domestic scenes

#Caturday hijinks in four acts

/ Tracy Abell / 4 Comments

Marcel climbs on top of the scratching post to avoid his brother who wants to beat him up, then briefly stares down at Loki before smacking him on the head.

       

Loki then tries to storm the castle by clawing his way up the scratching post. Marcel looks on with calm detachment as Loki eventually loses his grip and falls back to the floor where he stares in frustration at his brother. So close and yet so far, Loki.

       

Just as quickly as the kerfluffle began, it was over. Both cats are now napping and all is well this Caturday.

Sunday Confessional: I just unpacked a box from my 1996 move

/ Tracy Abell / 9 Comments

Today I finally, finally cleaned out our storage room. It’s been on my radar for years, but every time I went in to start I’d immediately feel overwhelmed and quit. A huge part of my problem is that it’s SO HARD for me to get rid of perfectly good stuff.

For example, what was in that box from 1996? The label read “Scratch paper.”

An entire box filled with various types of paper: loose-leaf notebook paper, stationary, index cards, note pads, scratch pads, the LOST DOG flyers we made for a friend’s dog who disappeared on our watch, old lesson plans, brand new folders, labels, classroom handouts, etc.

I’d never been able to get rid of it because every time I peeked inside that box I thought about the woman who taught in the room next to mine telling me about traveling to another country where paper was so precious people would smooth out envelopes that arrived in the mail and write letters on the insides. How could I recycle all that perfectly good paper?

Well, today I got tough. Probably not as tough as I should’ve been (because I kept about one-quarter of the paper), but it was a fine start.

And look what gem I uncovered. I love me some vultures and that little pic on the bottom corner of the note pad cracked me up. But is that joke worth a 23-year stay in my basement?

Sunday Confessional: I’m having more fun than Marcel

/ Tracy Abell / 2 Comments

Soon after adopting feline brothers Marcel and Loki in October of 2013, son Zebu vowed to buy me a baby sling to carry our loving, snuggly cats. Despite my frequent reminders of his promise to me, years went by with no sling. And then this past Mother’s Day, Zebu surprised me. It’s safe to say he also surprised Marcel.

This photo was taken in May during Marcel’s initial and longest stint in the sling. But you can tell by his ears that he’s less than thrilled with the situation. I tried putting his brother in it last night and he wasn’t having it. At all. And then Marcel humored me for all of fifteen seconds before escaping.

Maybe they’ve figured out it’s technically a sling for small dogs and are philosophically opposed to debasing their royal cat selves.

Or maybe they just really, really don’t want me carrying them around like babies.

Equilibrium restored

/ Tracy Abell / 6 Comments

Elder son Wildebeest came home for a visit last week along with a friend’s dog. When Wildebeest initially asked if Little Miss could come, I worried about her chasing the cats. But because my son and the doggo adore each other and because Little Miss’s human went on vacation without her, I told Wildebeest to bring her. I’d protect the cats as best I could.

Well, Little Miss is a very small dog. She’s essentially a furry football. Plus, she’s ten years old and more interested in snuggling and naps than chasing anyone. Instead it was Loki, my shy cat who’s afraid of birds and studies insects from a respectful distance, who was the aggressor. We tried hard to keep the peace between them, but multiple times over the past week Loki cornered and then chased her. Each time after it happened, Little Miss quivered in fear. Last night, Loki snuck up to where Little Miss was snuggled in Wildebeest’s lap and smacked her hard with his paw. I heard the frightened yelp from the basement. By that point, all the humans in the house were fed up with Loki’s bullying behavior. We were on #TeamLittleMiss and wondering what in the hell was wrong with the cat.

Well, Wildebeest and Little Miss headed home this morning and an hour or so after they’d left, Loki sat outside my writing room door and cried. I let him in and draped him over my shoulder. He immediately rubbed his head against my cheek and purred. And purred. And purred. As I held him, my frustration evaporated. I hadn’t consulted him before inviting a strange dog into our home and I have no idea what transpired in his life before we adopted him. Maybe he’d once been terrorized by a furry football. In any case, our reconciliation lasted about ten minutes and then Loki wanted to get down. I let him out of my writing room and got back to work. I’m guessing my handsome and loving kitty went to take another nap.

Equilibrium restored.

Twofer Tuesday: bedroom sightings

/ Tracy Abell / 4 Comments

I noticed a stately beetle on the screen and went for the camera. After taking several photos, I turned and saw sleepy doggo on the bed. *click*

 

 

 

 

 

 

Not exactly a National Geographic photo safari, I admit. However, these two images offer an accurate depiction of this household. Various creatures napping, chilling, and just hanging out. I’m okay with the lack of giraffes and rampaging rhinos.

 

Dessert is served

/ Tracy Abell

We’re having friends and family over for dinner. As always, Zippy’s doing the heavy lifting in the food preparation department. But I stepped up and offered to make dessert.

Aesthetically pleasing while also easy-peasy. Plus, I completely stole the idea from our friend’s dinner last week. I’m nothing if not a domestic goddess.

 

Hooping for international relations

/ Tracy Abell / 4 Comments

Our friend Susan came to visit today before she flies across the pond to officially begin life in London. (She now has a visa and is totally legit!) Anyway, she and I are hooping buddies from way back and we try to hoop together whenever we can. It turns out I can’t embed video on my site, so I encourage you to play “Ooh La La” from Goldfrapp while perusing these stills from our afternoon session:

The final two photos show our hoops colliding which brought shrieks of laughter and big, big smiles. Our hooping technique may be suspect, but our passion and enthusiasm are real.

Love and hugs to Susan as she embarks on her grand adventure!

Sunday Confessional: I miss Zoey and am also glad she’s gone

/ Tracy Abell

As Zippy and Zebu watch football right now, this photo from my phone reminds me of another recent football Sunday. On that day in November, Zoey and Emma were Zippy’s (napping) football buddies.

It’s been almost two months since we said goodbye to Zoey and I must confess her absence has been easier to handle than witnessing her decline. I’m grateful for the years we had together and thankful she’s no longer suffering pain and confusion. (Bonus: she’s also free of all Broncos games!)

Happiness is . . .

/ Tracy Abell

Zippy and I ran around the neighborhood with Emma this morning. Lots of sunshine. The rest of the day was filled with NBA basketball viewing plus a last-minute decision to bake cookies. We had (just barely) the ingredients for oatmeal raisin cookies and I made those while the games played in the background. Wildebeest and Emma napped together partway through the afternoon. Zebu went downstairs to shower in preparation for a family photo, but that was a couple hours ago and we haven’t seen him since. My best guess is he’s now napping, too.

Pretty much an ideal day.

Sunday Confessional: it’s not my fault my kitchen’s clean

/ Tracy Abell

As the morning sun illuminated our cooktop, I realized the gas burner grates were beyond hope of ever being truly clean again. They were blackened by heat, grease, and speckled with intermittent spots of cooked-on gunk. (Yeah, I’m not proud. Sunday confessional, remember?) I went online and found a set of four grates for $77 plus shipping. I told Zippy I wanted to order them. He insisted he could get the grates looking good again.

His online research said to submerge the grates in a pot of water and baking soda and bring the water to a boil then let it sit for a half-hour. He filled our six-gallon soup pot with water, baking soda, and submerged two grates in the concoction. The water boiled. The grates soaked. Some gunk dissolved. Zippy removed those grates and added the other two to the same batch of water. Then, because he was afraid the recipe would be weaker the second time around, he added more baking soda to the boiling water.

Chemical reaction, yo.

Those six gallons of boiling water instantly turned to foam that overflowed the soup pot like one of those vinegar-and-baking-soda science fair volcanoes. A blue-ribbon, first place science fair volcano. Foam flooded the cooktop and countertop, poured into the drawers and down the cabinets on its way to swamping the floor. So. Much. Water. The waves were practically whitecaps as they surged across the kitchen.

Do you have any idea how difficult it is to clean up baking soda?

Suffice to say, every surface was wiped down MANY times (with a final vinegar rinse). As a result, the kitchen floor, which was way past due for a mopping, is now cleaner than it’s been in some time. The cabinet doors also look better and the drawers are tidier and less cluttered.

However, I wouldn’t go so far as to call our watery catastrophe a win. The foam seeped into the cooktop and now one of the burners is forever dead. The old linoleum flooring is permanently scarred because of the boiling water and baking soda. Also? About an hour after the cleanup was over, I was making my smoothie next to the sink when I heard running water. Weird. I hadn’t turned on the faucet. Where was the sound coming from? And then my bare foot was wet.

Water was running out of the cabinet below the sink.

Busted pipe. More specifically, one old corroded pipe that couldn’t handle the pressure of baking soda and vinegar dumped down the drains during the cleanup. After Zippy’s many colorful words, his trip to the hardware store and new pipe installation, and his final mopping episode, I asked my exhausted spouse if he wished he’d gone along with my plan to spend $77 plus shipping for four new grates.

He said no. I kid you not.

Abandonment issues

/ Tracy Abell

I went outside with my camera to find something interesting to post and came across a whole lot of stuff stashed on the patio below our deck. This is just a sampling of what’s there. A long-dead garden hose. Zebu’s bike that he can’t ride for another 3-4 months when he’ll be fully recovered from ACL/meniscus surgery. A broken piece of flagstone. Two sawhorses.

Is there a better place for all that stuff? Probably. But in our defense, those piles of pine needles and leaves found the way there all on their own.  And I’m holding onto a slim hope the wind will somehow launch them into the neighbors’ yard.

However, the hose is probably too heavy to make it over the fence.