From the 'Z' Files: A Sad Tail

That's not a typo, our little Zoe has a broken tail.

We don't know how it happened, we found her sulking on the couch last week, hissing and saying "Meowch"when any pats got too close to her tail.

Her collar was found in the middle of the crosswalk so we feared an encounter with a car but the vet says she doesn't have the claw damage that usually indicates 'car'. Maybe a cyclist since we are on a bike lane? Who knows? Whatever it was, let's hope she's learned not to follow kids across the road.

She should have been feeling fine by now but, silly young thing, she refused to follow Doctor's orders to rest & stay quiet.
THIS is where we found her on Thursday....

See her poor tail... hangs straight down like a plumb-bob.

Not long after grounding her from any further ladder acrobatics I was on the phone telling Kim that she seemed to have some of her bounce back when I saw two white paws grab onto the edge of the kitchen island...... then slip off.
She hit the floor rump-first, right on her broken tail.
She did not bounce.

Oh the yowling and the howling. and the growling and the yowling.

She slunk off slowly, straight to her travel crate. The crate that she complains non-stop about being in when we go to the vet? That one that she hates so much?
She spent the rest of the day in there, snuggling a stuffed chicken.

Unfortunately we haven't seen any signs of life in the tail, it just drags behind Zoe, hitting the floor with a "thunk" when she jumps down from the couch.
At this point it's a liability since she has no feeling or control over it so it looks like it'll have to be amputated.
Now all the other cats will laugh at her and call her stumpy.

I said maybe we could get her tail bobbed at the same time as we get her spayed.
Kim replied that if she gets her tail cut off we won't have to spay her because none of the boys will want anything to do with her.

Don't listen to him Zoe, you'll still be the prettiest kitty on the block, stubby tail and all.

Crawling through the weekend

It's ironic that now that I supposedly have plenty of time on my hands, unexpectedly unemployed bum that I am, I would find it so hard to find the time to post to my blog.
It's not that I have a shortage of subject matter. I could write about my polymer clay guild and the swap I organized; or about setting up a mini-studio and starting to, well, at least to condition some clay; or about our gorgeous new built-in shelves; or, about the garden design class I took.

All of those will wait. One of our favourite events happened this weekend.

This weekend I had planned to finish our downstairs 1/2 bathroom. With at least 3 parties scheduled (including Christmas dinner for 34) it might be a good idea to have the guest bathroom and stair landing finished enough that we can re-hang the bathroom door. I have a feeling most people would appreciate some privacy.

My good intentions were thwarted by Kim - the East-side Culture Crawl was on and we spent both Saturday & Sunday wandering around artist's studios wishing we had a winning lottery ticket.

Saturday we got off to a late start so Shea came alone. I think it's pretty cool that we have a 15-year-old son who WANTS to spend an afternoon with his parents looking at art. OK, maybe not the "with his parents" part so much but how else was he was going to get to the studios? He has very definite tastes too, even if his expression of them is very brief, limited to either "meh" or "I want" when asked for his opinion. Sorry kid, $1,300.00 is a little beyond Santa's budget for a painting for your bedroom.

Fortunately most of what we fell in love with was so far out of our budget that they were no temptation. It's the works that had fewer than 3 zeros in the price that were painful.
Almost within reach - but do we really want to be spending our money on paintings when we still need furniture? and landscaping?
I consoled myself by buying a very cool cast porcelain vase (or drinking glass).
"Hey Kim, I'm doing your Christmas shopping for you again. See what you're giving me - a porcelain canning jar". Reminds me of all the canning my Mom did when I was growing up.
I can't remember the artist's name - Heyday design I think? and her business card was a soggy victim of another broken teapot this morning. I've broken so many I'm now officially a serial teapot-murderer. (but hey, now you know what to get me for Christmas)

We also bought a small 8x8" piece. A photo transfer on gesso. Taken in the artist's front yard this summer, the garden that we tramped through to get to his studio.
That's what's so wonderful about the Culture Crawl - the closer connection to the artists. The ceramic artist even had a story about where she found the canning jar she made her mold from.
This is another nostalgic piece for me: I loved the bleeding hearts we had growing in front of the house we moved away from when I was 7. Pink Monkey Studio is the artist (can't remember his name either and too lazy to go check the back of the picture right now) and he's donating proceeds from his bleeding heart series to the Heart & Stroke foundation. That's what cinched our decision between the bleeding heart and the birch trees.

Must remember to add a bleeding heart to my landscape plan.

This little piggy...

I'm not very happy.
If I'm going to lose two or three productive days to the flu I at least want one symptom to be "loss of appetite" so I have the benefit of being a few pounds lighter by the end of it.
But no, this one hit me just hard enough that I didn't have enough energy to do anything except lie around eating. (Doesn't help that I spent the evening before it hit baking & hadn't yet hidden, I mean put away, the results.)

'Swine Flu' is right.
OINK OINK

Toasted

One of the perks of our new house that I've been looking forward to is the radiant in-floor heating on both floors. Nice warm floors, lovely to have toasty toes this time of year.
That is if we could get the heating system to work properly.

It performed beautifully for the final plumbing inspection before we moved in.

Inspector: "Your boiler's not working."
Me: "Wouldn't that be because it's what, about THIRTY DEGREES outside so we've turned the thermostat down?
Inspector: "Hmphh, I don't know. Fire it up and we'll see."
Me: Cranking thermostat up to 35.
Boiler: "Brrrrrrroooooaaar"
Me: "See, it works, nothing wrong." (Aside from the fact that we'd rather NOT be working in a sauna in the middle of summer)
Inspector: Scratches out the word "FAIL" on our inspection report & writes "Passed"
Inspector leaves
Boiler promptly dies.

Although we didn't know it for a couple of months, until after we'd moved in and the weather started getting chilly enough for us to think we might like to have just a little heat now, thank you.

According the repairman, it wasn't the boiler itself that died but one of those small box-like things attached to it by wires & pipes. A regulator I think someone called it. Anyway, it's name is irrelevant as long as it works now.

Which it only sort of did, the first night. No sign of warmth in the main floor, the boys' rooms or the rec room.
But boy was it hot-hot-hot in the master bedroom. And not in a good way.
We felt like we were being roasted alive in our bed.
And our stone-tile bathroom floor? TOO HOT TO STAND ON.
Seriously, I had to do a little dance while brushing my teeth so I wouldn't scorch my soles.

The second repairman discovered that some of the valves weren't open and weren't letting the water circulate properly. Opened them up, checked the rest. Should work now.

And it did..... for 1/2 the house. The main floor & boys' rooms? Perfect.
Our master bedroom and the rec-room below it were having issues. Both areas were swinging (slowly, this type of heat takes time to change) from feet-scorching, melting-the-candles-in-that box-I-left-on-the-floor heat to icy, where's-my-parka-what-do-you-mean-I-don't-own-one cold for no reason.
No matter how we adjusted the thermostats in those two zones, we couldn't get them to settle down to anything resembling room temperature.

It almost seemed like the thermostat downstairs was controlling the upstairs zone & the upstairs thermostat was adjusting the heat in the rooms below it.
BINGO! My theory was confirmed last Wednesday by repairman #3 who then re-wired them correctly.

Fixed now?
I wish. I'm going to have to go out and buy myself that parka because in a fit of desperation Kim has turned the heat in our bedroom completely OFF, not just the thermostat but right at the source, the boiler-room.

I'll be very glad I insisted on a fireplace in my bedroom this weekend while we wait for the.... what are we at now?... 4th visit by a repairman in 2 weeks.

Dreamer

I keep telling him that he should try harder to be happy with what he has.
I tell him he's just tormenting himself spending all that time on-line looking at younger, prettier models that he can't have. But still:

"Oh no, Jem! I accidentally hit the 'buy-it-now' button for this red Ferrari.

"Well Kim, I sure hope it has comfortable seats because THAT'S where you'll be sleeping."

One room down...

I've been saying for a while that one of the most frustrating things about living in a 'work-in-progress' is that not one room is completely finished.
"I don't even have a closet that I can consider finished."

Well, now I can say I have ONE finished room.
Look:
Door hung, trim installed & painted. (the splotches on the floor don't count, that's a cleaning issue, doesn't affect the 'finished' status)

Vent cover installed, walls & ceiling painted, with no dings needing to be filled. Even the ceiling light is installed, unlike my kitchen & dining room.

My Pantry is DONE.

All shelves & hangy-things installed and just a few Costco trips away from being filled.

Well, at least it's one room down.
Or am I cheating by counting a pantry as a 'room'?

Legal now

We Passed!

Finally. On our third try.

We now have an occupancy permit and are allowed to live in our house.
After being illegal squatters for 3 - 1/2 months.

Our second inspection, one week ago, was very close. We had a few issues like attic ventilation and insulation and some little things that Kim had taken care of before I even got home from work.

Two of the things we failed for were actually the inspector's mistakes.
The "missing" insulation in the attic was not over living space, but where the wall takes a jog in towards the bathroom and the roof doesn't follow. No insulation needed there.
And that "grout" around the tub where there should be silicone? That's no grout, mister.
That's "Colour-Matched, Sanded, Siliconized Acrylic Caulk".
It costs FOUR times as much as regular silicone caulk and requires a lot more swearing at it to get it applied properly and looking good. So it's staying, Mister.

Now we can spend our limited 'house-work' time on things that WE want done, not what the city inspector thinks is important.

I'm off to put some holes in the walls.
(Hanging mirrors, shelves, curtains, robe hooks....)