I've talked about almost nothing but books lately, likely because books are what I turn to when I'm stressed. My recipe for dialing anxiety down from eleven is an engrossing story read in or by a body of water. (A pool's preferred, but bathtub works in a pinch.)
Fortunately, most of my stress stems from stuff that will eventually manifest into something that makes me happy, e.g. the new memoir about volunteering. We're also close to being done house hunting as we've narrowed our choices down to two. Now we must determine if we want the place that needs work outside or needs work inside. One's a lovely Colonial with a gorgeous pool and rose garden out back but acres of old Scalamandre wallpaper inside.
Seriously, acres. Literally.
One room features paper that appears to be monkeys perpetrating hate crimes against Chinese men. Another displays tropical birds of every color, save for those in our furniture and rugs. And don't get me started about the baby-blue bow and pinstripes combination room, complete with a shag carpeting in desperate need of a haircut.
After we pay a crew millions of dollars to remove every inch of this stuff, we'd have to do some remodeling in the kitchen, e.g. reface the cabinets, replace the countertops, update the appliances, and remove the gun cabinet. I've yet to figure out why there's a glass-faced gun display cabinet in the kitchen. You think that'd be a selling point for Fletch, but even he has his limits.
The other house is much more updated inside (as in no green marble or gold fixtures) but the backyard's an unbroken strip of flat grass. Although it's big enough that you can see the curve of the earth, we'd have to put in a pool or something just to make sure no spontaneous polo matches break out back there.
Anyway, these are good problems to have and I recognize that. We're looking at both houses again next week and should make our decision shortly thereafter.
But until then, even I'm getting tired of hearing about what books are on my nightstand, so today I'll address one of the most asked questions when on tour.
"How are the Thundercats?"
They are, in a word, ridiculous.
I was going to say they're evil incarnate, but they're not malicious and plotting like some cats. Actually, they're particularly sweet and loving and spend every evening curled up on our chests while we watch TV. (It's freaking adorable.) They don't bite, scratch, hiss, mess with the dogs, and they respect the authority of our two elder statesmen cats.
Rather, the root of the problem with them is their large size - the concept of which they completely fail to recognize - and their ineffable stupidity. They are three young bulls running amok in the china shop that is my house.
Now, I've had cats for almost eighteen years, so I understand that this comes with a modicum of knocking-shit-down. Yet none of the six cats that came before them had ever mastered the vertical leap like these idiots, particularly Chuck Norris. A vase being bumped off an end table is one thing. But a vase being bashed off the top of an eight-foot bookshelf with enough power to make it sail across the room before exploding into a veritable Kristallnacht is another.
Gus, perhaps dissatisfied by his personal hang time after a jump, has taken to climbing the walls. He makes a running leap at the corner, then digs in with his claws and tries to see how high he can get. As gravity is a factor in these pursuits, as is his considerable bulk, he must sink his claws deeper into the drywall which now appears to have been attacked multiple times by a small werewolf. Goodbye, security deposit!
Odin is a special kind of dumb due to being partially blind and a touch cross-eyed. He tends to be the most nervous and when he gets scared, he somehow sinks his head back into his body, much like a furry tortoise. Because of his compromised eyesight, I believe that everything from a distance looks both frightening and imposing to him... and thus must be destroyed. Apparently our dining room rug "is scary monster" and has summarily been shredded. He's also dug a hole in one of our leather couches so he can hide from the can opener, vacuum, doorbell, air, etc. And yet as dumb as he is, it is patently impossible to keep a collar on him for more than four minutes. No matter what kind we buy or how snug we fit it, he can wriggle out.
Of course, the penultimate instance of stupidity came a couple of months ago. Our elderly cat Bones was in the end stage of kidney disease and would occasionally take a leak in inappropriate places, like on the dogs' bed. Apparently this left quite the impression on young Gus whose little pea brain must have taken in this information and translated as, "Oh, dis what we do naows?"
One morning I was asleep and Gus hopped up to join me. I petted him in a quick hello and then flipped over to my side. He's generally a good little snuggler so I thought nothing of it. But then Gus climbed across me and headed down to my midsection, whereupon he promptly took a leak.
On me.
Specifically, he whizzed on my bottom, thus giving me the exact sensation I vaguely remember from wetting my own pants a good thirty-five years ago.
Not only is this one of the least pleasant sensations in the entire world, but apparently he peed quickly enough and with sufficient force to get into - how shall I say this delicately? - my nooks and crannies.
After I finished screaming, I leaped out of bed and promptly took a Silkwood shower. I was particularly concerned with what contaminants may have lurked in his pee as I didn't want to get an infection. Having just been to the doctor for both pink eye and what I thought might be worms, I figured if I presented with a complication from having been peed on, I would have gotten assigned to a case manager.
We lost Bones not longer after that. We were pretty sad about it, but as soon as he was gone, Gus's stealth-whizzing stopped. Which is good.
However, I'm not sure I want to discourage him from clawing the walls.
Those skills may be useful in removing hideous wallpaper.
"Gussie - is whats for dinners."
