Suzy Says

Henry on the front steps

When I talk on the phone, I always pace. Since the house is small, and clogged with boxes, I usually walk up and down the sidewalk in front of my house. Lately, Henry’s been following me on these meanders, meowing his harsh, yet muted meow. I’m not sure what he wants, but maybe pacing annoys cats, since Audrey tends to bat the blinds and mew loudly when I do so. Not that it stops me.

Yesterday, I finished a call and went back in the house. A few minutes later, I noticed both June and Audrey were at the front door, staring out with their tails switching back and forth. I went over to see what was so fascinating, and there was Henry, sitting on the steps. He has never done this before.

I wonder if he knows I’m moving and wants to make sure I don’t forget him.

I may be a crazy cat lady*, but I think animals pick up on our emotions and changes in our patterns of behavior.

Many years ago, when my brother moved, he was almost finished packing up the truck when Jed the Wonder Dog started trotting into the surrounding woods and appearing with a ball in her mouth. She dropped the ball by the truck, and went back into the woods. When she had collected all her balls, she sat beside the pile, looking up at my brother and wagging her tail. It was as if she was trying to say, “You’re bringing your stuff, and I’m bringing mine.”

*And it’s only going to get worse. Rose and James’s cat, Gertie, can’t understand that they’re gone, so she spends a lot of her day at their old house/my new house. I’m not sure if she’ll flee in horror at the invasion or stand her ground. Then there’s Fiona, who lives nearby with Rose’s daughter Catherine, but comes over whenever she feels like it. So instead of two and a half cats, I’ll have three and two fractions. I think that’s definitely crazy cat lady territory.

They say that geniuses are seldom found behind bars, but they are in the the Apple stores.

Tech tard that I am, I was having problems transitioning my new email address to my Mail program (I hate webmail), along with a couple of other things I wanted to have fixed before I vanish into obscurity. So I made an appointment at the Apple store in Emeryville to get things fixed.

The Apple store was bustling, and I was glad that I had made an appointment, since those who hadn’t were being turned away in droves. As I waited, I had time to admire all the shiny new products, and think how nice it would be to have a wafer thin MacBook Air, or a shiny silver PowerBook. I have to admit that my iBook looks a little dingy next to the new kids on the block.

My problems were fixed in an embarrassingly short time. If they weren’t so busy, they’d probably have laughed at me. One more thing to cross off the To Do list.

Meanwhile, another girl was having the opposite experience.

The satellite internet was scheduled to be set up at my new house this afternoon. Instead, they called my sister yesterday morning, just as she was drifting off to sleep after the third of her twelve hour night shifts was over for the week. They told her that they’d be there in two hours. She designated her husband to deal with it, and went back to sleep.

When the installer showed up, he informed my brother-in-law that he’d need to install a pole and embed it in concrete to hold the satellite dish. He said that they’d have to pay for that up front, since the pole person was an independent contractor and not part of the internet company. Note that they did not mention this when the appointment was booked, or two hours earlier when they called to say they were en route.

Fortunately, Rob figured out a way to fasten the dish to the roof (where there is already a dish for the TV, so what’s up with the whole pole thing?). However, the installers did not bring a modem or router, so who knows if it even works. All that annoyance for nearly nothing.

I have a call in to our IT person about it, and it looks like I’m heading up there for a couple of days next week, so hopefully I can get it all straightened out before Moving Day. Less than two weeks away!

Dear June and Audrey,

You are more than two years old now, so you are practically grown up. Since there seem to be no cat boarding schools or nannies available, it falls to me to explain a few things to you which will hopefully make our lives together more harmonious.

Clanging the blinds behind the bed in the morning will not persuade me to feed you immediately. If anything, it makes me annoyed, and I want to make you wait a few extra minutes. And when I do feed you, milling around underfoot slows down the process rather than speeding it up, and also puts your paws and tails at risk of being stepped on.

Racing around the house and breaking things, particularly full glasses of water, does not endear you to me. Nor does clanging the blinds and meowing loudly when I’m on the phone. I also happen to dislike having the bed skirt clawed, whether I am in or out of bed. Same goes for the thick wool rug in the living room. And the washing machine beside the litter box. Have you ever noticed that clawing the metal not only creates a shrieking noise, which should be as unpleasing to the feline ear as it is to the human, but completely fails to cover up the poo? That’s what the litter is for. Litter. Box. Get it?

Speaking of litter boxes, the bathroom is mine, and I’m not a big fan of you squeezing onto the tank behind me, destroying the roll of toilet paper, or playing with toiletries in a vain attempt to speed up the feeding process, or just because you’re bored and there’s nothing to do. You wouldn’t enjoy it if I invaded the privacy of your litter box, so let’s go for some reciprocity here, ‘k?

In a couple of weeks, we’ll all be moving to the country. The good news for you: you can play outside to your hearts’ content, and hopefully burn off some of that naughtiness energy. The good news for me: I won’t have to worry about your escaping or search for you with a flashlight and treats while trying not to scream. The less good news: Henry is coming with us, and you’ll have to share the house and garden with him. And there will probably be some visitors, like the elderly cat who used to live in our new house, and a tame deer. Given how good you girls are at adjusting to changes, and your friendly, outgoing natures, I’m sure you’ll adapt beautifully. And I’ll always be there to help you and keep you safe.

Love,

Your Girl

Well, the lawnlord never did stop by yesterday, so my diatribe on the evils of lawns and water bills remains undelivered. I used the energy to take my things out of the shed, where I discovered yet another Box. Is someone trying to gaslight me? I dragged it into the driveway, and in the bright light of day, its mildewed and smushed condition was immediately apparent. It looked like my soul would, if I had one.

Sighing, I dug into the paper. It was, not surprisingly, full of crap. What else would you expect? They say one man’s trash is another man’s treasure, but for me, the reverse seems to be true. The treasures have mostly turned out to be trash, at least as far as monetary value goes. Having said that, though, it warms my Grinchy heart every time I see my grandmother’s copper Liberty Bell Jell-O mold hanging on the wall of Erica’s store.

The box contained ugly vases; mysterious plates hysterical with cut glass patterns, too small for any use I could think of; a seemingly endless supply of saucers, mostly cracked and/or glued back together, all of them without cups; and the things I kept.

Above, you’ll see a glass platter with pictures of Presidents Grant, Washington, and Lincoln, with “In Remembrance” in big letters. A ribbon below the Presidents says “God Reigns; Charity First; Liberty for All”. I have no idea what it’s for, but it’s so cool I had to keep it. I also kept a relish tray in clear glass, patterned with raspberries and leaves. My grandmother used it for celery and olives at Thanksgiving (I don’t remember relish trays being used on any other occasion, but maybe they were). I also kept an aquamarine medicine bottle, and a matched set of amber bottles with “Otis Clapp & Sons” in raised letters. The unfortunately named Mssrs Clapp are, remarkably, still in business.

I placed the rejects in a box by the curb, and they were gone within the hour. How’s that for recycling? Who knew that cracked china and orphaned saucers had such a hot market?

I felt a passing pang of pity for my heirs, who will not inherit any treasures, at least from me, though they will get more trash than they’ll know what to do with. I picture them sitting amidst the wreckage, wondering what the hell I could possibly have wanted with the entire series of Dr. Dolittle books, or all those vinyl albums, or all those lipsticks. I guess what each generation really bequeaths to the next is the task of going through their stuff. Kids, I’ll make sure to leave you a few good bottles of wine to make the task easier. To paraphrase my father, I hope you’ll raise a glass to me and say “The old girl wasn’t so bad”.

My landlords showed the house yesterday, even though it’s a total mess. Boxes are everywhere, and things to be packed or sorted or otherwise disposed of are piled up all over the place, making it seem even smaller than it already is. I haven’t been particularly diligent about housekeeping in the face of chaos, either, so it’s going to take a remarkably imaginative potential renter to see the potential. Given all the potential buyers on HGTV shows who can’t look past ugly furniture (which will leave with the sellers), lurid paint jobs (which can easily be changed) or shag carpeting (ditto), it seems a waste of time all the way around, but who am I to say?

One thing I need to tell them is that the water bill is now insane. I am using three times as much water as I did this time last year: 9,700 gallons vs. 3,400, and I’m appalled. Not just because of the increased cost, but because of the horrifying waste of resources in an almost perpetually drought-ridden state. Having a lawn where it doesn’t rain nine months of the year is just wrong.

To add insult to injury, the lawn looks like complete shit, Ferris. In keeping with their lame ideas of maintenance*, they just seeded the dead-looking parts and added the sprinkler, instead of tearing out the whole thing, grading it properly, and re-seeding it. Now it’s just clumpy, with several different kinds and textures of grass, liberally sprinkled with weeds, and still has dead blotches. Honestly, it would look better if they just paved it over. Needless to say, they disregarded my plea for replacing the whole mess with native plants and drought-toleramt ground cover.

I finally emailed her earlier in the week and asked her as nicely as I could to let me know when she was showing the house and when she was planning to stop by. I’ve had it with the surprise attacks. So she did tell me she was coming yesterday and is stopping by today, though no time was specified.

It was unnerving to wait around while she showed the house to people. I had to be there to make sure the cats didn’t get outside, but I kind of didn’t know what to do with myself as total strangers peered in my closets and judged my lack of housekeeping expertise. I wish I could move right now!

*None of the kitchen cupboards close properly, because the hinges are too big; none of the doors other than the front and back close; the bathtub taps don’t work; the doorbell doesn’t work; some of the windows don’t open…

The girls were hard at work last night.

Hmmm. I seem to have a Paul Simon theme going on here lately.

When June and Audrey were kittens, one of their favorite tricks was unrolling the toilet paper, shredding it, and leaving it draped around the room like a punk wedding gown train. I stored the toilet paper in the cupboard under the sink, which was not particularly convenient, but was more convenient than replacing the roll every day.

Getting the house ready for public viewing, I decided to put the toilet paper back on the roll. I figured that the girls were old enough now, at more than two years, to leave the toilet paper alone. They deceived me by leaving it alone for a few days, and then I woke up to the above this morning. Surprise!

But it’s hard to believe their super powers of super naughtiness when they look like Audrey does here:

While packing yesterday, I heard June playing with something clacky. It turned out to be a toy tiara, about an inch long:

I have no idea where it came from. Maybe whoever lived here before me had a well-accessorized Barbie. I wished I could put it on June’s head and take a picture. She’s a beauty queen if I ever saw one. But she’s also impatient with my nonsense, so she ran off, shaking her head at my silliness, to find trouble somewhere else.

My car registration was due (almost $100 for the ennui/horror combo that is driving in California), and had a little love note on it saying that I had to have the car smogged, too. This was mysterious to me, since I bought the car less than two years ago.

I called my brother, who is my source for all things vehicular (also science-y), and he said that as far as he knows, you only have to do it when you buy the car.

Hmmm.

I figured it would be much easier to go to the DMV in Fort Bragg than it is in Oakland, and as usual, I was right*. Instead of a miles long line full of despairing people yelling into their cellphones and/or swatting their kids, there was one guy ahead of me and the whole thing, including waiting for the guy to be finished, took about ten minutes.

I also needed to change my address, and it was the perfect time to do it, because it turns out that if I stayed in Oakland, I would have had to pay to smog the car before they’d renew my registration. As if it’s not bad enough that it costs $45 to fill the car and the registration is nearly $100. Apparently, the rule is that in places with grubby air, like Oakland, you have to get your car smogged every year and a half, but in places with clean air, like Albion, you get a free pass. Another good reason to move!

On our way home, my sister amused me with Tales from the Ambulance. Today’s chapter: Ambulance Abuse.
Example One: A diabetic guy who lived in Mendocino and had a girlfriend in Fort Bragg but no car repeatedly called the ambulance, faked a diabetic episode, and when the ambulance arrived at the hospital, hopped out and took off for his lady’s lair. Free taxi! Well, he called a cab one too many times, and the EMTs cut his clothes off and dumped him in the parking lot wearing only a gown.
He never called 911 again.
Example Two: A woman felt she had been waiting too long in the Emergency Room waiting room. She went home, called 911, and the ambulance picked her up. When you arrive by ambulance, the EMTs take you straight to a room, bypassing the waiting room completely. It’s basically the VIP treatment. So her bad behavior was rewarded.
Can you believe it?

*Also, no-one stole anything out of the car in the DMV parking lot in Fort Bragg, unlike the time someone stole my GPS out of my car at the Oakland DMV. They also took a pack of matches and a pen. Somehow, stealing the pen bothered me more than the GPS. I mean, you couldn’t even leave me the pen?