Trip or Treat!

I really was going to hand out candy tonight. I even have a full bag left. And then, at the last minute, I realized that the entryway looks like this:

And this:

Whatever am I going to do with all the extra candy?

The Mother of Invention's Little Helper

Apparently Brandon had plans to use his level someday.

The Mother of Invention

The lock on the bedroom door was having issues today and couldn't be locked from the outside. When I expressed concerns about the cats getting in and messing with the freshly painted walls Brandon left it like this:

Yes, that's a gigantic level that is bungee corded to the handle.

Whatever works...

Write Out

Halloween is just around the corner, and though I haven't quite finished off all the candy I'd planned to give out to the non-existent trick-or-treaters that means there are only a few more days before the beginning of NaNoWriMo.

"The World Needs Your Novel" is pretty much the funniest lie I've ever heard, but I'll be working on my own 50,000 words along with a whole bunch of other people. In the past year or so I've made an effort to make it a more social thing because... why not? I've planned write-ins at the local coffee shop a few Saturdays and of course I was the only one to ever show up. All this is to say I have a history of leading the world's loneliest write-ins.

The county's NaNoWriMo municipal liaisons asked me if I'd be willing to continue doing write-ins during November for people in my fair city. I'm sure the vast majority of the people doing NaNoWriMo in this county are attached to the university ten miles away, but there are probably a couple in Woodland. I agreed. They were already having write-ins in Davis on Saturdays, so I agreed to move mine to Sundays to give people more options.

Then I looked at the NFL schedule and it turns out that there are two home games that I need to be working during November and they are both on Sundays.

So, yes, I may actually be hosting write-ins that absolutely nobody, not even me, attends.

Bow down before my awesome social skills!

Just Make It Pretty!

As part of my job I wrote a web site that includes the layout of a convention center. Apparently (and multiple people have told me this is true, so I sort of have to believe it) people pay money to join large crowds of idiots and visit both the Super Bowl trophy and some rings. Seriously. I despair for the human race.

Anyhow, the web site allows the engineers to monitor a bunch of things so they can make changes if something goes wrong. (Or at least, if something went wrong fifteen to twenty minutes ago -- it's not exactly real time...) It has colors and numbers and all sorts of things to make it useful. For monitoring, you understand.

Now my boss is much more concerned with aesthetics than I am. If I make a chart of some data it will be correctly labeled (with units!) and have useful axes. If he makes a chart of the same data it will be correctly labeled, have useful axes, use a soothing color scheme, and have a nice font. He has been known to call my charts ugly. I'd definitely use his charts if I had to do a presentation. On the other hand, both charts say the same thing, so who really cares? (Answer: he does.)

So when the engineers asked me to indicate on the convention center where the stupid trophy and rings would be, I added two labels. One said "trophy room". The other said "ring room". I thought that was the end of it... but no.

Boss: Can you make them icons? Put a picture of the trophy here and the ring there.

Me: There's no room. It will end up on top of the text. You know, the text that actually does something useful on the page.

Boss: Just move the text down a little bit.

Me: We can't put a picture of the ring on there. The Super Bowl ring has the winning team's logo on it, so we don't know what it will look like until after the game is over. (I googled this ahead of time -- I went into this argument prepared!)

(A five minute discussion follows about which team logo would annoy the top brass the most. Now there are six guys standing around talking about which team they hate the most. I reflect on the good fortune that I have no immediately available method of suicide.)

Boss: Just use a picture of a wedding ring.

Me: I'm not putting a picture of a wedding ring on there.

Boss: Engineer A will send you a picture to use.

Me: *rolls eyes and walks away*

February can't be here soon enough...

That's _Dr._ Magoo To You

One of the great things about my dog is that she's easy to make fun of and I don't have to feel bad when I do.

When she jumps three feet sideways and bruises my leg because she didn't hear a jogger coming up behind us, I get to laugh. And that time she went on alert and tried to attack a rabbit lawn ornament -- pure comedy gold.

But you know that saying about people and their pets resembling each other? Yeah... Today we were on our morning walk and I saw a woman with a big dog crossing the street at the corner a few houses away. So I did my usual routine of stopping and distracting the little dog who is intent on proving how tough she is as long as I've got a leash on her to hold her back. Sit, treat, touch, treat, point, treat, down, treat, etc.

Meanwhile the woman ahead of us has finished crossing the street, but she's just standing there, presumably letting her dog sniff all the wonderful smells at the corner house. Now if you have a dog you know there's an unspoken rule that if you see another dog and they are clearly waiting for you to get further away, you're not supposed to dawdle. So I'm getting a little irritated when thirty seconds have passed and this damn woman is still standing there. I've run out of tricks for the little dog to do, and I'm about to run out of treats as well.

And that was the point that I realized I'd been waiting for a bush to walk away. In my defense it wasn't fully light yet, it was a tad foggy, and I wasn't wearing my glasses, but still...

Yeah.

Freaks

Since this remodel involves a lot of wall and door moving, there has been a fair amount of sawing. Generally there's one guy inside the house telling one guy outside the house how long to cut the next piece. Then the guy outside makes the lights flicker for a minute or so. Finally, the guy outside passes the correctly-cut board through the window and starts working on the next one.

All of this means that they've set up a work space on the side of the house. I do most of the tree trimming, so everything is cut back to the point that a person of reasonable height (i.e., 5'5") can walk from the gate all the way around the house without stooping.

However, for the freaks who had an oversupply of growth hormone during childhood (i.e., everyone over 5'5" which includes every single one of the contractors) there are a few spots that are a little challenging, most notably right inside the gate where the looks-like-a-juniper-but-isn't-one grows and right outside the master bedroom where they've chosen to set up the table saw (or band saw or whatever the heck it is -- we didn't have a shop class at my high school and if we did they probably wouldn't have allowed girls to take it).

So for three weeks now they've been bringing boards through the gate and then going through various contortions to get back to the spot they've chosen to use as the work space. And my computer is set up three feet from the window that overlooks the gate so I'm sitting right there watching.

As amusing as this has been, today I decided to take pity on them and cut back the not-a-juniper. I mean, I hate that tree. It's ugly and it drops brown needle-leaves that get tracked into the house all year long. I'm planning on having it taken out the next time I have the trees professionally trimmed.

It really has been fun to watch, though...

Contractor Graffiti

I guess when you need to remember to do something about this:

and this:

you write yourself a note:

The Things We Do For... Treats

If you have been into a grocery store in the last decade you have seen these:

 I'm not really sure what is in them because I refuse to read the ingredients. They may have the souls of all of the unbaptized babies that died after Vatican II and no longer have a Limbo to go to as far as I know.

 They look and smell sort of like an even cheaper version of those horrid pepperoni sticks I ate as a child because ... processed food! I wouldn't eat these things now even if I ate meat. Or dog treats. Or meat dog treats.

 The first time the little dog had a small piece she had diarrhea for an entire day. And yet I buy them. Because they work. They take a little dog that has important smells to smell and things to check out and suddenly she's channeling her inner Border Collie on Ritalin and she's going in a serpentine over jumps and I'm just thinking about what direction she should go in and she's there.

(The bag has been on the counter less than 30 seconds and has already attracted three cats.)

So anyhow, yes, Pupperoni are awful and the rancid grease they leave on my fingers is just nasty. Ginger's not a particular fussy eater, and she will eat other treats. But when she's distracted, it's time to pull out the Pupperoni. Because I like to win.

On Your Marks...

While I thought I was just trying to get my bathroom remodeled, apparently the cats decided it's a contest to see if they could get rid of all of the blue tape that's holding down the floor covering before the contractors are finished with it.

Ripley tends to rip off a piece and chew on it when he's trying to irritate me. It's true, I swear. He only does it when I'm nearby and it's within an hour or so of a mealtime. The only other time he messes with the tape is when he's locked in the safe room and he's reaching under the door.

Lately, though, he's enlisted Scooter's help, and of course Scooter is helping in the only way he knows how. He peed on the strip of tape near the front door. I fully expect that behavior to continue despite the seven litter boxes that are cleaned daily.

At this point it looks like the contractors may have the edge. But an extra-hungry Ripley or a thirsty Scooter could really turn this into a tight race...

It Really Is Fall

Because you can never have too much butternut squash...

Yes, somehow I managed to get five in my CSA box. I think they doubled up a couple of them because they're pretty small. Expect my skin to be orange the next time you see me.

Told You So

According to a study published in the American Journal of Family Therapy, the average elementary school student receives three times as much homework as is necessary for their age group. Even worse? Most of it isn’t really that helpful. Denise Pope, a Stanford University education professor told Today Parents, “The only type of homework that’s proven to be beneficial for elementary school students is free reading.” (http://www.scarymommy.com/viral-note-gives-fantastic-excuse-for-not-finishing-homework/)

I rest my case.

Also, here is a picture of my little dog proving that she's still bigger than the puppy next door (even though she's not). Clearly I didn't take it or it would be blurry and only half of one dog would be in the frame. Still, they're pretty cute together.

(Photo credit: Jill Plumb)

Question of the Day

Why do box springs have a thin fabric covering on the bottom that's essentially a thick spider web?

All it's good for is providing the cats a place to hide that I have to work to get them out of. I'm getting a little tired of rolling around on the floor every morning reaching under the bed in order to grab Scooter. And he's probably not too happy about the fact that I scruffed his butt instead of his neck last week because visibility was poor and all I could see was a bundle of fur.

If I were a better pet owner I would work on getting Scooter to show up when called like all the other cats. But instead I'll probably just end up cutting off the rest of the fabric on the bottom of the box springs...

Give Me Back My Ignorance!

The problem with letting a competent general contractor into your house is not that he will tell you about all of the things that he is going to do, but that he will tell you about all of the things that he isn't going to be doing that need to be done.

I'm capable of ignoring almost any problem if I have enough time to rationalize it away. That's not really a positive trait, but it does allow me to live in a house that was crappily built in 1958 and then had fifty years of neglect and abuse applied.

Then Brandon comes in and looks at the floor, and the crawlspace, and the attic, and everything else and tells me things like this:

• My pipes are galvanized. Apparently that's something that contractors refer to as "bad". It also explains why I have to take off all the faucet aerators every once in a while and wash out all the chunks of metal that are keeping the water from coming out. The good news is that they can replace all the pipes under the house. The bad news is that because the pipes are under the house, they will need to be replaced with copper pipes. Since people are getting electrocuted trying to steal copper wire, I'm guessing copper pipe is somewhat expensive...
• The tub is leaking.
• The toilet is probably leaking, too.
• One side of the house drops off an inch in the last five feet. (To be fair, I'd actually noticed this problem even though I tried to believe I was making it up.) That could be "bad" or maybe just not that good, depending on what is causing it. The current theory is subsidence. If it doesn't change any more it's just a flaw that adds character to the house. If it keeps moving, my not-yet-installed beautiful tiled floor in the bathroom will probably crack although Brandon is going to do a bunch of stuff to try to keep that from happening.
• Also, the other side of the house drops off a bit as well.
• Even though I only noticed a leak in the roof in one spot before I had the roof replaced a couple of years ago, apparently it was leaking a little bit all over the place. That's "bad". We think it's all fixed now, but since it hasn't really rained since the roof was replaced, we'll just have to trust that it's all good and that the new ceiling won't be destroyed.

Home ownership -- it's a great way to save for retirement!

The Hiding Closet

Now the hall bathroom (aka, the working bathroom) has a different hole in the wall. At least this time it doesn't communicate directly with the master bedroom.

The white area on the left is where the old linen closet (now the new master shower) was. The new hole to the right is where the new closet is going to be. And just to the right of that is the door from the bathroom into the hallway.

So right now, you go into the bathroom and the big hole in the wall is hidden by the open door. And then you go further into the bathroom and turn around and that's when you notice that there's a hole in the wall.

Now if you're me, you walk back every time and look into it because it's the perfect space for someone to be hiding. I mean, I'm pretty sure Ginger would let me know if there was anyone else in the house (since she's been letting me know that non-stop all week), but still... I'm paranoid. Oh well.

Anyhow, you can see that the stress is really affecting Guido...

Maybe She'll Learn Basket Weaving At Camp

So it turns out that I can concentrate on work just fine through all the dust and various construction noises, slamming front door, that one contractor who at least a few times a day asks "Are you kidding me?" when he's trying to do something that isn't working out, and power outages to the kitchen because they keep forgetting that they can't run the saw and the air compressor on the same circuit at the same time. What I can't deal with is the little dog doing a short bark/howl at least once a minute for hours on end.

It wasn't a problem last week. When I talked to the site manager last Tuesday morning he said that on Monday she'd either quieted down quickly or he'd tuned out the noise. The rest of the week she would bark a bit in the morning when people came into the house, and then she was quiet the rest of the day.

This week... not so much.

On Tuesday when she kept barking I thought it was because she was wound up from being attacked during our walk earlier. (The big dog from down the street got out of his yard and attacked her as we were going in our gate. Ginger was fine -- her hair was wet from saliva but I couldn't find any punctures. I pulled her back out of the yard and slammed the gate, trapping the other dog inside, then I went down the street and pounded on their door hard enough that it opened and I not-very-calmly informed the guy that he needed to come get his dog and fix his fence. I didn't attack him. See, I showed restraint!) Anyhow, I gave her the benefit of the doubt on Tuesday.

Wednesday she kept barking, but since the contractors were gone for a large part of the day it didn't matter. Also, the work passed the rough inspection, so -- progress!

Today even the ridiculousness of having another inspection (to count the number of nails/screws fastening the drywall) one day after the previous inspection failed to make her tolerable. I put up with it for about three hours and then caved and took her to doggy daycare.

If they had doggy daycare at the gym, I might even exercise...

Slip Sliding Away...

Did I say I was going to update the blog every day during October? A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds and all that.

I'm going to blame the day off on the fact that in an incredibly graceful (and possibly ironic, although I can never remember the correct meaning of the word) moment, I severely decreased my potential energy during agility class. For those who didn't pay attention in physics, that means I fell.

It was a fine sliding fall, worthy of being filmed, and the only saving grace is that it wasn't being filmed or I'm sure someone would have a link to it in facebook by now. The course went from the teeter to a jump and then a sharp turn to the A-frame, and the dog made the sharp turn and I didn't. He's a service dog, though, so he stopped halfway up the A-frame to make sure I was okay. There was a little reproach in his gaze, too, because he really likes running full tilt over the A-frame. Yes, the dog was trying to make me feel guilty.

It's not really a good excuse for not updating the blog, though, since I didn't really feel the effects until this evening. Luckily I fell on a well-padded portion of my body. Hm. That describes most of it. I guess I'm just lucky I didn't fall on my head.

Anyhow, that's my excuse and I'm sticking with it. Tomorrow I'll be back to telling more remodeling stories.

Unless I forget again.

Get Off My Lawn! (part 47)

When did it become required to decorate your house with orange lights for Halloween starting at the end of September?

I mean, sure, I can see going with a Fall theme -- a few pumpkins, a gourd or two, maybe a sheaf of wheat. It's time to celebrate the harvest, after all.

But when half the neighborhood puts up orange Christmas lights (or red, or purple, or in one particularly nightmarish scenario, red and orange and purple) on ever exposed surface of the house along with the odd outline of a group of bats, I cry foul. Not fowl, because that would mean turkeys are involved and that's back to the harvest festival idea.

Anyhow, that's today's rant. Harrumph.

Did Someone Say More Tape?

Because it's not bad enough that I have to be all ready for the contractors to show up by 7am (which rules out rolling out of bed at 7:30 since the cats, birds, and dog need to be fed and safely locked up before anyone else gets there), I have to deal with the sound of tape being pulled off the floor protection in the middle of the night.

It's hard to get a good picture of a black cat rolling around on the floor if you have my photography skills, but what you should be able to see are all the little pieces of blue painter's tape that used to be holding down the sides. And you can't even see how much he has pulled up, chewed on, and left connected.

I can't even imagine what the contractors are going to think when they get here tomorrow...

The Scooter Spot

 This is Scooter (sleeping):


In the cat safe room he has

• Two window sills
• Two large cat trees
• Three litter boxes
• One cat carrier (which is a prized spot for the cats since all of them were bottle-babies who were carted back and forth to school in a carrier)
• An empty chest
• A large box with blankets

This room should be cat heaven. It looks so cozy, I want to spend my days in there.

And this is the 12 inch by 6 inch spot where he spends his days (with the closet door closed):

There's really only so much I can do...

Day 5: I Really Can Complain About Anything

So my front door hasn't closed or opened easily for... oh, maybe a year or two, I'm not really sure. I guess at some point it sagged and wasn't lined up with the frame. I got used to lifting up on the knob and throwing my shoulder against it, so all that I really noticed was the shriek of metal on metal if I didn't lift it high enough. And I only noticed that if it was late at night.

It only took the contractors three days before that annoyed them enough that they stopped for a few minutes and fixed it.

And boy is it fixed. It's got a perfectly equal margin all the way along the frame. It closes like a dream, and when I open it there's no resistance so I have a hard time believing it was really closed in the first place.

The only problem, and I really hate to mention it, is that now it closes so easily that it can also be slammed really easily. Not the "I hate you so I'm storming out of the room and you'd better notice!" slam, but the "I just need to go grab some other tool from the truck and I'll let the door close behind me" slam. My house's construction being what it is, walking out the door and letting the door close behind you shakes the entire frame.

Yeah, today was spent: working...[slam]...working...[slam]...[slam]..working...[slam].

They need to stop randomly fixing things.

Day Four: I Can't Think Of A Clever Title

Good news! No more hole in the wall into the other bathroom. Also, no more hole in the floor. This picture is looking from the master bedroom into what will be the master bathroom. The other bathroom is on the other side of that nice new wall.

No more ugly wallpaper. (And the room isn't really any more cluttered than it was when my stuff was in there.)

Of course, now there's a hole in the ceiling.

 The hallway no longer has two doors to bungee together to keep Guido out since one is gone completely.

However, Brandon, the site manager, has taken on the challenge. I'm pretty sure he thinks I'm insane, but he's been figuring out ways to keep the unlockable door closed, like this:

In other news, Scooter spent his third consecutive day in the closet. Unfortunately that's where I put everything that I didn't want him to have access to. So... yeah, my planning was a little off.

It's been a little noisy, but really the only thing that bothered me is when they started playing The Beatles. Next time I need to write some music limits in the contract...

Day 3: Yeah, Sure, Go Ahead

Things are settling into a routine, more or less. It really is amazing how easy it is to concentrate on work despite the noise. At one point there was a band saw going, a compressor driving a nail gun, and then a fire truck passed by so Ginger started howling along. I think I know why my next door neighbors went to Reno for a couple of days.

The great thing about having a house with two bathrooms is that you can remodel one while still having the other available. The old linen closet in the big bathroom is being sacrificed to make a space for the shower in the other bathroom, but they've had the closet doors taped shut for the last few days to keep down the dust.

Today I was working along and the Diet Coke finally made its way through me. They'd had the water off for a while earlier in the day so I asked the guy working in the hallway if it was okay to use the bathroom. "Sure," he said, "go ahead."

So I went into the bathroom and carefully closed the door behind me.

And only then noticed that the linen closet doors had been removed, so I had a great view of the other bathroom and the master bedroom (nicely lighted by work-lamps) through the four foot wide hole in the wall of the bathroom.

Maybe I could move into my neighbors' garage for a while...

Day 2: Obviously We Just Need More Tape

So I told my contractor the story of Guido outsmarting me with the doors, and he laughed. And then he left the hall doors like this today when he was done:

He seems to think that's going to stop Guido. I'm just hoping that the sound of ripping tape will give me enough warning to stop the little bastard before he gets through the hole in the floor on the other side.

In other news that should shock nobody given everything else that has gone on with the house, it turns out that when the house was built there was no hot mopping done to protect the floor beams under the shower from water. Hence the new hole in the floor.

Also, Scooter managed to get stuck in the closet in the cat safe room today. I don't know about that cat...

Bathroom Remodel, Day 1: It Begins

Have you ever had that dream where you suddenly realize that there's an extra door in your house, and you explore that other part of your home that you never noticed in five years of living there? Yes? Well don't tell me about it. Nobody wants to hear anybody else's dreams. Even your therapist makes you write them down in a journal so they don't have to listen to it.

Anyhow, I locked up the cats and the dog before I left for work, and when I came home my bedroom was missing a wall and was suddenly 25% bigger. Very surreal.

As you know, I've spent a lot of time trying to keep the furry denizens of the home safe and sane during this remodel. Below you can see the thick cardboard (held down by blue tape) that the contractor put down to protect the hardwood floors. And halfway up the picture, just behind Ripley's butt, you can see the roll of heavy plastic that I've put down to protect the thick cardboard that is protecting the hardwood floors. Because Scooter...

Here is what has gone on since I've been home:

• Before letting the cats out of their panic room, I went to change the door knob on the master bedroom because Guido can open the lever knobs, so I was going to swap it out for a round knob to keep him out of the construction area. Then I realized that the new knob included the little strip of metal that fits into the outside of the door so you can unlock it after your two year old locks itself in the bedroom. I didn't need to change the door knob -- I could just lock the existing knob from the outside and shazam, I was done!
• I let the cats out.
• Ripley immediately started trying to eat the duct tape I had used to secure the protective plastic floor covering. Nothing deters him. He's obsessed.
• Scooter nonchalantly wandered the hallway looking for a good spot. So far he hasn't done anything, but the night is still young.
• It took Guido about two minutes to realize that the bedroom door might be locked, but the hallway closet door (which doesn't have a lock) now goes into the bedroom. I had access to the construction plans and looked at the bedroom and this never occurred to me. If he had opposable thumbs Guido would take over the world.
• Crow is now my favorite cat.
• Ginger is tired, by which I infer that she spent the whole day barking and throwing herself at the door. But maybe I'm wrong. (I'm not wrong.)
• I've blocked the formerly-known-as-a-closet door in the hallway for the night, but tomorrow I guess I get to replace a door knob after all. *shakes fist* Damn you, Guido!

Now I just need to make sure everyone is back in their safe places by 7am...

Did You Miss Me?

Wow, I was really on a roll there for a whole two days. Still, that's one day longer than 99% of the blogs on blogger. Go ahead, do a random search.  Most of them end with a post that says something like "Gosh, I've been neglecting the blog lately. I'm going to make it a point to do regular updates from now on!" And then there is nothing more.

I've spent the last two days emptying out closets. During the bathroom remodel the gigantic linen closet in the bathroom is going to become part of the shower in the other bathroom, and the hall closet and what was the furnace closet are going to be re-purposed. My original plan was just to take the stuff within those three and chuck it all in the closet in the master bedroom. But I decided to have them install a light and re-paint the bedroom (since the ceiling and wall will be torn up anyhow), so then I had to also empty out the master bedroom closet.

A lot of the stuff just got shoved into the garage, but I did go through some boxes in the hall closet. Here's what I learned:

• Damn, I'm a terrible photographer. I had roll after roll of poorly lighted blurry pictures of things that aren't completely in the frame. Seriously. It's embarrassing. And why was I even keeping all of those?
• I have a one pound note from the Bank of Scotland.
• I need to stop buying Christmas lights just because they're on sale. I don't even decorate for Christmas. What is my problem?

I solved the storage problem by throwing most of it out. (I kept the one pound note and the Christmas lights though, just in case.)

Anyhow, tomorrow starts the adventure of trying to round up four cats into one room. It's like managing programmers or something...

Puppy Post!

The little dog and I went next door to play with the cute puppy this evening.

First I'd like to say that I don't have any pictures of the cute puppy, because I didn't bring my camera. Or my phone. I'm old. I just don't get the whole photograph-everything-and-share-it-with-the-world mentality. (Yes, I realize that one could make a snide comment about making such a statement on a public blog.)

So instead of a picture of the cute puppy, here's a picture of my little dog instead. It's not a particularly recent picture because 1) see above, and 2) every time I try to take a picture of her, she acts like I'm about to beat her, so I have about twenty pictures of an abused-looking dog, and then this one:

Anyhow, here's what the cute puppy did while we were there:

• Tried really, really hard to get Ginger to play with him. Ginger mostly ignored him, although she did get into play mode twice for about two seconds.
• Played fetch with me using a lemon (because he didn't have any toys for me to throw and the lemon was on the ground).
• Dug in the dirt.
• Dug in the compost pile.
• Dug in the gravel pile.
• Climbed into the chicken's (full) water bucket.
• Tried to get me to play fetch using a big piece of something he pulled from the compost pile. I declined. I wasn't born yesterday, puppy.
• Ate feathers blowing around the yard from the molting chicken.
• Ate chunks of the big piece of something he pulled from the compost pile.
• Tried to get Ginger to play with him some more.

A fun time was had by all, except possibly Ginger who was sitting at the gate waiting to go home.

October Begins

It has come to my attention that I've been neglecting my blog. Or to be more accurate, somebody noticed that I've been neglecting the blog. (I already knew.)

As everyone knows, the only way to make up for neglect is go overboard and spend all of your time with the neglected person/object. So I'm going to make an effort to blog daily all through October. That will help me prepare for NaNoWriMo next month. Building the writing muscle and all that.

Also, the fall television offerings have been a complete loss so far, so I should have extra time.

The good news is that I should have all kinds of things to blog about this month because the master bathroom remodel is scheduled to start on Monday and then it will be four weeks of surprises and disasters as my house is torn apart and put back together.

For example, I found out yesterday during the scheduled-but-nobody-told-me-about-it pre-construction meeting that they will be laying down a strip of heavy paper from the front door, through the living room, down the hall, and into the master bedroom in order to protect the hardwood floor. That would be great except for this:

Yes, that's Scooter. He's adorable. He also has a fetish for peeing on paper and plastic. So in his view they're about to put down a twenty-foot litterbox for him to use.

October ought to be just awesome.