is actually the existing skylight. Which right now shines majestically down upon the toilet, as you can see. This model below is pretty close to what we have now, but I left the 80's cedar paneling above the garden tub out. I don't like the view from the tub, nor the enclosed tile shower. It's all too cramped and dated. So I think swapping the tub and toilet, putting a little wall in between them, and changing the shower enclosure to glass and cutting the corner of the closet and eliminating the wall between the vanity and the shower will all add up to a bigger-feeling space with minimal structural changes.

Since The Tub is so mighty and large, it's going to take a little more space than the one in the first model shows, so we're going to build a mock-up out of cardboard later today and put it in there (yes, really), and see if it feels too cramped. Our walkway to the toilet room is going to be more narrow than typical, so if we don't think it will work well that way, we may have to steal a few more inches from the closet and move that wall out. I'm hoping we can avoid it though...I gotta save some $$$$$$ to buy The Tub.