Spiffynew

Collars!



This excites me beyond reason. But they'd been wearing the same collars for years, and the old tags still had our Bemidji address on them. And these? Well, these tags are swanky and reflect the cats' personalities. Which seems like the important thing when you consider that the cats never leave the apartment unless they're in a carrier, so the tags will probably never have to perform their technical function. If I'm going to be paranoid, I might as well do it in style.

The Pierces

I don't usually do this, but for the past couple nights I've been full of the urge to spread the word. And that's why I insist that you go here and turn your sound on. The MySpace page seems to play the whole album if you just leave it up. This is very different from all the music I've listened to for, oh, about five years. And that might be why I'm so excited by it. That, and it's really freaking good.

On Deciding Not to Look

So there's a shelf attached to the bottom of our computer desk that sits about two inches off the ground. And I'm sitting here with my legs folded up underneath me because...well, it's my natural seated position. But I'm conscious of it now because both the cats have been trying rather hard for the last ten minutes or so to get underneath that shelf. I've never seen them do this before, so I'm pretty convinced there's Something under there. Centipede? Mouse? Tiny alien life form? I don't know, and I've decided to keep it that way unless the thing comes out. Because if I find out what it is, I still can't get to it to do anything about it, and it's easier to pretend Something isn't in your apartment when you haven't actually seen it. This is my dispensation of wisdom for today.

This Post Never Happened

If you want, you can just ignore me while I'm over here in my corner, self-promoting the articles Eric and I have written for a second website. Of course, if you're actually interested in how to do these things, you're welcome to check out the articles. All I really need is for these links to exist:

How to Clean Silver
How to Clean Dog Urine
How to Clean Cat Urine
How to Clean Stained Glass

Now back to our regularly scheduled programming.

Lesbian Romantic Comedies

I approve.

Saturday Night, Hermit Style

Tonight Eric is visiting a friend who lives waaayhayhay out of town, where they will be drinking, and since driving from way out of town back into town after drinking is generally purported to be unwise, he'll be sleeping at his friend's temporary bachelor pad. (The guy's fiancee is out of town.) Normally I would look forward to a whole night of behavior straight from the id, like uninterrupted reading or Sims or crocheting (mine is a very nerdy id), but tonight those options sounded a little lonely, and I was left with the realization that while I like a lot of people who seem to like me back, I don't have many friendships well-developed enough that I can just call and request company for the evening. (And the ones I do have are with moms or other perpetually busy people.) I did decide that it is no longer uncool, at the age of almost-27, to like and be friends with my mom, so I tried to call her to see if she wanted to go to a movie, but she didn't answer either of her phones.

So I'm making the best of it, and doing a pretty good job, I think. First, I got and ate in its entirety one of the world's most enormous burritos. Then I watched a compelling BBC documentary about the neurological aspects of spiritual and religious experiences, during which a scientist tried to induce such an experience in Richard Dawkins. After that, I casually started researching my next Get Rid of Things topic. Later, after I put away my laundry, I'm going to watch a romantic comedy and probably drink a peppermint patty. I'll no doubt end the evening by reading Crime and Punishment and falling asleep in the middle of the bed. So...relaxation, edification, fun, productivity, and good food. I think I'm okay.

Aha

In the continuing spirit of instructor-class confidentiality I won't be specific, but there was a moment in class today when I was so proud I could've pooped.

Bring on the Happy Music

I have a lot to get done today: cleaning, class planning, yoga to ease my spasming back, work at the bookstore late this evening. And all this while groggy from too much sleep (got up at 8:30, not bad for a Saturday morning, except that Crime and Punishment and I were asleep on the couch by 11:00 last night) and unwashed because of a continuing lack of hot water in my building. I'll be boiling bathwater on the stove again today, which should make me feel better (and less itchy), but not until after I'm finished with the sweaty vacuuming. In the meantime, I'll have to draw my energy from artificial sources. Like Beck and Modest Mouse and this otherwise pointless blog post.

Turns Out

Our thermostat does control something: the heat for the whole building. No one, including the owner of the building, knew that. So this means until they get the heat set at the right temperature, they'll be in and out of our place a lot. Also, since our apartment is in the basement and has hot water pipes running across the ceiling in addition to radiators in every room, it will always be the hottest apartment in the building. So for everyone else to be just comfortable, we'll have to be cooking in our skins.

Also, it turns out the little voice in my head that said I should take a shower last night in case the hot water was off again this morning was right. Now I haven't showered in two days. It wasn't so bad yesterday, but I teach today. If we don't have hot water by early this afternoon, I'm doing it Little House style: by boiling a pot of water on the stove and pouring it into the tub.

But She's So Sweet

This, as many of you know, is Piper. She's one of our two cats. And yesterday she struck fear into the hearts of two grown men.

I came home from class last night to a note on our door from the maintenance guy and two skittish cats. There had been an "emergency" (I think more people than just us didn't have heat in their apartments, but down here at the molten core of the earth we weren't about to make an emergency maintenance call over a 65-degree afternoon.), and the maintenance guy had to bring a plumber into our apartment without informing us in advance. This, incidentally, is something we have told him he should avoid. Because of, you know, the wittle fluffy evil kitty.

Then this afternoon the maintenance guy had to come over again because now that we have heat, we don't have hot water in our apartment, and ice-cold showers? That's an emergency. When I opened the door to let him in, he craned his neck a little and said, "How's the cat?" I answered that she was fine, sleeping on the couch, and I'd grab her in a second. He looked nervous and offered to remain standing in the hall while I put the cat in another room. So I did, and he came in, and took a call on his cell phone about another apartment without hot water, and checked to verify that, indeed, our water is cold. He promised to work on that, then explained that he and the plumber will have to come back either today or tomorrow to replace our thermostat, and "About the cat...."

I told him I can lock her in the bedroom during times when both Eric and I will be gone in the next couple of days, and he looked very relieved indeed and then described yesterday as a horrifying scene in which Piper hissed at them, so he shooed her away with a broom, and then she jumped on top of the computer monitor and hissed at them from there, making him fear that she would jump from the monitor onto his face. According to the story, the plumber said that if she bit him, he was biting her back. I disapprove of this.

Actually, I disapprove of the whole situation. I have explained, and Eric has explained, to the property management company that our cat is not fond of strangers and that we need to be at home when maintenance staff comes into our apartment. But yesterday they came in without our knowledge, and a couple of weeks ago I happened to look upward in the bathroom and notice that the bad spot on our ceiling had been painted over one day, I don't know which, when we weren't here. And the fact is that most men, when confronted with a hissing cat, are not brave enough to do what my 15-year-old sister does, and just step over her. If they keep coming into our apartment unannounced, someone's going to get hurt. And in a fair fight between Piper and a 40-year-old man, that guy had better watch out.