Everything I have every read about emotional health has very stringent ideas about the bedroom— it is for sleeping and intimacy. No work, no screens, etc.
But this morning at 7 a.m., I decided to try and carve a home office space in my bedroom.
In part, because our 9-year-old cat, Oz, either has urinary crystals again and doesn’t feel well or he’s depressed that we’re all home but never paying attention to him. And he’s jealous of the kittens.
Oz sitting on Misty to steal attention from the teenager
The weather has been 50 degrees and windy, so my brick house is retaining winter cold which makes the dining room table a frigid workspace.
In the beginning, I worked at the dining room table, we ate at the kitchen table and things seemed fine.
But now, the teen took a desk and kitchen chair to her room to do schoolwork and so I’d like to have the dining room table clear to eat.
My room is my sanctuary. Home of the birds. Promised land for the cats. Bright. Sunny. Warm.
I’m going to try it.
Oz is the cat in the first and last photo. Opie is the big cat in the middle. Misty is the kitten. They are all— Fog, too, but she’s unpictured— over me. Let’s hope it’s the newness because otherwise I may have to throw some of them out and close the door.
Today had some elements of greatness among the toil of a long work day in the midst of a pandemic.
We had a lovely walk.
We had pizza.
I got a free doughnut.
We got a Yum box.
We went to Family Dollar for school supplies and found some other surprises.
My truck is only $5,000. Maybe I can really buy it.
I got a new plunger.
I helped my blind friend Nancy open a Twitter account.
If none of that sounds interesting just skip this entry, but you might enjoy this “a day in the life.”
I had to go to the local Goin Postal to print and mail a grant for work. I brought the teenager along so she could grab some Little Caesars pizza and school supplies from Family Dollar as I figured I’d be in the shop for an hour.
The dollar store had clearance jelly beans for 75% off! I got three bags for $1!!! The teenager got lead for her favorite mechanical pencils and pens for my home office. We also got two really big cans of cat food. Because four cats.
The teenager procured some food items too— though some may not qualify as food. Lemon sugar wagers, pickles, blueberry muffins, beef ramen, generic pop tarts, sour freeze pops and Slim Jim’s.
We came home and she did school work while I did office work. At 2 pm, I took my meal break to go to the local hardware store. We needed caulk, wood patch, drain unclogger, a plunger, and items for a floor in the mud room.
I’ll have to take some photos of the nice laminate plank flooring the teen picked out for her floor. I even got wasp killer and some keys made.
Spent $180. But that includes 60 square feet of flooring.
That was also when I noticed my old aging truck was only $5,000.
I’ve had my eye on this beauty for four years.
I want this truck.
So we then stopped at Dunkin because it’s Free Doughnut Friday and since I only leave the house about once a week might as well make it exciting.
I worked late. Went straight to a telephone meeting with Nancy, my blind friend who I do computer stuff for. Long story short— we ended up putting her on Twitter and she followed a whole bunch of NASA stuff. Try explaining Twitter to a blind person. Just try.
Then once we finished, the teenager and I had her Universal Yums box for dinner. It was amazing! Scandinavian goodies for the win!
And then I tried the new plunger. It worked so well the gunk was coming out that little hole in the drain circle where the flipper for the tub plug goes. Under the spigot.
And that was my exciting day. Everyone even hung out with me.
I’m spending time with my cockatoo, having already completed the Wednesday evening trash collection.
Nala and I
The teenager is carting garbage from the basement and organizing the tool bench in preparation for a trip to the hardware store. She hopes to lay a new floor in the mud room— the same mud room where the kittens shattered a bottle of charcoal lighter fluid.
I suggested the teenager use the basement experience for her gym log. I’m encouraging her to find unorthodox ways to fulfill her gym requirements.
We opened a mini-container of Oreo cookies today and I can’t even remember the last time I had an Oreo. It was delicious.
I have cat food and cat litter on auto-ship from Petco. With the four cats, we go through a lot of kibble, three cans of cat food a day and about 60 pounds of cat litter every three weeks.
Petco had my litter listed as “on back order” and I was almost out. To be on the safe side, I ordered 60 pounds of cat litter from Target.com. I ordered them at the same time.
All of the Petco order came today— but the lid of one of the cat litter containers smashed and led to 10 pounds of cat litter leaking out of the corners of the cardboard box.
Only two of the three Target bottles of litter came today, so I suspect we’ll see the FedEx driver again tomorrow.
Finally, my stimulus payment arrived today. I immediately transferred $1000 into savings. I plan on using $200 for groceries and the hardware store. The remaining $500 is going onto my American Express to pay off most of my medical bills.
I’ll have to reconfigure the budget I’ve been working with. March turned out to be a very expensive month.
I’m also not looking forward to the next round of utility bills— electric, water and sewer are going to spike.
I thought maybe something insightful would emerge as I typed this, but no.
I started today with the debate of whether to blog about Nala, my Goffin’s cockatoo, or my thoughts on what makes a good day or a good weekend, something the teenager seemed insistent upon us having.
But the cats started climbing the parakeet cage, I made the “mistake” of reviewing some news coverage of Donald Trump’s handling of the Coronavirus pandemic, and frankly, I’ve lost my train of thought more times than I can count.
So while I’m still lost in a sea of randomness, watching Mistofelees (my daughter’s formerly feral/stray kitten) decide how to get off the budgie cage without crossing Nala’s path, let me also say I used the hydrating hair mask from last month’s Ipsy Glam bag and my dry curly hair is remarkably not puffy today.
The first time I tried it, I didn’t see any results. This time was very different.
It’s Easter Sunday, but the teenager opened her basket on Good Friday (I’m suddenly realizing how disrespectful that was of traditional Christian culture). Oops.
To see our silliness on that, I have YouTube videos:
I washed her new sheets and hung them on the line yesterday. I helped her make her bed and I hope she had a lovely night of sleep on them. She picked the most colorful ones first.
In the next order of randomness, I think I’m going to make a Buffalo chicken spaghetti squash casserole for Easter dinner.
Now, shall I even expound on my thoughts on the Coronavirus situation. Perhaps briefly.
I think the isolation vs. develop herd immunity arguments both have merit. It’s hard for anyone to know what is “right” in any major situation. What makes a good leader is the depth of response, the logic behind it and how organized the implementation is.
Those who have resources and power will always sacrifice those who have less to maintain their resources and power. It is true of most humanity. Even those will less. Look at the hoopla over toilet paper.
I think this change in how we live and work could have some broad implications. I would like to see, in my Pollyanna nirvana, a world where we all slow down, shop less, and spend more time with our loved ones. But in reality, I think we will see shifts in service delivery (perhaps huge changes in public education), reductions in consumer goods available/continued shortages, and more poverty.
Our civil liberties have changed since 9/11/2001 and they will continue to decrease. The notion of privacy is almost completely dead if not buried. I remember when science fiction warned us we would all be microchipped and have our physical money taken away. Now, the core of our lives are tracked, spied on and connected to a mini-supercomputer we carry with us everywhere we go. We call it a smart phone.
Technology companies are developing identifiers for each of us via our phones to track who may have been exposed to Covid-19 and alert those they with whom they came in contact. This technology will no doubt track us all in other ways in the future but I’m not against it. Because, see previous bullet, in today’s world there is no real privacy boundaries left.
So let’s enjoy this sunny Easter and celebrate life and spring.
With the pandemic looming, and people still struggling in the every day ways, you have to rejoice one moment at a time.
The governor has canceled school for the rest of the school year as of today so for the next seven weeks the teenager will be completing her sophomore year at home.
For dinner I did something decadent— I made thick cut black pepper bacon and cooked cabbage in the bacon grease. I piled the bacon, cabbage and some extra sharp New York cheddar onto a bagel.
And the teenager spent some time today recreating her mother on the Sims. Here I am:
And thanks to a college friend getting a vibrage wringer washer for her birthday I actually spent some time today watching YouTube videos of men doing laundry on washing machines more than 50 years old. The teenager found that amusing. And so dreadfully boring of me. I subscribed to this appliance man’s channel. I love this 1952 Frigidaire with the antique box of Tide.
After all, this washing machine is older than my mother. Give it a watch. Go on.
It’s important on days when the world is fighting a pandemic or if your mood is not quite right to remember the bright spots.
The sun was bright. The air warm. My house windows open.
My daughter and I had a picnic on my bed at lunch.
My boss likes one of the projects I submitted today, which almost made it a good day.
Fog the kitten curled up in a tight little ball and slept in my lap. She looked like such a dainty baby.
My daughter— how I wish these days at home with her never had to end— cleaned the kitchen and made dinner AND shared a piece of her peanut butter Reese’s Easter Rabbit.
We watched another episode of the Waltons, a throw back to my daughter’s childhood and my own. We both envy the Norman Rockwell rural Americana depicted there. When she was a baby, I used to watch the Waltons while she nursed (with the sound on mute so she wouldn’t hear it and I put the subtitles on). As a preschooler, we would often watch an episode to settle down before bed. And the episode where Elizabeth broke her leg spurred a decade of my daughter having a fascination with broken legs. And a brief desire to be a surgeon. Her reaction to the show now is priceless— I never really thought about the fact that the Baldwin Sisters were alcoholics. That was one of her first observations.
Tomorrow the teenager plans to make banana bread.
My daughter had planned a cookie and coffee break for me today, but my work day (even a home) that my 9-plus hour stint at the computer didn’t allow it. So I hope we can try again tomorrow.
For those interested in the things the cat stowed in the couch series, I haven’t found much lately.
My daughter has suggested a new series for Instagram— #thingsfoundinthecouch hidden by #fogourcat.
Fog is the sister of Misty, one of three kittens the teenager trapped this Christmas. Fog was the smartest and was out on her own the longest. The three of them were born under our neighbor’s porch.
I never intended to keep any of them but to make a long story short— I’m a soft-hearted sucker especially when it comes to babies.
So Fog likes to stash her prey in her den, which is the couch. I’ve found pens, keys, and they even tried to drag a skein of yarn there.
Tomorrow will mark two weeks since I started working from home due to the Coronavirus.
I have left the house six times in the last two weeks— three times for work: once to go to the office, once to go to Staples, and once to go to the post office. Once to take a walk and once to walk to CVS to get my prescription.
I reached my one year anniversary today in the small non-profit where I work in the development office. I was hired in a communications position, and four months later promoted to a more directly fund-raising/grant writing position. And for the first five months I was the only person in the department. And this field is new to me.
So the last year has been a whirlwind, stressful and exhausting before you even consider that my husband moved out nine months ago and I live with my teen daughter, two cats, two kittens, three parakeets and a cockatoo.
I’m relishing the stillness of the Covid-19 worth. I enjoy my home as the epicenter of my universe. I love seeing how the technology forces our creativity.
But today I did the unthinkable. Something I swore I would never ever do. Something entirely against my principles and completely disgusting to me.
I bought a laptop— and it wasn’t a Mac. My last laptop was a MacBoor Air 2013 that traveled the world with me. My first computer ever was a PowerBook 165 in 1994.
But now my boss has signaled that she anticipates us working from home through the end of April. And it’s not fair to continue to borrow my just-about-ex-husband’s laptop. And the child needs her MacBook Air to do her schoolwork now.
My mom offered to buy me a laptop for my birthday— so I ordered a refurbished HP Elitebook for $300. A refurbished MacBook would have been twice the cost. Honestly, for work, Microsoft Remote Server works better on the PC. And I know that if I leave this job I will never touch this PC again.
And that’s okay with my daughter, she already has plans for it.
Some of this might be repeat for my regular followers, but I thought it would be nice to compile some of the animal news here.
Lord knows happy pet news can be beneficial to everyone’s spirits.
Oz
Opie and Oz, our two male tiger stripe cats, both turned 9 this month. Nine! The teenager and I raised Oz—the big, dumb, cuddly teddy bear—from a three-month-old kitten rescued from the local animal shelter.
The teenager, then turning seven, wanted an older pug but her father said no dogs and certainly not a pug. So we explored the kittens, basically because my husband trusted me more raising cats.
Oz was one of several kittens from a litter the animal shelter named after Pepsi products and his original name was Dasani. Oz was the tiniest kitten with the biggest damn paws. He grew into a big cat, with an even bigger docile personality.
The teenager named him after The Wizard of Oz but also after Scott Green’s werewolf character on Buffy the Vampire Slayer, then her favorite TV show.
I made the decision to put Oz down when he was three because he had recurring urinary crystals and we couldn’t afford the $1000+ surgery he needed to flush the crystals out of his urethra or the even more expensive surgery to cut off his penis and make him a bigger hole to pee from so he could pass future crystals.
Luckily, the veterinary practice had a young vet who had never performed the surgery and offered to use him as a test case for $600. At that point, that is what I was almost spending to put him down. I think it was $200 more expensive that killing him. So I took the deal.
That’s why Oz can only eat wet food.
And Oz had a fear of drinking water— because he associated it with the pain of passing the crystals when he urinated.
He has since learned to drink lots of water.
But he still has an obsessive desire to eat kibble.
Opie
Opie, our other male cat, is a major badass. Super loyal. Super cat-like. Some cats act more like stereotypical cats that others. Opie is pure feline.
In addition to a birthday this month, Opie also celebrates the one year anniversary of his leg amputation. Opie is a kitty cat bone cancer survivor.
We took Opie in when he was seven months old after friends rescued him from a feral mama. They had planned to keep him but their other cats picked on him.
Oz was still a kitten at the time and the two got along beautifully and look very similar.
Opie is on the top, Oz to the right, Fog left
Opie was our head mouser, but the kittens might give him a challenge.
Mistofelees (Misty)
Misty was the first of three kittens my daughter trapped between late December and late January. They were born probably in late October under my neighbor’s porch.
Misty was the runt. When the others went out to hunt with Mama, he stayed behind.
My daughter worked very hard to tame him and earn his trust.
I think Misty is on the right
We trapped the kitten that later got naked Smoky next. The neighbor named it. And it found a good home. But now a theme was developing.
Fog
Fog was the last one trapped. I named her to fit the theme. She was on her own for about two weeks after Smoky. She would reach into the trap from the side, slip her paw into the food and ladle it out of the trap lick by lick.
When we reunited her with her brother, my heart melted and I couldn’t give her up.
The Budgies: Boo, Wink and Yo
Peek-a-Boo (Boo-boo), so named because she was so spastic when she came home we thought she had a hurt wing, is the dominant bird in the group. And the fattest. She is pure yellow.
The teenager bought her and Periwinkle (Wink) for me as a Christmas present. Wink is the pale blue bird and the most skittish of the group. She and Boo were bonded from the pet store.
I added Yo-Yo (Yo) to the group last fall because I really wanted a traditional green parakeet and to add a male. He is vivid green with some yellow and this amazing navy blue tail.
The teenager made a lot of progress hand-feeding them but hasn’t maintained the training.
And that leaves… Nala.
Nala
Nala is a four-year-old Goffin’s cockatoo with a lot of attitude. I have no large bird experience but she took to me. We brought her home in early January.
She can be very obstinate, which is very common in cockatoos, but we are progressing well.
In the beginning, toweling too often became necessary to keep her from being too aggressive but now that we have learned more about each other it is easier for me to work with her and I can often get her to do something she really doesn’t think is fair— like go to bed—without even threatening to towel her.
It helps that I finally found a treat she can’t resist. She turns her nose up at everything.
She’s displaying a new behavior that I call the “step up” noise and she uses it when she wants to confirm my step up command or is asking me to come get her or sometimes as a demand, like when I won’t let her have my coffee.
Angel Ackerman 