Adventures in Cat-sitting

Left: Happy Cat; Right: Happy Kat

So Tesla (our cat) was injured about a week ago in what we think was a fight with the cat next-door. He went in for surgery for the abcess at the base of his tail on Monday. We picked him up Monday night and because he was still coming out of the sedation he was crazed and upset and didn’t really know where he was or who we were. Even the vet techs couldn’t get him to wear the cone collar that he was supposed to wear so that he wouldn’t bite at his stitches and drain. On the drive home he kept biting at it and so I opened the carrier to swat at him and he lunged at me, bit my hand and escaped from his cat carrier. We were in the back seat of Jimmy’s car and luckily Telsa was more comfortable in the cat carrier as he jumped back in it shortly after he bit me – I was worried that he was going to run screaming through the car and injury Jimmy and myself. My hand was bleeding from 3 puncture marks and I started feeling nauseous pretty soon there after. We managed to get home with my taking deep breaths and willing myself not to vomit. I rushed into the house to clean the wound and stay near the toilet should I need it. Jimmy brought Tesla into the house and left him in his carrier (as per the vet techs recommendations). By the time he came to check on me I was in a state of mild shock – my teeth were chattering, I had the heater on full blast to try and get warm and I was still feeling nauseous. Luckily I was still able to tell him how to treat me, as he said that as the only medical professional in the house I wasn’t allowed to get hurt… So I had Jimmy lay me down on the floor, cover me with a blanket and prop my feet up on the side of the tub. I was feeling better pretty soon afterwards, which was good.

Believe it or not, he's much less happy than he looks.

After another hour we let Tesla out of his carrier in the guest room. He was still not totally with it and didn’t really seem to know where he was. We tried to get the cone collar back on him, but he became really violent and was thrashing about trying to get it off. After two attempts and Tesla launching himself into a wall to get the cone off we decided that we weren’t going to be able to use the cone. So instead Jimmy and I took shifts watching Tesla on his first night back. Jimmy took the first shift and then woke me up around 3:30 am to take over. It was awful – we were tired and my hand still hurt, it was just not how we pictured our beloved pets return. Luckily Jimmy was able to get off work the next day so that I could go see the doctor. My hand was swollen around the puncture marks and there was a red line running up my arm to my elbow – never a good sign. But luckily I was on antibiotics within 16 hours of being bitten and by my follow-up appointment the next day, the hand was feeling and looking better and there was no red streak to be seen.

Poor shaved-butt kitty

After my doctors appointment I went to PetCo to see about getting Tesla a cushioned cone collar. At $27 a pop I was just praying that it would work. He still seemed resistant to the collar, but after awhile he seemed to understand that it wasn’t going to hurt him and that we weren’t going to take it off. The second night we also took shifts watching the cat, but by my shift at 3 am Jimmy said that he had been doing great with the collar so I just crashed on the pallet of sleeping bags on the floor and listened for any sign that he was messing with his collar. He did great and we were both able to sleep in our own bed all night last night. I think Tesla has resigned himself to being sad and embarrassed about having to wear the cone, which means we are all less tired and stressed out.

Just look at that face, how could you hurt that? Stupid Neighbor Cat!

Our (not so productive) Labor Day Weekend

A very full rain barrel

So I was all excited to get a bunch of stuff done around the house over the Labor Day weekend as both Jimmy and I would have a long 3-day weekend (of course my weekends are un-ending at this point…) Then, as it often happens in the Puget Sound, the rain came and spoiled my plans. Don’t get me wrong, I love the rain, but I love it more when I don’t have outdoor projects to be working on. So, due to the rain there were several projects that took three days to complete (during the brief sun breaks we had) and several projects that we couldn’t do at all 😦

Pouring collected H2O into the barrel

On one end of the patio the bricks are getting washed away because the idiots who sold us this house never re-attached the down spout on the gutters after painting the house. We decided that we wanted to take advantage of the situation and get a rain barrel for that down spout as there is no good place for the drain to run to. We bought a rain barrel from a guy in town – his website is: www.naturalrainwater.com for those of you in the area who might be interested in getting one. The only down side to getting a rain barrel in the Puget Sound is that when you have torrential downpour off and on for 3 days your rain barrel fills up quickly. I had to don my rubber boots and the rain suit I had bought for camping in order to go out and attach a hose to the top outlet so that if it got full that it would drain out from both the spigot at the bottom and the outlet at the top.

Removing damaged sections

Even so, Jimmy and I had to cover the top at one point to allow the water to drain out – it took about 45 minutes for the 60 gallon barrel to empty! Of course before we got the rain barrel into

Making sand castles is WAY more fun!

place and hooked up we had to try and fix the patio bricks in the direct vicinity of the barrel as once the barrel is full it can weigh up to 500 lbs. Fixing the bricks was a pain and it didn’t seem to be a permanent fix, I’m sure I will have to mend the spot again soon…

We also managed to get the washer and dryer that came with the house out and our washer and dryer put in their place.

Out with the old

We were also lucky enough to sell them within 24 hours of posting our craigslist ad, and a very nice older couple came and bought them and hauled them off. Thankfully that was one less thing in our garage – at least that was until the next day when we went to Home Depot…

In with the used

Jimmy’s parents got us a gift card to Home Depot and they were having a good sale on stuff for fence building, so we took advantage of the sale and got what we needed to build the back fence and a side gate on the property. Unfortunately we think that the cedar might be making Tesla sick, as he has pretty much been throwing up for 4 days

A truck full of lumber

straight. We took him to the vet and he got an anti-nausea shot, which then made him foam and drool which was freaky. We finally decided that we should let him sleep in the house last night (instead of the garage with the cedar) to see if he would feel better the next day. It seems to have worked, so we’ll have to see how he does tomorrow after we make him sleep in the garage again. We’re really hoping it’s not the cedar as we are not sure where we could store it other than in the garage…

One tired lumberjack

Zen Tesla before he started feeling poorly

Landscraping – Our Craptastic Backyard

Just spent an hour in the backyard shoveling dog crap, and I don’t own a dog. I’m only about half done.

You’ll notice from the first post on our blog that apart from the great-looking patio, the listing didn’t show the backyard at all. Turns out there was a reason for that. Sagging fence, dead lawn, out-of-control ivy, and piles upon piles of concrete chunks from the old patio to haul away. This is going to take some work!

Before

Before

At least Tesla’s enjoying the yard

Out Damn Spot!

Home ownership is hard…

I’m sure that isn’t news to most of you, but I really thought it would be more fun and less exhausting.

Clothesline!

We moved in last weekend and thus far we have done a few upgrades, but mostly we have spent our time cleaning.  I really think that it should be a law that a professional cleaning service should be hired to clean houses before they change hands.  I know that it could be much worse and that both my parents and Jimmy’s parents have moved  into houses in much worse shape than this, but it makes me angry how dirty this place was when we moved in.  Anyone who knows me understands that I am a bit of a cluttery person and am not by any stretch of the imagination a clean freak, but maybe owning your own place makes you look at cleaning a little differently.  I have never been this obsessed about cleaning before.

Airing our Dirty Laundry

I mentioned before the few upgrades that we have done to the place, so let me elaborate briefly.  There are two big picture windows in the front room that face West – thus, on hot days the livingroom/diningroom get baked.  So Jimmy and I decided that our first purchase for the house would be blinds and shades for both windows.

Okay, our clean laundry

For some reason, although the previous owners lived here for many years, they only owned drapes for the windows, and they were not even the black out kind.  In a house with no air conditioning I don’t know how they could have survived the hot summers without something to at least partially block out the sun and heat.  We have also bought some new drapes for the livingroom, so it’s starting to come together.  The second thing that we’ve done is buy laundry line to string up between the metal laundry posts in the back yard.

Smells clean, anyway

I have to say that I find hanging the laundry out to dry to be relaxing.  It reminds me of my sister Audrey and I playing in the laundry that would dry on the lines in our backyard when we were kids.  It makes me feel good to be playing a small part to be more green and in the process save ourselves some money on the electric bill.  There is even something kind of zen feeling about hanging the laundry out to dry, which I know kind of sounds bourgeois, but it really does feel calming and centering.

Tesla's Garage Perch

Tesla seems to be doing better now that we’ve been in the house nearly a week.  He was very skittery and scared for the first couple of days, but he has since gotten more used to the place and seems to be settling in nicely.

"It's my sleeping bag now!"

He’s even managed to find a place to call his own in the garage (sorry mom and dad, you may never get your sleeping bag back now…).  I’m sure he’ll be better once we let him outside to play, but we want to make sure he knows that this is home first.  Oh yeah, and he seems to have made himself at home with my water glass too…

"Look at me, I'm people..."