Long Awaited

A conversation on the Etsy forums reminded me that I've never posted my Phantom costume from two years ago. I happen to have a pic of me on the work computer that one of my coworkers took. Here it is! Ready for action!

YAWN

Renaissance festival opening Saturday was busy. Sunday less so. And hot. Yes, it was hot. Obscure muscles are sore. Like my shoulders, my back. Probably too much standing. And all the stuff that didn't get done this weekend will have to get done today. The yard needs mowing, the kitchen needs cleaning, the carpet needs vacuuming. My poor kitty begged and begged and begged that I not go to work today. That would have been nice.

No one ever got an operating permit for my septic system, which means it's currently illegal. Virginia laws are really stupid about it too. I have to have a contract with a licensed operator to periodically check the function of the system. I don't know how to find such an operator nor where the money is going to come from to pay for it. Joy. I was able to ignore this problem for most of the weekend, but it gave me a headache of doom on Friday. A neighbor of mine has the same septic system I have. I think I'm going to knock on their door and find out who they have.

Meet Charlotte

It's not the best picture since I had to enhance it for light, but isn't she beautiful?! She's a marbled orb weaver. Her body is this pinkish red and the tips of her legs are black and white striped. Her back is an off-white with that lovely black marbling. She's made her spectacular web right outside my living room window. At night, the gnats and flies are attracted to my living room light and they fly right into her web. I think we have a mutually beneficial arrangement going on. She gets the bugs for me, and my light brings lots of bugs to her. Win/win!

I didn't see her for a few days and got nervous, but she was only hiding in the corner. The afternoon sun shows right on the window and it must be too hot. She's usually building her web in the wee morning hours. There are two male marbled orb weavers on my porch. While they have similar markings, they're not as stunning because they're significantly smaller than the female.

Charlotte is one of my critters. As long as she stays outside, and there's no reason to come in with her prime web spot, she will be safe from Miss Luna. I have a spider!

It's OK to Laugh

Really, it is! The closet story is funny to me too! When I told people the story yesterday, I could feel my eyes tearing up. It wasn't because I wanted to cry over my broken closet, but that I could laugh myself to tears!

We got some spackle compound and some new hooks and I ended up with poles that brace on the floor instead of screw into the wall to hold the thing in place. I think that will work better and bear more weight.

Now, it’s just spackle, let dry, sand, cough up spackle dust, spackle again, let dry, sand, cough up more spackle dust, redrill one hole, replace the shelf. Done! Oh, and then wash spackle dust out of hair!

Don't Open the Closet

Do you remember those cartoons where the kid is told to clean his room and he just shoves everything into the closet and shuts the door, and then mom comes in and thinks everything looks good until she opens the closet and is buried in a landslide of stuff? Yeah....

Sometimes yesterday morning, I needed something from the closet in my bedroom. All of my closets are ClosetMaid wire racks, that is the shelf and the wire to hang stuff on. The closet in my bedroom has my clothes and a bunch of bathroom-type stuff like lotion, bandages, hairspray- the things I don't need every day and don't have room for in the bathroom. So, I got something out of it yesterday morning.

In the evening, I needed something from my closet. To this moment, I swear I have no idea what it was. When I opened the door all the stuff that was on the shelf came rushing at me! It seems that there was an installation error. The rack was anchored to the back wall of the closet, but should have had brackets at the front of the shelf on the sides for extra support. Since all the weight was at the front of the rack (where all the clothes were hanging) the thing just pulled right out of the wall, scraping along the sides and tearing it up as it went down. And since the door was closed, all the stuff just waited until I opened it, freeing the mess to invade the bedroom.

I wasn't home when the wall gave out. I'm sure it gave poor Miss Luna quite a start! I'm glad I wasn't there, though. I probably would have been standing by the door, holding a sword with the police on the phone, yelling at whoever was in my closet to come out. Well. Yeah.

I called mom because I don't even know where to begin to repair the wall. She, of course, doesn't know either, but it helped to talk about it. And laugh at the way the stuff within came tumbling out at me.

My dad is going to come by this evening and look at it and see what I'll need to fix it. I might get a different closet system for this one, more than just a rack. Only because I can. I checked the other two closets and they have the brackets that my bedroom closet was missing so I'm not worried about them. At least that wasn't the closet that Miss Luna sleeps in!

It Really Is Soft and Comfortable

The other day, I had closed the closet door and poor Miss Luna couldn't get in. Since I'm not ready to cut her off from her safe closet space yet, I opened the door so she could go in and sleep. A little bit later, I decided to see where she was sleeping, since I put the bed over her favorite spot and she never sleeps on the cat bed! Sure enough, there she was on the bed all curled up and cute, fast asleep until I disturbed her.

I'm gald she was using the bed, really. I haven't seen any new cuts on her, I think. Hopefully that means the snow shoes really were the problem and now that she's not sleeping right on them (I mean, she's still on them, but now there's a nice padded bed between her and spiky shoes) she'll stop getting scratched up.

I entered a contest a couple weeks ago and won my kitty a new cat toy! It should be here soon!

I'm Alive

I know, the last you heard from me was killer migraine. I'm really tired and I think I feel a cold coming on, but I'm alive!

Adolf didn't see my e-mail asking to go home until four hours after I sent it. It wasn't that bad, because the Excedrin finally kicked in. I was able to leave an hour early and got home just as my drugs were wearing off. Nice.

I'm still finding random wounds on Miss Luna, and evidence that she's scratching at the bad one on her side. A friend is going to come over this evening and hold her down while I trim her back claws. I'm not convinced the snow shoe was the culprit.

My neighbors behind me have two tiny white kittens, each with one little gray mark on their heads. They are so cute! I haven't met those neighbors yet, but I do watch the kittens when they're out. I think the big, mangy white tom is the father and the black and white that looks a lot like Miss Luna might be the mother. The kittens are probably flea-bitten, but they sure are adorable.

For Monday

I woke up yesterday from a very uneasy night with a stomach and head ache. I was able to get some work done and some mini books made for my new Gnomes (or, printed, at least) but the headache lingered. It was still with me this morning but, naturally, is now a full-blown migraine. I shouldn't have come to work today. It's hard to get anything done when it hurts to have your eyes open.

And then there's that migraine-induced nausea. Maybe I'll be able to last half a day and see if I can go home then. Maybe.

Because It Is Soft and Comfortable

I think I found the kitty cutting culprit. She likes to hide in a closet, there's only one closet that I will let her go in. Eventually, I want to close that door and force her to hide under my bed when she needs a hiding place but, for now, I left the closet open. I kept a little space on the right side free of stuff so she has room to sleep there. But, she doesn't sleep there; she sleeps on the left side on top of things like my folded-up camping chair and a few other things. I inspected that area and found she's been sleeping on my snowshoes! Because of all the straps and things, I've got them in there so one of them is pointy side up. How can that be comfortable?! I didn't see any evidence of pulled fur or blood, but that is the only explanation. They’re not even sharp blades or anything like that, but I really have no idea otherwise.

I put an old cat bed over it, assuring that she will never sleep there again. I don't know what that cat has against cat beds! But, at least it covers the spiky shoes.

I do hope that's it, because that means her cuts should heal up and she'll be fine. They're pretty bad cuts. It’s hard to see things through her long fur, but I was trying to inspect them last night and she was really unhappy with it. I know they’re hurting her. She squeaks if I’m petting her and just run my fingers over the spots. I hope this is it and the bed takes care of it until I close her out of the closet altogether.

Dangers of Home

Miss Luna has two big gashes on her right side. I thought the days of finding wounds on her were over, now that she's the only animal in the house. This is not the first time I found a cut on her since moving, but I thought the other one was an older wound. These two are fairly recent.

My cat does not go outside. Certainly no other animals are inside. There is one of two things happening here. Either Buffy is making some kind of contact when we visit my folks (and, even though she's a puppy, I really doubt this is is) or Miss Luna is getting into something at home that is cutting her. Like, jumping off of the cat tree and getting scratched on the corner of my desk. I don't think it's the desk, because it doesn't seem to be showing any evidence of having cut a cat with long black fur, but it might be something like that. She likes to sleep in the closet, but she doesn't sleep on the empty spot of floor that I left for her, she sleeps on a folded metal chair. Her cuts are on the right side (the last one was too). I wonder if there's something in that closet. I'm going to inspect it tonight.

I don't like wounds on my kitty!! I'll get to the bottom of this!