Something Squirrelly this Way Comes

She keeps putting me in that crate. Doesn't she realize how long my legs are? I can't stand up in it. So I sleep. Then when she finally lets me out I can't go where I want to. I can't investigate the pedals sticking up from the floor. I can't look out the window that has the handy ledge in front of it. She's especially adamant about my not using the spinny thing to prop myself up at the window. I don't get it. She's all the time looking out of it. I want to too!

And then the nice guy, who lets me pounce on his feet, doesn't want me to investigate the same places either! Humans! I just don't understand them. We finally got to a place that doesn't vibrate and I can't even investigate. I'm put in a room upstairs and expected to sleep. Right. Like I was tired from sleeping all day. I wanted to play! I told my human and she wasn't listening. So I showed her. She sure is grouchy. Maybe if she had let me look out the window on the spinny thing, she would have gotten more sleep.

In the morning, I'm let out of the room and discover this really great tree with boxes under it. I had a nice little nest all made, under the tree and behind the boxes. And what do the humans go and do? They take the boxes! Why did they stuff them under the tree if they didn't want them there in the first place? At least they left some behind that I could still hide behind. But then more humans came. Two small, really loud ones and two regular ones. I'm put back in the room upstairs where I spent the night. Not fair! I was there first.

There was much noise and then, when I was finally released from my banishment, all the boxes were gone from under my tree! Humans just make no sense. With all the squealing and squawking and humans running about, I did the only thing I could do. I climbed the tree. And they yelled at me and put me back in the room upstairs! Sheesh. Silly humans.

I meant to leave work at 1000 on 12/23. I also meant to take Luna to work with me so I could get on the road immediately. I left work at 1030 and had to go home to get Luna. I was finally on the road at 1100. Tho I still had to stop and top off my gas tank and put some air in all four tires.

I'm on the road and Luna is talking. And by talking I mean meowing, crying and howling. She was also clawing at her crate. I let her out to wander about in the car and the talking continued. I'm not sure what was bothering her. She wasn't like this on her last road trip. I ended up having her in the crate for about half of the drive to DC.

Speaking of the drive. It's supposed to be 4.5 hours from the Triangle to the MD burbs of DC. Yeah, with the traffic yesterday, it took me six. Then my dad and I get back on the road and headed for OH.

We made it to the house at 0145 or so. Yes, that's AM. It was raining pretty good and the temperature was right around 34 degrees F for most of the drive. The road was slushy in spots. Not too bad, in general.

The iciest spot, by far, was the driveway. I stopped to get a better bead on pulling into the garage and my tires just spun. My dad and I got out of the truck and discovered that the driveway was a sheet of ice. If I hadn't had my dad and the car door to hold onto,I'd have slid down the drive and into the street. Assuming I didn't loose my balance and fall on my butt first. Let's be honest, that butt hitting asphalt was the more likely scenario.

My dad managed to get the truck into the driveway. After some minor sliding back down the driveway. I stood in the grass and supervised. I then sidestepped on the front walk a bit and then had to grab my dad's hand to make it into the garage. It was that icy and my sneakers weren't getting any sort of grip on it.

The main thing is, we made it in one piece. Hopefully Luna will be tuckered out after all the running, galloping and playing she's down today. I really don't need her to wake me up at 0500. Although, theoretically, I'll be in bed before 0200 tonight.

Sorry it's dark. I have another one with a similar theme, I just have to tweak it first.

I know. I didn't post an entry on Friday or one yesterday. Here's what I would have posted on Friday:

I get home from work last night [Thursday], sopping wet from the downpour I encountered between my work building and car. I drive through intermittent down pours and a drizzle, 40 minutes later I'm home (traffic was insane). I head down the steps from the parking area and encounter a mini-flood at the bottom. I have to walk through the (muddy) grass and some bushes so that I don't flood out my sneakers.

I get inside, take off sneakers & socks in entryway, roll up pants and walk slowly to bathroom so as not to discharge any excess water on the laminate floors. I toss all wet clothes on bathroom floor & go to my room to release Luna and get on some dry clothes.

About half an hour later, I go to the bathroom to retrieve my wet clothes. The floor mat is wet. I muse to Luna that my clothes must have been wetter than I realized. I'm gathering up my clothes, Luna is sniffing along the baseboard of the sink, when I hear a plop, splatter and then lots of little plops. Not the sound a dripping tub normally makes but I check it anyway. No drops. I turn around and check the sink. No water drops. "It must've been from my clothes," I tell Luna, not particularly believing it.

She twitched an ear at my words and continued her sniffing investigation of the floor. She was now next to the toilet. I hear another plop, splatter, plop, plop, plop and Luna flinches. "Huh," I say as I step closer to the toilet and lift up the lid. Water pours onto the floor and Luna runs out of the bathroom, shaking her paws & head. "Sorry Girl! I didn't mean to create Niagara Falls on your head!"

I slowly look up, expecting to see a sagging, water stained ceiling. It looks fine. I frown and look back down. The toilet has dirty water in it, the floor all around the toilet has standing water. "What in the world?" I ask as I look back up.

That's when I see the water drops glistening on the vent cover to the exhaust fan. "That's just weird." (Yes, I sometimes talk to myself. What of it?) I grab the towels from the shower door and toss on the floor. I move the trashcan and then call M to let her know the news.

M calls the HOA folks, who then call me and I explain the situation. The guy asks me to make a judgement call: Can this wait until morning when they have more than just the emergency staff on hand? I tell him yes, but if it gets worse we'll call back and he better be out here lickety split. He laughed and said okay.

So that was Friday's entry. This would have been Monday's:

Folks from the HOA have not come out yet. Granted multiple phone numbers have been calling incessantly. Probably leaving messages too. Since there are, in all likelihood, close to 50 messages on the machine, I haven't even bothered to think about checking the messages. Besides, the machine is in M's room. I don't go in there unless it's to retrieve a wayward cat toy or Luna.

Why would someone have an answering machine if they don't ever bother to check the messages? I haven't the foggiest idea.

This is today's:

See two days worth of entries above. Isn't that enough for you??? Sheesh.

I was getting into my car this morning, headed to work, when the downstairs neighbor stopped me and asked if he could ask me a question. I paused, one foot in my car and said, “Okay.”
“You know when the painters were painting the railing?”
“Yeah…” they had just finished on Monday, did he think I had forgotten already?
“Well, when they put their ladder down in my space to work on your railing they knocked a bunch of trash from your porch down onto mine.”
“Trash?”
“Yeah like dirt and debris from the woodpile. Leaves and twigs and such.”
“Okay.”
“It just made a mess on my porch.”
“Okay,” I said as I’m thinking seriously, buster, what’s your point?
“Well could you keep it clean?”
“What?”
“So that more trash and debris doesn’t fall down onto my porch.”
“Umm okay? I’ll tell M about it since it’s her place.” What did he want from me? It’s nature! Leaves and twigs and dirt and ‘such’ come from trees, blown by the wind. Sorry dude, as much as I would wish otherwise, I can’t control the elements. Or nature.
“Hmph.” I swear he said that. With a higher pitched tone. It was all I could do not to smirk and snicker at him.
“Have a good one,” I said as I finished climbing into my car. The twerp.

I was doing so well. Three posts in a row (kind of) and then bam. Nothing today until now. Just one of those days where work overtakes my day.

Unrelatedly (possibly)
According to WebMD, I either broke my wrist, have lupus, carpal tunnel or pseudogout. I'm thinking, at worst, it's sprained. I'm just amused at how the list of possible conditions can range from a bruise to an autoimmune disease. Thanks for not freaking me out, WebMD. Such lovely screenside behavior.

Don't worry Mom (or Dad), I'm fine. Just have a sore wrist.

Found the above by reading this. Now I just need to find where I can buy/download/acquire the song for my ipod.

The Canes fired head coach Peter Laviolette earlier this week. They rehired Paul Maurice; the head coach they fired in 2003. Umm, hello? Why? I know, I know, it's the third November in a row where we fell apart and I wasn't too surprised to hear about Coach Lavi. But Maurice?? What in the world??

Do yall not remember why you fired him in the first place? Or did you just want a change and he was the cheapest person with NHL head coaching experience out there? I think the only good thing about this 'shake up' is putting Ronnie (Francis) as the assistant coach.

Last night's game surely doesn't illustrate any difference. It's too early to see any change. Maurice has only just begun. Blah blah blah. IF the switch was to bring confidence back to the players, shouldn't that be something visible immediately? And people better not be blaming this on Ward (out with injury) or Leighton. It's a team effort.

Personally I think J.R. (GM of the Canes) has some issues. One of them being a personal beef with Laviolette, for whatever reason. I guess we'll just have to wait and see what Saturday & Sunday bring.

Labels: Canes NHL hockey rant Laviolette Maurice