Extravagance
- From: Allison Turner- <betonica@xxxxxxxxx>
- Date: 7 Jan 2006 21:28:05 -0500
I slept very poorly last night. In part, this was due
to the fact that I'd succeeded in not putting in a single
minute on the dissertation all day yesterday. Also, I
had an all-day meeting today for which I was facilitator,
and I needed to wake up in time for it. (And I haven't
facilitated a meeting for a few years, nor have I had
much practice in the last ten or 15, so a little bit of
planning and prep was also important.)
Mostly, though, I think my poor sleep was due to (1) the
cats deciding that 3 am was an excellent time to play,
beg for food, and beg for water. It's amazing how much
racket two sixteen pound cats can make, thundering
around the house and yowling as though they'd been left
to starve and die of thirst for days. Oh, yes; reason
(2) is the incredibly dry air. Something about the
cold outside, and the single paned windows: all moisture
that gets anywhere near a window gets sucked on and
frozen solid. Sooner or later the whole house is dry
as a bone, not counting the inaccessible moisture stuck
fast to the windows (tangent: bones are dry?).
I lay in bed this morning, from about 3 am to 4, and
finally got up and fed and watered the cats. Then I
lay in bed again. Then I turned the light back on and
read my trashy novel until 6. The alarm went off at
7 am, and I dreamt that I couldn't turn it off; I spent
several dream-minutes unplugging it, unsuccessfully
trying to find access to the battery to remove it, and
trying to smother the sound by wrapping it in blanket
after blanket.
Not the best night's sleep. Pity I had to go do
something or I'd have made up for it by sleeping from
7 am 'til a quarter to noon (thank you, Father Guido
Sarducci).
Anyway, the meeting went really well. I love facilitating;
good thing I only do it once in a while, though, because
it takes a whackload of energy. People were really
enthused, they accomplished a whole lot, and they all
thanked me for my work.
Went shopping afterward. One of the things I did was go
to the pet store for some more Nature's Miracle (really
is a miracle; gets that infuriatingly obnoxious cat pee
smell out of most stuff, though I'm having a harder time
with some cotton). While I was there I also bought three
more of Mouse's favorite mice (made from real fur; look
the part), some stuff that's suppose to discourage a cat
from peeing again in a given spot (I have my doubts, but
it's worth a try) and (thank you Penelope) a cat fountain.
I haven't decided yet whether it works well. Henri, who
I swear drinks gallons of water all the time anyway,
immediately sucked down a huge amount out of the bowl and
then wandered off to do something else before I'd even
plugged in the fountain part. Mouse was sniffing at the
contraption curiously, but when I turned it on, skittered
off in typical timid-mouselike fashion. I haven't seen
them back at it yet, but it's too soon to know.
Anyway, that was one extravagance. And as long as I was
on the subject of water, and considering last night's
sleeping issue, I decided to do something about the
mohave desert in my house. The pots of water sitting
on each wood stove do not seem to be sufficient. I
looked for a water spritzer but I've used them all for
various other tasks. (Somehow spraying the house with
Windex or anti-scale-insect spray didn't seem like a
good solution.) I carried a water bottle back and forth
between the two stoves and splattered them (cool noises
and splatters and sputters and skittering beads of water)
until I decided that I really *didn't* want to see one
of my woodstoves suddenly crack in two. I put a kettle
on the gas stove to boil. I started the shower. I got
a towel dripping wet in the shower, and draped it behind
one of the woodstoves to evaporate dry. Belatedly, I
realized that if I plugged the tub drain, all that hot
water from the shower would stay in the tub, both
heating and humidifying my house for several hours.
It still seems unbearably dry in here, but perhaps it's
my imagination? Perhaps I should go stick my head
under the shower for a while. The propane bill is not
going to be cheap, but one needs to breath.
I very much appreciate, though, living in an environment
in which I can fling a precious commodity such as water
around as though it was abundant, replaceable, and cost
next to nothing.
trivially yours,
-Allison
.
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