Wednesday, December 31, 2003
A few people have asked, so here's the situation with Ali Cat: she got a stay of execution. For now.
The background on the problem is that shortly after we moved into our new house in Fall 2002, and after we exorcised the Eau de Dimestore Granny air freshener favored by the previous owners, we found out that their weiner dogs had lacked bladder control for a long, long time. Translation: the dogs had peed all over the basement and main floor carpets. This, in turn, set off one of our cats (Ali) on the quest to thoroughly wet down any existing pet stains and add a few more of her own. We had wanted to replace the carpet anyway, so we had that done in early March, and figured that would stop the problem.
For some reason, Ali attacked the new basement carpet as if her measure of worth as a cat depended on soaking every inch with pee.
If you've ever been in a house where there have been kitty oopsies, you're all too familiar with The Smell. I grew up next door to a cat breeding family that was philosophically opposed to cleaning and didn't have airconditioning. In the summer, they would open the windows and the stink would hang in a humid cloud over their house and the two houses on either side. The cat family's last name was Chenenko, but the kids in the neighborhood always called them "CheSTINKo". By the end of this past summer, the Cheezwerks HQ cat pee situation was approaching Chestinko levels.
We finally quarantined Ali in two adjoining vinyl-floored basement offices while we launched repeated cleaning fits upon the carpet. (For the record, the smaller of the two adjoining offices is bigger than one and possibly two of the bedrooms in our house, so it's not like we stuffed her into an oubliette.) As of this week, it appears that the odor is largely gone. We're sealing the cement, replacing the padding and having the carpets treated in January. If that doesn't lead to 100% success in The Great Pee Stink Eradication War, we'll replace the basement carpet. Again.
The more complicated and emotionally charged issue has been what to do about Ali. Sean wants to "retrain" her; I want a guarantee that the cat will never pee on my carpets again. A neighbor of ours - who is sympathetic to my perspective - offered to take care of it for us using a method involving a pillowcase, a driveway and a moving vehicle. I probably shouldn't have laughed about that, except that she brought it up in front of another neighbor who is a dedicated Humane Society volunteer, and whom I've seen get teary-eyed about animal welfare issues on more than one occasion. He was probably horrified about poor Ali's prospects in our unforgiving, inhumane home. On the other hand, I notice he didn't volunteer to rescue and rehabilitate our cat...
In all fairness to Ali, the vet discovered that her urine was badly crystallized, which *could* be part of why she was going on the carpet. She has just completed a round of medication, has been switched from pine to clay-based litter and is on a restricted diet of a specially formulated kibble that costs approximately a month's mortgage per 3-pound bag. (I coulda beat Toby when I discovered - via his crack-addict act of suddenly appearing, smacking his lips, shifting his eyes and looking guilty, followed by a loud burp with that telltale cat kibble smell - that he had gobbled up an entire bowlful of Ali's food. This is the same dog who at age 3 STILL hasn't outgrown his fondness for litterbox "treasures", and who rarely sees the bottom of his own dish of kibble or experiences a night without a few juicy tidbits finding their way from our plates to his mouth, and therefore has absolutely NO PRACTICAL REASON to break into the offices to get to Ali's gold-plated food.) We are hoping that this clears up the medical problem, which might eventually lead to allowing her back into the carpeted areas of the house for a real test of the success of the treatment and rehabilitation efforts.
If not, I have the phone number for someone who can help us out with our cat problem, for roughly the price of a new pillowcase.
# posted by Amanda at 7:42 AM |
Monday, December 22, 2003
Holiday Update: The cards are all mailed (some with marginally coherent letter!), a few batches of cookies have been baked, the gifts are purchased and 85% wrapped, the artificial tree is assembled and decorated, and the Christmas dinner menu is planned. For an added show of holiday preparedness, we even tossed some multicolor lights around the trufula trees (topiaries, arboretum, ugly mishapen conifers; call them whatever you wish) in front of the house and declared that it might not be pretty, exactly, but by golly it's FESTIVE. And that's good enough for us.
Oh yeah, and the 'bina graciously posed for a holiday photo. Be glad that I've retired my usual holiday picture of Toby wearing reindeer antlers.
# posted by Amanda at 11:49 PM |
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Friday, December 19, 2003
The message from last night's fortune cookie: "You will make many changes before settling down happily."
# posted by Amanda at 7:28 AM |
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Wednesday, December 17, 2003
Congratulations, Jon and Colleen!!! Another Zete-AZD union! We couldn't be happier for you guys, and will certainly "save the date".
# posted by Amanda at 12:23 PM |
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In some circles (okay, all circles of polite society), this would be considered nasty and offensive and possibly obscene and it's really not an original concept, but dayummmm if I don't hate the H2 myself! It's purely a power trip on wheels.
# posted by Amanda at 12:11 PM |
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Tuesday, December 16, 2003
I've been draped in a crushing sense of loss all day for reasons I can't quite put my finger on. It's not about Ali's impending euthanization, nor the news of the death of a family friend, nor can I think of any other real occurence - personal or by association - that could logically explain this feeling. It's as if some part of a since-forgotten sad dream pulled forward from my sleeping mind and stayed with me today.
# posted by Amanda at 6:31 PM |
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Friday, December 12, 2003
My gawd. I do believe I am starting to absorb Southern Maryland culture. I saw one of those 21 [means 21] stickers on a Coors Truck at lunchtime, and my first thought upon seeing the number was, "Hmm, I wonder which NASCAR driver that is?"
# posted by Amanda at 12:31 PM |
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Thursday, December 11, 2003
It is a sad day in Amandaland. I have been admired and discarded in less than 12 hours.
This morning, one "Exulting F. Poodle" wrote to say "I saw your profile [random letters]". Only moments ago, "Lassoed E. Inhabitant" wrote with "My breakup letter to you [random letters]". I wasn't aware that we were dating, but I'll take his (her?) word for it.
Ah, fun with spam!
# posted by Amanda at 6:03 PM |
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Tuesday, December 09, 2003
Holy cow. I just experienced my first earthquake.
# posted by Amanda at 4:04 PM |
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Sunday, December 07, 2003
 Now that I'm back to burning the candle at both ends on Eastern Standard Time, here is the promised photo from the Twin Cities leg of my trip. Outside of the Marshall Field's in Minneapolis (yep, I shopped at three Marshall Field's locations in less than a week!), there is a statue of Mary Tyler Moore. A Salvation Army bellringer generously agreed to take a picture of Holly and me in front of the statue. He offered to pose with us afterwards, but we politely declined.
Minneapolis and St. Paul are nice places to visit, but it takes a special breed of person to live there. That breed is apparently "lesbian". I'm kidding...kind of...but I did notice and Holly and Chris confirmed that the Twin Cities seem to have a higher-than-average gay population. Perhaps that partially explains the abundance of cute little boutiques and other fine shopping establishments. The rest of the population explains the Mall of America. (Yes, I went there too.)
Anyway, as I was saying, life in the Northern Midwest is not for everyone. The temperature was in the 20's the days I visited, which to me is in the "localized Ice Age" range, while a dyed-in-the-wool Minnesotan would debate whether or not it's cold enough to zip up his coat. Consider that Holly and Chris didn't need a termite inspection on their new house because Minnesota is too cold for termites to survive, and that is really all I needed to hear to know that I will forever be just a visitor to that state.
The visiting, by the way, was fantastic. Catching up, shopping, eating, trash TV and more catching up---exactly the R&R I needed!
# posted by Amanda at 11:39 PM |
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Friday, December 05, 2003
Home again. Gimme a few days to sort through all the pictures of Chicago/Minneapolis/St. Paul; I promise to post one or two.
In the meantime, I'm recovering from the trip, as is Sean, as is Sophie (who stayed with Grammom and Granddad and cut her first two teeth while we were away). Getting out of Chicago was a story in and of itself.
I made the mistake of choosing style over comfort and wore a miniskirt and knee-high boots to the airport. These days, Airport Security suggests that ticketholders remove their shoes and send them through the x-ray machines, which necessitated the unzipping and yanking off of said knee-high boots, and then doing a balancing act on the other side of Security to put the boots back on. In my haste and irritation, I forgot until it was too late that not only was I wearing a very short skirt but also sheer tights and *ahem* minimal underoos, which basically meant that I mooned every passenger walking by as I bent over in very unladylike manner to put my boots back on. Thank yew for flying the friendly skies!
Let's skip past the part about getting to gate K17 only to be told that I needed to trek all the way back to gate K4, and how I tripped over one of those poles that hold the velvet ropes, and go right to boarding time. So there I was, sitting on the plane before takeoff, with my compulsive need to make unnecessary observations leading me to the rather morbid thought that the "first class" distinction is particularly ridiculous on an F-100 since it's not that much more spacious or comfortable than coach, and, let's face it, if there's a problem during the flight we're all going to bite it anyway, regardless of whether our seats are leather or polyester weave. I really need to train myself against getting into this frame of mind or perhaps partake of some strong barbituates before my next flight, because as we taxied out to the runway, the pilot suddenly announced that there was a problem with the plane requiring us to return to the gate. As it turned out, the "problem" was actually a "situation" involving the removal of a dark-skinned male passenger by a large grim-looking security official, followed by repeated searches of the aft lavatories by several visibly concerned security officials. According to the flight crew, the passenger in question did something at boarding time that made some of the airline personnel "uncomfortable". (I was sensing a lot of air quotes in the flight crew's explanation of things.) Rather than pull the guy aside right there at the gate, he was allowed to board the plane, where he apparently spent noteworthy time in the bathroom. Greeeeat.
Considering that I assume my standard flight persona, Princess Panic Attack, right about the time I step into the airport, I was not pleased by these events. Now, I have been on plenty of flights with annoying, weird, hygiene-optional and/or creepy people, but never have I been on a plane where the flight crew were so alarmed by a passenger that they had him removed. By the time the third security guy scurried down the aisle to the rear lavatories, I was debating the prudence of staying on the plane vs. standing up and demanding to disembark immediately. Finally deciding that causing a scene of any kind would not only get me removed from the plane as requested, but probably also detained and strip-searched under suspicion of being a complete freakin' psycho (even though anybody who caught my solo burlesque act at Security could attest to the fact that I wasn't even hiding things that should be concealed), I cinched my belt a little tighter, sweated a bit and hoped for the best.
And guess what? I made it to Minneapolis in one piece!
[Next post: notes and observations from St. Paul/Minneapolis]
# posted by Amanda at 9:36 PM |
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