mariness

Florida has a problem. Ok, technically, Florida has lots of problems, but for right now, I'm going to be focusing on one: an overly large insect population bound and determined to eat and annoy humans out of existence. So far, this being Florida, the humans are winning, but that isn't preventing the insects from continuing their ongoing guerilla warfare.

So, bats!

Shortly after we moved here my brother put up a little bat house in the front yard. Two years later, it is now the proud home of one (1) small bat. If you ask me, and I know you didn't, this bat is a bit of a slacker. Bugs remain. After some investigation my brother realized that bat house was not in the ideal location so what we had there was one bat stubbornly clinging to an independent bat life, which is great for the bat and not so great if you are trying to get rid of flying bugs or if, like my brother, you really like bats and want to see more of them.

Thus the New and Improved Bat House, which towers on stilts right next to the little house in the back yard, towering over it. It is larger. It is more richly stained.

It has a large Batman symbol on it.

I mention this, because I was not actually responsible for either the Bat House or the Bat symbol. I can see where people would think this, but really, it wasn't me. In fact I wasn't even aware that a Bat House was rising in the back yard -- I knew my brother was back there banging on things, but not on what. And then it was upright, Bat symbol gleaming.

It would be really cool if at this point I could tell you that a couple of robins had flown by and landed on the bathouse. Alas, no -- the robins aren't around just now, although a couple of mourning doves and a pair of cardinals appear to have taken up more or less permanent residence, to the delight of the cats. (Mourning doves very courteously spend long periods sitting thoughtfully on the bird feeder just outside the dining area window, a window equipped with both a window sill AND a little cat tower which provides excellent window viewing in a comfortable environment, so this is excellent for everyone except arguably those trying to make coffee in between loud updates from the cats regarding the presence of Birds At The Window.) Anyway, in theory it takes up to a year for the bats to find the bathouse and settle in and start performing their insect consumption duties. Go bats.

Sleeeeeepppppppppy today. So you get a sleepy update.

Slowly, slowly the house comes together, bit by bit. Most of the trim is in; most of the main bathroom is together, except for the small issue of the sink. The previous sink actually worked just fine, but it was far too large for such a tiny, tiny bathroom, so it's been halfway replaced with an Ikea model, and by halfway, I mean, the previous sink is in the backyard and the Ikea sink is standing in the middle of the bathroom, if not precisely hooked up to anything. This is, for the cats, a preferred sink position, since it means they can sneak around behind it and sit in the cabinet without being blocked by one of those pesky things humans call doors.

Also, I now know where all of my underwear is. I know, I know. You can just feel the excitement, can't you?

And equally slowly I am opening boxes that have been in storage for more than two years, finding half forgotten things, greatly missed things, and what exactly was I thinking when I bothered to pack that up things. (Goodwill and I are going to be on very close terms for awhile, I can tell.) It's a slow process, mostly because many of the things are going to places not quite ready for them yet -- primarily the not yet transformed garage/storage unit. But we are also waiting for three more bits of furniture, and a few other small things.

As a slight counter to all of these good things, we appear to be the number one destination in Orange County for ice cream trucks. I'm not exactly against ice cream trucks (and I am decidedly in favor of ice cream, because, well, let's face it, it's a food group) aside from, you know, that horrific music they insist on playing, but I am not at all certain why, even in sunny Florida, we need to have three or four visits from ice cream trucks PER DAY, on this street and the street behind us. It's almost enough to make me turn against ice cream.

But not quite. I do have gelato in the freezer, after all, and it does appear to be calling my name right at the moment. I have to go answer. You wouldn't want me to upset the gelato, now, would you?

So the house, it creeps together, bit by bit. Paint is on. Last I checked, floors were slowly growing throughout the house (they're wood, so the verb is appropriate.) The garage-turned-storage-unit is rapidly filling up with things from the apartment and my storage unit. The Grey One has managed to find still more things that she can pee on to make life difficult.

You would think, incidentally, that since we are moving her to a larger, nicer place where she will have two large and two small windowsills to sit on, one of which will overlook her very own bird feeder, that she would have been transformed into a miracle of Kitty Helpfulness. This thought would be wrong, as the mere appearance of boxes shook her, and the gradual filling of and removal of boxes has turned her into a bundle of kitty neuroses, even with liberal supplies of nice fresh and dried catnip on hand, leading her to attack the Little One (odd, since he's usually the dominant cat), me (odd, because I FEED HER), and any open boxes (less odd.) I would be less irritated about the box attacks if her secondary attack method did not involve something that most people find deeply unpleasant. Or spending her time yowling. Loudly. I may have mentioned that she is half Siamese. What I forgot to mention is that her vocal cords are ALL Siamese. Loudest cat I have ever endured.

Sigh.

She is a lovely, beautiful, remarkably intelligent cat (not that most of you will ever find this out since she doesn't want you to look at her) and frequently incredibly if overly affectionate (to me) but right now she IS DRIVING ME MAD.

Ahem.

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Early voting yesterday went well with only two small snags: they were printing up new ballots as I wheeled in, which took time for everyone, and the wheelchair booth was covered in cupcakes. I didn't actually object to this (I thoroughly approve of cupcakes) but what was sad, though, was that I didn't get a single cupcake. That seems unfair. I suspect voter turnout would greatly improve if more cupcakes were included.

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I have a hard time remembering, sometimes, that I'm sick, especially now when there's so much to do. Especially yesterday. Posting this mostly to remind myself not to do this later this week.

As everyone who buys a house knows, you have the things you notice when originally walking through the place (awkward position for that 1/2 bath! Everything will need to be repainted/refloored!), the things the inspection finds (in a classic example of how not to put together your own AC system, or, in a related note, why remembering the existence of gravity is important), and then the things you find during the clean-up/move-in/living process.

The first one of those popped up yesterday: the pipes beneath the bathtub, which leads to the probability that we will be replacing the bathtub, which is good in the sense that this means we can actually have the sort of bathtub I want (within size limits – alas, it's a small bathroom, so my visions of huge tubs comfortable enough for more than one person must be discarded) and bad in the sense that this is going to be one major delaying project, which I suppose makes up for the unexpected speed of cleaning up/fixing the AC system. (I thought that would be far more of a nightmare than it turned out being – here looks were decidedly deceptive.)

Otherwise, much of the cleaning work is going well.

Going rather less well are the cats. Not being quite as stupid as they may occasionally seem, they started guessing that something was up when lots of boxes began appearing in the apartment on Tuesday.

They know boxes. Boxes mean that cats get put into boxes and put into cars and taken to new places. Sometimes these new places have dogs. Sometimes these car trips are long.

The Little One switched between scampering about madly and knocking boxes over (typical) to being aloof (so atypical I wondered if he'd had a kitty brain transplant while I wasn't looking). This is the cat that is rarely happy unless he is on someone, anyone, and by on someone, I mean, firmly on top of a lap, a chest, a head, a shoulder, whatever; humans, in his opinion, were created solely so that he can sit on them.

He's been avoiding me and vanishing for most of the week. When not sleeping in boxes.

The Grey One, who usually is the one to vanish for hours or days at a time, meanwhile, has decided to frame her response in a series of reproachful looks, then wails, and then, for no particular reason flop and drape herself all over me before wailing again. Today she has vanished. I suspect she is visiting another, cat centered dimension where cats sit around and complain about the cruelness of humans who move them places instead of allowing them to focus on important things, like naps and birdwatching.

The next few weeks should be fun!

A couple of you emailed yesterday and said I didn't sound that enthusiastic. Well, I am enthusiastic about the house – once it's cleaned up and those horrific carpets that would bring most of you to instant tears of pity or laughter now in there are out of there and the room my father thinks was used to grow marijuana no longer has quite the same drug laboratory look, and once I manage to have the chairs recovered, the place is going to look quite nice, and I honestly cannot tell you how much I am looking forward to the end of stairs. (But many local people are expressing this feeling for me.) But I hate the actual process of moving. And in this particular case, I hate that I feel so useless. I have done some small things here and there, but I can't do that much, and it's frustrating.

Meanwhile, of course, we have the various other irritations of moving: my father's car not starting at precisely the wrong moment; my trike breaking down at also precisely the wrong moment, adding to the irritations. And also meanwhile, everybody thank gargoylerose for once again going over and above the call of duty!

I am, however, very glad that I will be at World Fantasy, which I can't believe is coming up so quickly, the weekend the furniture gets moved.