Over the years that I’ve had her, I’ve bought a variety of beds for my cat, Caldonia. Without exception these have been ignored in favor of piles of laundry, cardboard boxes, magazines on the floor, pretty much anything not specifically designed as a cat bed.
For Christmas, my mother gave her a “Wooly Buddy Bed”, a very cozy-looking bed constructed from a woolly sweater. 5% of the proceeds from which are donated to The Home For Friendless Animals in Waynetown, IN., she tells me. This sounds wonderful and the bed looks like just the sort of thing a cat should want to lay on, but, given my past experience, I had my doubts.
I got the bed home and Caldonia loves it. She now spends the majority of her sleeping time in her new bed. My mother and my Aunt each have 2 cats all of whom are just as enamored of their ‘Wooly Buddy Beds’ as my cat is. 5 cats, all with very different personalities, but they agree on one thing, they love their “Wooly Buddy Beds”.
So, if you, or someone you know, has a hard to please feline (or dog, she makes them for our canine friends as well) I strongly urge you to get in touch with Susie at Wooly Buddy Beds. (No affiliation, just the “roommate” of a very satisfied user.)
Just as I was falling asleep Saturday I was jolted awake by a loud CRASH. The cat was next to me on the bed (though she made a mad dash for cover) so I knew it wasn’t her. Since there was no one else here, I decided it must have come from the downstairs neighbor. Replaying in my mind what I’d heard, I decided that it sounded like someone dropped a large metal can full of smaller cans, or possibly dishes; probably in the foyer. Satisfied with this explanation, I dozed back off, though I was still contemplating it. Sometime later I awoke again, worried that the noise could have come from my apartment somewhere. Checking for signs of calamity, I made my way to the kitchen. There, sitting in pool of water amid the shattered shards of the cat’s water dish was my old toaster, which apparently fell from its spot on the shelf of the microwave cart.
I’d refilled the cat’s water when I got home, then gone to bed. A short while later I awoke and went to the kitchen for a drink. I noticed that I hadn’t put her water in its usual spot, next to the microwave cart, so I moved it. At no time during this process did I notice the toaster (which hasn’t been moved since I got a new toaster last Christmas) resting precariously.
Here’s the really crazy part. This isn’t the first time it’s happened!! A couple of years ago the toaster dove into, and smashed, Caldonia’s food dish while I slept.
This is obviously the work of a ghost. A ghost with a taste for toast. Or a ghost that doesn’t like my cat. Or an evil mouse. Whatever the fuck it is, I wish it would stop. One thing’s for certain: I’m getting rid of that damned toaster. Then, if need be, I’ll call an exorcist and/or exterminator.
The basement of my building is, as basements tend to be, damp and musty. My new neighbor downstairs has complained about this, so the landlady decided the best solution to this problem was to leave the outside door to the basement open during sunny weather (as opposed to my solution, which I’ve been pushing for for years. Fix the raingutters so they’re not dumping right against the foundation).
Last night when I went to retrieve my laundry, I was greeted by a bat zooming back and forth across the basement until taking refuge from the light up inside the wall.
After puzzling over the situation for a bit, I decided that the best course of action was to open the door for a while, turn out the lights and hope that my bat left rather than inviting over some of his bat buddies. A couple of hours later I snuck back down, flashlight in hand… no bats. Well, none that I saw anyway. I’m hoping that once the lights went out he fluttered right out the open door and into the night, but who’s to say? Maybe he liked his hiding spot and just stayed there. The crazy thing is, this is now the second time I’ve had to contend with a bat inside this building since I’ve lived here. Also, the second time I’ve had to contend with a bat, period.
Today I spoke with the dog owner’s insurance company. It seems (knock on wood) that they realize that I’m being completely reasonable are going to do likewise. Just after getting off the phone with them, I get a call from the local court’s ‘Restitution Coordinator’. She called to see how I was and what sort of expenses I’ve incurred. I told her of my conversation with the insurance folks and that I don’t anticipate any major expenses, but one never knows. So, she’s going to pass this on to the judge (the dog’s owner has to appear in court tomorrow). She said she’d let know the outcome of the hearing and said that if I have any expenses that the insurance company won’t cover to let them know and they’ll assist me in recouping.
The bite seems to look a little worse, but is feeling marginally better.
I had a nice ride today, no excitement. Well, an asshole in an SUV yelled some sort of Doppler-shifted gibberish at me. All I made out was “the road”. Then, as I was stopped in left turn lane at the light near my house a man in a pick up (to my right) said to me, “You made good time”. Apparently we’d both been caught at a light a few blocks away together and he was impressed I’d caught him again.
Not a bad day at all. Seems like the system is going to work as it should, and the assholes were canceled out by the friendly folks.
I think Mike McIntee of the fabulous CBS Late Show Wahoo Gazette might be stalking me. ‘What makes you think that’, you ask? This excerpt from Thursday’s Wahoo Gazette, for one thing.
I was reading in somebody’s blog today about his being bitten by a dog. Dog bites man? I didn’t think that was news.
You would think the least he could do is toss a link my way, like before.
Went out for my first ‘real’ ride of the season today. You can probably guess what happened on my way back into town. Black chow comes charging down his driveway (where the owner was impotently standing by), with no wasted movement he makes straight for me and chomps down on my ankle. The owners were cool (though not nearly apologetic enough for my taste) and are saying they’ll cover my expenses. Wasted a lot of my evening talking to them, at the Urgent Care, and at Wal-Mart picking up the de rigueur antibiotics. Tomorrow I have to call animal control folks back and talk to them. Hopefully they will report back that the dog is, in fact, up on all of his shots. The owners said he was, but c’mon, what the hell else are they gonna say?
Got a couple of nasty punctures/gashes in the back of my calf, one with a chunk ripped out! First time I’ve been bitten, had to make it a good one, I guess.
And now, I think I’ll go listen to the Dead Kennedys’ song from which I purloined this post’s title.
Click to embiggen.
G-nats:0, Greg and the Shamrock:1
I’ve won the first battle with the evil fungus gnats. Letting the soil dry out and placing the mini bug zapper right next to the shamrock definitely did the trick. He still looks a little pitiful at the moment, not surprising considering what he’s been through.
Sadly, I won’t get to enjoy shamrock blossoms on my birthday, but I’m hoping that a nice dose of fertilizer next week will go a long way towards restoring his vigor.
The water-withholding has put a serious dent in the fungus gnat population and the mini bug zapper arrived yesterday. I set it up next to the shamrock when I got home from work today and it promptly zapped a g-nat with a satisfying “crack!”
Hopefully I can eliminate them pretty quickly, because I’m not sure how much patience I have for the ungodly racket it makes when one of the ever-present (in my kitchen) ladybugs hits the 2200 volt grid o’ death.
Sometime after I posted the pic of my happy little shamrock, I started noticing these tiny little gnats (or G-nats, as I like to say) flitting around on and near the soil. They seemed to be more numerous when the soil was dry, so I decided that more frequent watering was the answer.
The more frequent watering didn’t seem to help, so I turned to Google. Turns out, they’re fungus gnats and they thrive on too-wet soil, where they lay their eggs which then hatch into fungus (and root) eating larvae before emerging as adult G-nats to lay more eggs.
An ill-advised spraying with Safer Insecticidal Soap (they should add shamrocks to the list of plants it shouldn’t be used on) burned the leaves, so I won’t be posting more pics any time real soon.
So now I’m trying to let the soil dry enough between waterings to kill the larvae without killing the plant. The good folks at Woot.com, apparently caught wind of my plight, as the item for sale the other day was a mini indoor bug-zapper. Mine is on the way, but given the mule-train like slowness of their “SmartPost” shipping method, I may have won the G-nat war (or killed the shamrock) before it arrives.
So, the groundhog saw his shadow, which supposedly means six more weeks of winter. Bah!
At least the New York groundhog (Chuck) fulfilled a long-time wish of mine and bit someone (not just anyone, New York’s Mayor Bloomburg!)
Remember when I said that I didn’t much care about the snow and ice that was forecast for us? Well, I lied. We got it, it’s still around, and I hate it. But I am still taking some solace in my cheerful little Shamrock’s reemergence.
It’s been a while since I’ve posted a photo, so here you go. This little fella was waiting on the outside of my kitchen window the other morning.
In case anyone was wondering, I didn’t get eaten by bears, or fall down a well, or anything like that. I’ve simply been neglecting the blog while other more pressing matters took precedence.
That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.
This generally seems to indicate that it’s time for a flurry of new posts, so stay tuned, or something.