Awful Offal

The other day I was washing dishes and cleaning the sink when I noticed there was still a...smell.  So I put baking soda in the garbage disposal and added vinegar.  I love when it froths up, and it's suppose to clean real well.  After I rinsed, well, there was still that...smell.  I had to dig further.

Time to pull out the drain guard.  That rubber insert that protects you from debris when you run the garbage disposal.  I've cleaned this before--even ran it through the dishwasher.  It's very difficult to clean.  I guess it had been awhile since I'd last cleaned it.  Disgusting would be an understatement.

I worked it out of the drain and turned it over.  Ugh!  I couldn't take a picture (no camera).  I don't know if I'd want to post that anyway.  It was like old Jello--thick, jiggly and slippery.  It varied in color from tan through brown to black.  It was fascinating in a "car-wreck" kind of way.  Yeah, yeah, I'm weird.  I also like to look at forensic shows and medical mysteries.  But I digress.

I let the thing soak in bleach, which did absolutely nothing.  Then, in a moment of silliness, I poured salt on it.  Salt chases away evil.  Yes, I know--weird.  But this stuff was even weirder.  I was about ready to buy some lime.  No, not the fruit.

Lime is a general term for calcium-containing inorganic materials, in which carbonates, oxides and hydroxides predominate. Strictly speaking, lime is calcium oxide or calcium hydroxide. --Wikipedia

This is the stuff murderers use to destroy dead bodies.  You can get it at a garden center, but it's not cheap.  So, not an option at that point.  I was going to have to do this the hard way.

Gritting my teeth, I got some paper towels and started wiping the drain guard.  The pieces started falling and jiggling.  Really gag-worthy.  Fortunately, I don't gag easily.  Although, when a piece fell off the paper towel and I was tossing it in the garbage, I almost lost it.  Bloody thing bounced!  I must have gone through a dozen paper towels.

Once it was clean I had to wipe the the drain.  Not any more fun than cleaning the guard had been.  After I reinserted the guard into the drain, I had an epiphany.  Next time, I'm going to just buy a new drain guard!

Relief, Interrupted

Tabitha Darling likes to come upstairs.  She doesn't come and lay by me.  She doesn't come in my room very much at all.  At least, not when I'm awake.  If I happen to fall asleep when she's up there, nine times out of ten, I'm awakened by caterwauling, hissing and spitting.  Because cats know when their humans are sleeping.  And Tabitha is nothing if not opportunistic.  She'll come in my room and pick a fight.  Usually with Bebe, but sometimes Jessie.  Whichever opportunity presents itself first.  Monday I had let Tabitha come upstairs and she was very well behaved.  I fell asleep for 45 minutes or so and, when I awoke, she was still in the storage room.  So Tuesday, I felt kindly toward her and let her come upstairs.

Now Tabitha is not stupid.  In fact, that cat seems to understand most of what I say.  She just ignores the stuff she doesn't want to hear.  When I bring her up here with me, I tell her "Be nice."  It's not the words, but the tone of voice I use.  It's partly remonstrative, partly soothing.  When I say that and use that tone, she proceeds very cautiously up the stairs.  If she gets up here without me, well, she flies up the stairs and makes a beeline for a cat to pick on.

When we came upstairs in the afternoon.  I said the usual "Be nice" and she proceeded slowly, and went directly into the storage room.  A quick look showed me that Bebe was in my room already.  I assumed that Jessie was under the chest of drawers--her most recent hidey-hole.  I needed to use the bathroom, so I closed my bedroom door to keep Tabitha from going in there.  If I know one of the cats is not in my room, I take Tabitha into the bathroom with me and close that door.  Most of the time, I leave the bathroom door open.  Especially now, since I'm up here alone.  It's an old habit, formed from years with cats and having a small child.  Cats hate closed doors as much as any two year old child.

Right across from the bathroom is my closet.  So I had a ring-side seat, as it were, for events that began to unfold as soon as my, er, guard was down.

Tabitha was in the hallway--right in front of my closet.  What possessed Jessie to emerge from said closet right then, I have no idea.  Didn't she see/hear/smell Tabitha?  I mean, all those senses are supposed to be so acute in animals.  I know Jessie's senses still work.  I also know she's old.  Maybe she has feline dementia.  It was, at the very least, a very stupid thing to do.

Tabitha, knowing I was, um, temporarily incapacitated, immediately attacked Jessie.  With my bedroom door closed, Jessie had nowhere to run.  I started yelling at Tabitha to stop and tried to finish my business quickly.  Tabitha backed off a little and I was finally able to stand up.  Before I could get my capris pulled up, she attacked Jessie again.  I yelled again, reaching down for my pants, and started toward the two cats.  With my pants still around me knees, I managed a quick shuffle out of the bathroom and, jerked my bedroom door open, while holding onto my pants with one hand.

Jessie flew into my room with Tabitha hot on her tail.  With another shuffle-step, I managed to push the bedroom door closed before Tabitha could get through it.  She got clipped in the nose by the door, which gave me a small measure of satisfaction.  With the two cats on opposite sides of the door, I was able to--finally!--pull my capris up all the way.  Not taking the time to button and zip, I chased Tabitha down the stairs, scolding her all the way.  The little hellion hissed at me!  Me!  I grabbed the stairway door handle with my foot and pulled it closed.

Taking a deep breath, I climbed the stairs, buttoning and zipping.  I finished my ablutions and opened my bedroom door.  Jessie was nowhere to be seen, but Bebe was sitting by her food bowl.  Now it was my turn to be scolded, as the fracas had delayed her afternoon meal!

Return to the Great Clean-Out & other stories of mischief, madness and mayhem

Back in March, I received a card in the mail for the Epilepsy Foundation.  They were offering to pick up donations.  I went to their website.  The next pick-up date was too soon, so I scheduled a pick up for the end of April.  I don't remember why, but I had to change that to mid-May.  When that was coming closer, I was sick.  In the first throes of it, too, when I was miserable.  So, I changed it again.  The next date was June 29th.  I was just getting my strength and stamina back, but the piles of give-away were threatening to overwhelm the back room, so I left it for the 29th.

I spent the four days before the 29th working my, ah...fingers to the bone.  My fingernails to the quick would be more literally accurate!  I did some final cleaning out of the space-behind-the-other-closet.  AKA, the Cubbyhole.  It seems that at some point during her high school days, my daughter decided to clear the unwanted memories of Jr. High by tossing everything into the Cubbyhole.  Then, when she broke up with her first boyfriend (that's a great story, but I don't think I could tell it here), it appears she shoved all the momentos of her time with him also into the Cubbyhole.  Then--in a moment of pure ditziness--she dumped her hamster cage (sans hamster) in there.  WITHOUT cleaning it first!  Ugh!  There were pine shavings and hamster terds (hamsterds?) everywhere!  The capper to all this?  Because the used shavings and hamsterds were in there, some cat (probably Jessie) used it as a litter box, er, hole.  You get the picture.

Actually, there are no pictures.  My camera has evanesced.  Decamped.  Disappeared.  My suspicions are that a cat, in their sprawling on my table, knocked it off into the garbage.  I, obviously, didn't notice and disposed of said garbage.

 

Odds are 50/50, it's either Bebe or Jessicat.  (Above pics were taken using my CyberLink YouCam.  On my laptop.  )

I still need to wash in the Cubbyhole, but it's been much to hot to crawl around in there.  Then, I get to pull out all my parents' old Christmas decorations.  Who feels like doing that during the dog days of summer?  Not me!

Um, back to the donation pick up.  "D-day," as I'd come to think of it, was closing in fast.  The evening prior, I hauled everything to the driveway by the corner of the house.  Note: I hauled it. Me and myself.  I had very carefully read the acceptability reqs for "small" furniture and there wasn't anything there that I couldn't move by myself.

D-day dawned bright and clear.  We were breakfasting when the truck came, so I didn't run out and watch.  When I did go out there, I was flummoxed.  Perplexed.  Vexed.  The driver had taken all the boxes and bags, a mirror and...nothing else.  The lackwit had the audacity to pull the rocking chair pad out of a bag and leave it with the rocker that he refused to take!

We called.  The lady said that it was left to the drivers' discretion.  I told her there was nothing there that I--a fifty year old women--could not move by myself.  Any reasonably healthy adult male should have been able to handle it.  But then, I stopped myself and said "I'm not going to argue with you.  I'll call someplace else."  And I unceremoniously hung up.

I lugged the rocker, two end tables, head- and foot-boards, rails and slats for a twin bed, a sewing chest (which I could lift with one finger--use your imagination as to which finger) and some other odds and ends, into the garage.  Just when you thought it was safe to go into the garage.  Well, easier to go in there, anyway.  I haven't yet called Salvation Army (the only other place around here with furniture pick up), but I will.  When they come, they'll take the love seat and dining table and chairs that are in the garage, too.  Maybe even the buffet and hutch.  Wow, maybe, someday, I could park in the garage!  Huh.  Well, I can dream.

The overhang over the backyard door is still...hanging over it.  I need a reciprocating saw.  AKA a 'sawsall'.  Today I was outside and my northerly neighbor waved and asked me how my mom was.  We got to talking about all kinds of things.  Very suburbanite--talking at the fence.  We were looking at the overhang, which now lists sadly.  He said I should tell my southerly neighbor that I needed/wanted it down and it'd be down in no time.  I hadn't thought of that.  That was the neighbor who helped cut up the half of a tree that lightening knocked down.  I don't want to impose, though.  But...I thought maybe I could ask him to borrow a reciprocating saw and tell him what I want to do.  I'm sure, being male, he'd think I couldn't handle it (which is questionable) and offer to do it for me.  If not, well, I'd have the sawsall and would just start cutting the darn thing apart!

Yeah, baby!

Over the last few days, I worked in the storage room.  I finally assembled the last bookshelf.  Tabitha came up to help.  Bebe hid under the spare bed in there.  I brought a fan up, removed the floor register and placed a piece of the old hamster cage over the vent, set the fan right by the register and turned it on high.  It was tolerable to work in there.  Once it gets to mid-afternoon, it becomes too hot.  But, after the last bookshelf was put up, I was rearranging books mostly.  Trying not to let myself get sidetracked reading the backs or flyleafs of the books took some willpower.

Today, as I mentioned, I went outside.  It was hot--about 88 degrees.  But there was a steady breeze and I was just checking the yards.  I pulled some weeds.  BIG, tall weeds!  About 4 feet tall.  No kidding.  I got the bypass loppers out and...  No, really!  That's what they're called!

Bypass Loppers

Anyway, I cut down the suckers growing by the fence.  Suckers?  You know, when a tree or bush has shoots growing near it?  Yeah, those.  I lopped them off and hauled them to the front.  Tomorrow is yard waste pick up.  No time like the present!

When I got back inside, I poured myself a full 16 oz glass of water, added a splash of ReaLemon and drank the whole thing in just a few minutes.  I had really been sweating.  Since I had done such hard physical labor and had sweated so much, I figured I deserved a treat.  So I did what any hard-working, middle-aged, menopausal, chocoholic would do.

I made chocolate chip cookies.

And, since they were warm and I didn't want to raise my body temperature I...  What?  Wait until they cooled?  Why?  I like my cookies warm and mushy.  Just past pudding-like.  Besides, I had ice-cream with them!

Well, I have virtual crops to harvest and cyber babies to feed!  Til next time...