House and the Furry Herd - and a visitor...

As of this morning I have all of my refinished furniture and the painting is done. The floor is installed, carpet installed and all the small things fixed.

They did never manage to paint the wood under the counter black to match the other pieces (or even completely peel off the black plastic that was on the piece they put under there) but I'm ready for them to be done and I got half of my kitchen painted in the process so I figure I can manage to paint the piece black. (the wall under the cabinets you see here is the last of the purple).

I still need to replace the stuff that keeps the front door from leaking. I can't remember what it's called but it seems that it's keeping the front door from closing well. The lock box on the doorknob doesn't help. That scraped off some of the paint on the front door, but I'm just going to deal with that as well. I don't think it's that noticeable. Certainly there is plenty of cleaning that could be done prior to worrying about a paint chip.

Overall, it looks pretty nice. I just need to finish unpacking things. My plan is to get everything unpacked so I can get the space in the garage to move my current kitchen table in there - so that I can purchase the new kitchen table. State Farm got me a check to cover the table in about 3 days. That was nice at least.

I've been changing out the outlet and switch covers in parts of the house to kind of 'dress' things up.

My sister was out of town this weekend and Dan spent most of the weekend in Raleigh with me. He also brought Squiggy to Raleigh to hang out with all my kitties. She did surprisingly well. She was cautious and there were a few 'Mexican Stand-off's' with Squiggy and Peepin, but there was no hiding and no mega fights.

It has been determined that Widget (aka, 'Giant Cat') is a bit of a bully as he seems to like to chase other cats around the house to the point where they are made uncomfortable. My sister's dog, Ash, also has this bad habit of staring down cats and getting too close and following too much...but he was kicked in the head by a horse so I am pretty sure it isn't malicious. Just stupidity.

Squiggy took to the stairs for a little while. It seemed her goal was to prevent travel up or down the stairs. Dexter just jumped over her. Peepin eventually made a run for it and Squiggy moved back to her perch on the living room chair.

With the house being re-done and Cosmo still having those bad habits, his new home is the garage when he's not being supervised in the house. Tsu and Cosmo are close and she likes to spend time in the garage with him. I think she is also still a little cautious around the dogs. Although Tucker does behave herself fairly well.

The pictures I have of the house don't have the dining room table and the chairs that were returned on Friday, but they do look very nice. In the dining room picture you can see a blue pot up on the top shelf on the wall - fairly close to the ceiling.

Dexter and Lli were behaving like a herd of elephants on Tuesday and somehow managed to knock down that pot and break it. Sadly that is/was my favorite piece of pottery (I collect pottery) and the most expensive piece I've ever purchased. The four pieces around it were all of $15 - $35 each and none of those were broken.

The pot was up there because for whatever reason I thought a wall shelf that high was probably the safest place in the house. Appears I was wrong. After I stopped crying I glued it back together. Dan and I are going to Sedona in April and I think that's were I found that pot there. I have found lots of nice pottery there in the past, but this time I'll see if they have anything I can afford by the same artist. I used to have a business card with the name but I can't seem to find it now. Hopefully there will be something there in a gallery and I will at least have a choice.

Early the next morning they knocked over the fire grate during one of their chase scenes. I am glad they are playing and being kittens and having fun - but I do wish they could keep it on the floor.
Last night Dan and I went to see Wendy and Lucy at the Chelsea Theatre in Chapel Hill so I stayed with Dan. I didn't get any frantic calls or emails but basically I don't know what (if anything) they broke yesterday. Lli is really quite the little jumper. I'm going to have to hobble her if she doesn't watch it. That's why they make kittens so cute - so when they do bad things and destroy your home you can't stay angry very long.

Anyway, it appears that things are coming together at home. Now it's up to me to get things unpacked and organized. At least that's something I can do on my own time frame. One thing the restoration company and their contractors never seemed to get down was letting me know when they would be coming to the house to do work. At least no one will be showing up as I am walking out the door in the morning with questions and such so that I'm late to work. They seemed to time that pretty well and I suspect my boss is just about sick of it.



Well, that's about it. As Dan likes to say on his blog:

'more later'....

Meet Trillium Whorl 'Lli' (pronounced lily)

A few weeks ago I went to Alley Cats and Angels to meet the newest cats. In the bathroom were the two black Japanese Bobtails. One was a very chatty little girl with a tiny bob that kept rubbing up against me and chirping. Maybe it was because she was so vocal, but I knew she should be my next cat.

In addition, she's young and she and Dexter have become great friends. In fact, right now the two of them are tearing through the house chasing each other downstairs. Both are having great fun and the older cats are appreciating the break from all the silliness.

She's quite the jumper and has climbed a few shelves at this point.

Unfortunately she enjoys sharpening her claws on my furniture, but we're working on that.

In the picture here she is shaking her tiny bottom as she prepares to pounce on Dexter who is lurking on the other side of the stairs.

She likes to chew on things - like my sister's fingers below.

When she's happy her tail wags kind of like Tucker, my corgi. I've never seen a cat wag their tail. She has a cute little trilly voice and ultimately having her to play with Dexter is just fantastic. It's clear the two of them are having a great time. They are about the same age, so I would say they have more in common than any of the other kitties.

Unfortunately there are issues with any kitties. As I sit here writing this my sister's cat, Peepin, is vomiting on various stairs as she heads upstairs. Thanks Peepin.

I'm happy with Tucker (the corgi) she was raised with cats from when she was a puppy and she seems to know how to not intimidate the cats. She tried not to make direct eye contact and she turns submissive when they walk by.

So, here it's been only two weeks and Lli is comfortable walking on the floor next to Tucker. The only problem really seems to be my sister's dog Ash who likes to push the cats a little too far. And sits around just staring at cats until they get nervous.

Anyway, she's terribly cute, friendly and playful. It's nice to have kittens again.

Morrissey Consumated

A little more than 2 decades ago a friend introduced me to The Smiths. Of course this was right around the time the band broke up. Until Wednesday I had never seen Morrissey live.

I left work a little early and Dan and I went to Tyler's to get some dinner and a few drinks before the show.

Morrissey wasn't going on until 8:35. We missed the first few songs actually - he did go on a little early...

So, sometime during the show people started running up on to the stage to embrace Morrissey before they were dragged off the stage by bouncers. In general the count seems to be 'at least 10 people' and I saw the bouncer guys crouched and ready to run on either side of the stage.

I did notice that people who ran on the stage did get to return to the audience. I wasn't sure if those who got to embrace Morrissey were forever removed, but appears he took it in stride, even mentioning that this is as close as he gets to S E X. Makes me think of a good friend from my youth - Rachel - who grabbed Peter Murphy's (former front man of Bauhaus) crotch at a concert.

I wasn't there. I was grounded.

Some of the lyrics were changed to better suit the situation -

From the song "How Soon Is Now" the lyric
"See, i've already waited too long
And all my hope is gone"
became:
'See, i've already waited too long
And most my life is gone"

He also made a sarcastic / dry comment after the lyric:

"So you go, and you stand on your own
And you leave on your own
And you go home, and you cry
And you want to die"

Something to the effect that this was, of course, different from every other night out. Where you don't leave on your own. Right.

And the most interesting one to me was where this lyric:

"You could meet somebody who really loves you"

was changed to '....somebody who really likes you'.

Maybe he's just more realistic or more jaded about love?

Sometimes I forget about Morrissey and The Smiths, but when I do hear a song I realize I still know all the lyrics and I feel like I'm listening to the soundtrack of my youth. Some of it I miss, some of it I desperately want to forget. But Morrissey makes it all seem so tragically romantic.

I can't be the only one. It's been over 20 years for most of us and people are still throwing themselves onto the stage...

Squiggy's Big Adventure

Monday a week ago Squiggy went to the vet in Raleigh.

She started out in Chapel Hill that morning, I don't think Squiggy had ever been to Raleigh before. On the drive from Chapel Hill to Raleigh Squiggy's tummy started to bother her so she had to come inside when we got to my house so she could get cleaned up.

We picked up Tsu, and headed to the vet so Tsu and Squiggy could have their teeth cleaned.

Squiggy had to have four teeth taken out and had some pretty bad gum stuff going on. She was sent home with some painkillers, antibiotics and a new dental hygiene regimen.

Since Squiggy got her teeth cleaned she's been very nice to me. At least very nice in Squiggy land. She's still hissed a few times but she hasn't tried to bite me once. She has also started watching TV.

Dan has said that I switched out Squiggy for a clone. Recently he changed to saying that Squiggy had a lobodomy.

I just think that Squiggy feels better now that those teeth that were hurting her are out and she doesn't feel so grumpy.

Last week he sent me this comment from Squiggy: "I just want to ball up and lie down starring into space sometimes. Especially after dental surgery..."

***Update*** Dan says he misquoted Squiggy. "I just want to lie down and ball up starring into space sometimes. Especially after dental surgery..."

Good thing she decided to lie down before she balled up.