Suzy Says

So…I have a confession to make.

When I applied for this house, I was a little inexact about the exact cat population at Chez Suzy. I felt – correctly, as it turned out – that if I admitted to having three cats, I would be immediately disqualified as a potential tenant. Three cats seemed perilously close to Crazy Cat Lady territory, not a neighborhood considered desirable by most (or any) landlords. So I only admitted to the existence of Audrey, in the belief that she was the most likely to be seen by the landlord.

In my defense, it is almost impossible to find a place that allows any form of pet, and I had been looking for almost a year before I found this place, which also is lovelier than my wildest dreams. I assumed I would just move into another eccentric hippie house. Imagine my surprise when I saw this place, not to mention my desperate wish to live here.

Needless to say, after I moved in, I was constantly worried that my landlord would find out the cats were a trio, rather than a solo act, and of course, it happened. She came in one day when I wasn’t home to check on the septic system. She didn’t call or text or otherwise let me know ahead of time, and I was at work, as she could clearly see, since my car was gone. She knew quite well I wasn’t home.

Of course, she discovered the unauthorized cats and freaked out, which in turn freaked me out, fearing that I would end up either homeless or catless. I discovered this in a series of agitated texts while I was in a library board meeting. I called her after the meeting and she basically said I had to rehome two of the cats.

I called the free legal service provided by my work, and was amazed to discover that I didn’t have a leg (or a paw) to stand on. All you hear is how tenants have all the rights and it’s so hard to get rid of them and everything is in their favor, but the polar opposite is true. I thought my landlord had committed a crime by deliberately entering my rented premises when I wasn’t there and without my permission. Apparently this is only a problem if it’s “a pattern”. The real problem is that I broke my lease by having two unauthorized cats. Oh, and because I’ve lived there less than a year, my landlord only has to give me 30 days’ notice to move out, and take my legal and illegal felines with me.

I sent my landlord an email, apologizing sincerely and basically begging to keep my beloved cats. She was willing to listen, and there was a back and forth between us. She said she would need another $500 pet deposit, which I was glad to agree to (though I had no idea how I would come up with the money), and she wanted to check the premises monthly, which I also agreed to.

The inspection finally happened this past Sunday. I think it was good that we talked face to face. I again apologized and she said her issue was really with trust, not with the cats, and I totally understand that. She told me some personal things, which I took to be working towards rebuilding our trust, and went through the house. She remarked on how nice it looked, which made me feel good, and though she pointed out some scratches on a couple of the redwood beams, I truly believe they are old and not caused by my cats. I said I wished we had done this before I moved in, and she agreed. She took photos of everything.

Audrey is 13, Clyde is 10, and Dodge is 3. As they pass away, I’m not planning to replace them, and will end up with just one cat, and I let her know that.

We chatted a bit when she left, and as she walked toward her house she said, “I’ll get you the paperwork,” which I hope means that everything is all right. I will always be honest with her going forward, and I hope that we can mend our relationship and be good neighbors for years to come.

A YEAR AGO: It was snowing! And I was under the weather.

FIVE YEARS AGO: A gigantic, scary, power-removing storm. I’d rather have snow, thank you.

TEN YEARS AGO: An illustrious former neighbor.

FIFTEEN YEARS AGO: Getting lost is one of my special talents. They are all pretty much useless.

As soon as the power came back on, I ran around hiding all the signs that it was ever out, madly washing dishes and putting away the lanterns. More than a week after the whole thing ended, I am still recovering from it emotionally. It’s not at all like losing power because of a storm, which is nature and an expected part of each winter. Having it wrested away from you for an extended period of time because of greed and negligence and having absolutely no recourse is not. And it’s super upsetting.

So it was in a state of emotional fragility that I woke up last Saturday morning and went downstairs to make coffee only to find both of the kitchen sinks full of raw sewage. Yes, the power was back on, but the septic system was on strike.

I let my landlord Danielle know, and while I was waiting for her arrival, discovered that the seepage was also in the closet where the washer and dryer are. I pulled everything out of there, and Danielle arrived with cloths to sop up the closet, along with a very long snake and an industrial Shop Vac to deal with the septic situation. Her son Alex, who lives in the house next to me, joined her on this mucky and unpleasant operation. They were both remarkably cheerful about it.

It took a while to deal with it, and Danielle told me that the issue is that the septic was put in many years ago, and now the redwood roots are beginning to encroach on it. Eventually it will need an overhaul, but hopefully not in the immediate future.

Once everything was done, Danielle scattered a lot of wood ash outside and I started bleaching and cleaning inside. I was very thankful that there were no dishes in or even near the sink. Everything was thoroughly cleaned and scrubbed. By that time, I was both hungry and disinclined to cook anything, so I jumped in the car and headed for Queenie’s, where I had a wonderful grilled Reuben sandwich on rye bread made just for Queenie’s. It was everything a Reuben should be.

The clocks went back an hour that night, just adding to the weekend’s weirdness. And making my sister, who had the bad luck to be working that night, have to work an extra hour.

A YEAR AGO: The state was burning up. It was scary.

FIVE YEARS AGO: The horror of looking for a job.

TEN YEARS AGO: My deer neighbor.

FIFTEEN YEARS AGO: Viva Las Vegas!

It might surprise you that a girl who is as much of a sparkly princess as I am doesn’t live in a Jayne Mansfield style glory of pink and glitter. My décor is actually quite neutral. I mentioned to my long-time friend A, whose hobbies include interior design and restaurant reviewing, that the cats* were taking their toll on the beige linen upholstery on the living room chair, and she suggested that I switch out both the couch and the chair for blush velvet ones. She says blush velvet can read as neutral with the right accessories and would provide a welcome note of luxe in my country abode. Also that cats do not enjoy clawing velvet.

A did a lot of research on couches and chairs, and we narrowed down her selection to the dream couch and chair, but they will have to remain a dream for the moment, since I recently made a major investment in car repairs and have no budget for furniture or other frivolities at the moment.

So while I wait for my ever-tenuous finances to recover – if they do – I have been adding new cushions to the couch, which will be compatible with pink velvet if it ever occurs. A gave me the beautiful vintage hand-made suzani which is draped over the back of the couch, and also the hand-embroidered turquoise cushion on the left. I added the white, purple and pink embroidered cushion on the right. Allergy sufferers, beware: all the pillows in my house are feather.

My plan was to replace the dark, beaded pillows on the ends. I still like them, but they don’t work so well with the new color scheme. I’m planning to see if Megan wants them, since she has no couch cushions and a nice, dark leather couch.

I consulted with A and we chose a pretty cushion on line, thinking that if I liked it enough, I’d get another one to match it. I ordered it two weeks ago and it has yet to arrive. The tracking number said it had arrived last Monday. I checked my post office box on Tuesday on my way to work. I picked up a box, which upon opening, revealed itself to be full of little bottles**, which I had not ordered. A look at the mailing label revealed that it was addressed to my brother, who has a PO box he shares with our sister. Megan checked their PO box in case my package was delivered there instead. Nope.

I checked with the shipper, who told me to wait a couple of days in case it turned up. I did and it didn’t. I contacted them again and they traced the package. Apparently, it was delivered to my old street address. Note that this does not mean it went to my old house. Deliveries to the old address went to a sort of decaying shed at the front of the property. Sometimes, they went to the front door of the rarely occupied front house. I am guessing this is what happened on this occasion. Fed Ex told me that the driver went to see what happened to the package and whoever is currently living in the front house kept screaming at him that she was not me and he should get out of there, which he eventually did. I’m guessing the screamer kept the cushion.

Fed Ex said it was their fault for not verifying my address. I pointed out that the shipper should not have allowed me to enter a PO box address if they were planning to ship by Fed Ex. Fed Ex also said that I might be surprised by the amount of fraud that goes on around missing packages. She gave an example of someone who said she never received her treadmill. When Fed Ex said they would have to send the sheriff around to investigate, she “found” it in her garage.

Anyway, it’s been a lot of fuss for a $20 cushion and I hope I love it if/when it ever gets here.

*To be fair, none of them goes outside anymore. But even when they did, they tended to claw indoor items or the house itself rather than the giant outdoor scratching posts, which you and I refer to as “trees” or “the woods”.

**For home-made hot sauce, made from the peppers they grew this summer.

A YEAR AGO: A wonderful sleepover with the wonderful Jessica!

FIVE YEARS AGO: A delightful evening with Megan and Lu.

TEN YEARS AGO: Getting ready to leave Oakhampton. And not a moment too soon.

FIFTEEN YEARS AGO: A few updates.

One of the things I have been getting used to in the new house is that it has a hot water heater instead of a flash heater, which the old house had. With a flash heater, you get on demand hot water and, as the name suggests, pretty much right away. With the water tank, I find I have to run the water for quite a while before it warms up. One Saturday, it never got above tepid.

I went outside and looked in the little storage shed attached to the house, where the water tank lives. Its pilot light was out. I was able to successfully relight it, which made me all proud of myself until it went out again. I followed the instructions, not wanting to bother Danielle yet again.

Eventually I had to, though, and she came over to investigate. The hot water heater was only five years old, but she thought it needed to be replaced. She put a call in to the guy who deals with such things and went to work. I started making alternative plans to take a shower and wash the dishes.

Being Danielle, she came home with a new water tank and had somehow persuaded Water Tank Guy to come over even though he had worked seven days in a row and undoubtedly his enthusiasm for this weekend project was why they invented negative numbers. He agreed that the tank needed to be replaced, so he set about draining the old one and putting the new one in place.

She said that she put in a hot water tank instead of a flash heater because then there was hot (or at least warm) water for a while when the power went out. Apparently flash heaters need power, which I never knew because I never had water when the power went out, since it meant that the well pump didn’t work. Here I will have water at least for a while when the power goes out, since there is the big water storage tank on the third floor of the house.

It occurred to me that so far Danielle has not made a lot of money from renting the house to me. Also that I might be some kind of appliance jinx. First the heater needed a new thermo coupler, involving an expensive visit from the Gas Guy. Then my stove was replaced, since Danielle decided it was cheaper to just buy a new one rather than have the old one fixed (the broiler and one burner didn’t work. This is the kind of thing that I would have just lived with at the old place). Then the outlets and closet light in the bedroom weren’t working, necessitating a visit from Electrician. Now this. She also mentioned that she was going to have to buy a new refrigerator for her own house. Hopefully my refrigerator will continue to keep things cold while the water heater continues to (eventually) produce hot water. I don’t think this is the time to mention that I can’t change the dryer controls and instead have to run it two or three times on the cycle it’s stuck on.

ONE YEAR AGO: The beginning of Dental Hell. I do not recommend visiting it.

FIVE YEARS AGO: Some miscellaneous updates.

TEN YEARS AGO: Getting ready to get the hell out of Oakhampton. Note to Self: What is with your landlords turning up wth no notice, wherever you live?

I am pleased to announce that The Mess has been vanquished and The Unpacking is (mostly) complete!

Here’s the living room:

I do have distant plans for this room. I would like to get a bigger area rug. Also my good friend Alice thinks I should get a pink velvet sofa and chair, since cats (allegedly) don’t claw velvet and pink is my signature color. It would also go nicely with my beaded elephant pillow and the vintage, hand-made suzani Alice gave me:

Here’s the kitchen. You can see that the painting does balance out the wall with the grandfather clock:

Here’s another angle:

I mentioned to Danielle that I couldn’t seem to get the broiler or the front right burner of the stove to work. She investigated and decided that it would cost $400 to get someone in to fix the stove, so she bought a new one and had it delivered the next day.

This is not how Mark thought. He would have jimmied something with a piece of wire and string and told me he’d fix it later. That later would never come, yet I would expect it to and be surprised when it didn’t.

While Danielle was looking at the stove, I also told her that the light in the bedroom closet didn’t work and she is getting an electrician to look at it next week. I could get used to this.

Here’s how the bedroom looks, complete with Clyde:

And the bathroom:

Here’s the back of the house, with the Chinese stools and porcelain flowers from the old house. The stairs lead down to the fenced in garden, where foxes, ravens, and hummingbirds like to play:

I can still hardly believe that I actually live here.

A YEAR AGO: The joys of the always amazing Flynn Creek Circus.

FIVE YEARS AGO: Making faux (but delicious) pho.

TEN YEARS AGO: Of BBQs and hay bales.

I finally felt an earthquake! I was watching Bohemian Rhapsody at the time, and despite the music, I heard the quake before I felt it, as I usually do. It was on the sharp side, but much quicker than they would have you believe on movies and TV. I didn’t notice any immediate damage, but the next day I did notice that a tree branch had fallen on the driveway, partly obscuring the exit, though I’m not sure if the two were related. As I expected, my ever-vigilant new landlord had removed it by the time I got home from work.

In addition to the inside and outside cat population, the new house seems to have its fair share of wildlife. A fox has come up on the back porch and the little deck outside the sliding doors in the kitchen, peeking in the windows. He is very cute. It may just be a drive by on his way to the compost pit, where I have seen his tail flying like a flag.

The compost is also a favored location for ravens, who swoop through the garden past the redwoods and into the compost. Hummingbirds buzz around the azaleas and jasmine, and I also saw a woodpecker last week. Steller’s Jays flash their vivid wings in the sun, and I saw a young deer, still with velvet on his antlers, stroll casually down the driveway.

There’s a certain spot on the new Ridge where wild turkeys like to hang out. They tend to congregate in the road and are unwilling to move for silly things like cars and humans, which do not interest or frighten them in the least. Quail also run across the road like little wind-up toys. It’s nice to see all the animals and feel like I’m at home amid all the nature.

A YEAR AGO: Yup, I am the whitest person ever. We are the Wonderbread family! And Mom’s origins remain a mystery.

FIVE YEARS AGO: There was much to celebrate. In the “some things never change” department, I texted Megan to wish her a happy anniversary on Monday and she had, yes, forgotten.

TEN YEARS AGO: Shopping: it’s all in how you look at it. Really glad I sent that fan letter to Karl Malden, though.

Well, that didn’t take long!

I heard a thump one morning while I was applying my faux adult armor and looked in the bedroom, where the sound seemed to originate. I saw the window screen was torn. Looking out the window, I also saw Dodge standing on the driveway. I closed the window and tried to get Dodge to come back in the house. One thing I have learned about him is you can’t pick him up outside. He will claw you to death and he is one strong boy! It must be all part of his street survival multi pack of skills. So you have to wait until he’s ready to come back in, even if it’s 2 am.

I happened to be lucky that day and got him to come back inside before I left for work, but I was worried about the torn screen. I felt like I had just moved into the house and I had already trashed it. Also my landlord drives past my house any time she goes anywhere or goes home, so I was afraid she’d notice.

I managed to get it taped up until Rob could come by and take a look at the situation. He showed me that it hadn’t actually torn – it was pulled out of the frame and the string that holds it in (you can tell I have a 100% perfect grasp of the inner workings of window screens) was also intact. So he managed to make it look as good as new, which was a huge relief, and also put the errant screen back in its place without a giant ladder, making my house look like nothing had happened when in fact plenty had.

I made another unwelcome discovery while getting ready for work this morning. The cats had in fact snapped off a part of one of the bathroom window blinds and bent another one. Goodbye, $1,000 security deposit! I thought as I applied plum colored mascara. I’m wondering if I can super glue them together or maybe Rob can come up with something. I guess my worst case scenario is replacing the blinds when I move out. They will (I hope) be a lot cheaper than $1,000. In the meantime, I have rolled up the blinds to hide the damaged part.

Those kitties! What will I do with them?

A YEAR AGO: Heatwaves, bunnies, and birds!

FIVE YEARS AGO: A reading at the bookstore.

TEN YEARS AGO: A rude awakening.

A Rare Show of Togetherness

The cats seem as happy in their new home as the Staff is. They staked out their territory early. Audrey is Queen of the Couch, rarely, if ever, venturing upstairs, which is Boys Town. While she lounges on the couch, the boys lounge (and generally cuddle) on the bed. Much like human boys, they are happy with an unmade bed, but their Staff prefers the bed to be made and things to be tidy.

I placed two food dishes and a water dish in the spacious bathroom, along with the litterbox, which I cleverly concealed in the shelving unit there. I was surprised one day to note that both Dodge and Clyde were in the box at the same time, which seemed a little excessive in the way of togetherness.

Audrey’s dish and water are downstairs in her kingdom. It was soon brought to my attention that she did not care to go upstairs to use the facilities, so she now has her own inside the downstairs closet. I don’t love leaving the closet door ajar at all times, but it beats the alternative. Like I always say, compromise means nobody’s happy, though in this case, I’m pretty sure Audrey is.

The front door of the house is mostly glass, as is the sliding door in the kitchen and the door to the back porch, so I expected the cats to use those to look outside. Unfortunately for me, they prefer to sit in the windows, most of which have blinds which they walk through and disarrange. Fortunately, all of the windows also have screens.

However…I did not admit to the actual cat population when interviewing for the house. I only told my landlord about Audrey, who I expected to be the most visible and who might go outside eventually. Even to the owner of three cats, three cats sounds perilously close to crazy cat lady territory, and I didn’t want to jeopardize getting the house by admitting to it. So now I’m worried that she will notice them sitting in the windows and I’m not sure how to respond to that if it happens. I realize I should have told the truth in the first place and I brought it all on myself, but still.

The situation is further complicated by the fact that the landlord’s cat has been stopping by to visit (and, on occasion, leaving dead birds on the front porch). She is a beautiful cat, slim and white, with grey patches and extra toes, making her slim legs look even thinner with the big, bunchy paws.

She is friendly and likes to be petted. However, Clyde and Audrey do not appreciate her visits. They both hiss and growl at her. I am always a bit shocked when Clyde does it, since he is usually such a cuddlebug. Dodge is completely uninterested in the visitor. Maybe he developed this laissez faire attitude while living on the mean streets of Fort Bragg during his formative years.

Maybe I’m worrying about nothing, though worrying is what I do. I’m (in)famous for it. Even seven year olds can tell!

A YEAR AGO: Some minor mysteries on the Ridge.

FIVE YEARS AGO: An eventful memorial service.

TEN YEARS AGO: Those naughty kitties!

My new appliances and I are getting to know each other. My lifelong record of having no dishwasher other than myself remains unblemished, but the new house has nice, deep double sinks and even one of those sprayers which are so great.

It took me a few minutes to figure out how to turn the oven on. The stove in the old place, which was a charming, apartment-sized old Wedgewood – lit with a match, but the new one is not so straightforward. Eventually I figured out which buttons to push to turn it on and set the temperature. Later, it beeped to tell me that the oven was at the correct temperature.

While the oven was warming up and stretching, I turned my attention to the somewhat intimidating washer and dryer. They look like you need to be a pilot to operate them, or at least have more than two brain cells.

Fortunately, they were up to this particular task, and I successfully got a load of laundry washed and dried, though not put away since the closet is still in chaos. It is a front loading washer and it seemed to take almost an hour to complete a load of laundry, which seemed like a long time.

In addition to the new appliances, I am also enjoying the novelty of having a house key* for the first time in over a decade:

I have gone from having 5 doors with no keys to having three doors with keys. Even the sliding door in the kitchen has a lock. I find it quite satisfying to lock them before I go to bed at night, even though I’m sure I’m as safe, or safer, than I was at the old place. There is also a gate to the property which opens with a remote control or a key pad, which still kind of feels like magic and makes me feel even safer. So far, I am loving my new house.

*It’s lurking somewhere under all the bling and my post office box key.

A YEAR AGO: Feeling grateful for things big and small. I note that I wore the bracelet today.

FIVE YEARS AGO: Car pooling and Stella smiles.

TEN YEARS AGO: Ghosts in the machines.

I was really glad to see the fog this morning after four days of above 90 temperatures. Granted, the new house is much cooler than the old one, which had no insulation and a peaked ceiling which trapped the heat, but after baking in high temperatures day after day and not really cooling off at night, there’s only so much you can expect. It was strangely still with no breeze, and it didn’t cool off at night. This is unusual for us.

I was also pleased to see St. Louis win the Stanley Cup last night. Hooray! It’s their first win of the illustrious Cup, and also had the pleasant side effect of snatching it from the evil Boston Bruins, who defeated the Leafs in the first round of the playoffs to my dismay and consternation. Just looking at the ice on TV was nice, too.

But most of all, I was happy to see my brother and brother in law arrive to unbox the ancient grandfather clock and get it set up in its new home. It’s off center because that’s where the wall stud is:

It’s also better for the clock to be as far from the heater (at right) as possible. I’m hoping to balance it out visually by hanging my big painting “Russian Hill” between the clock and the painting:

We took the Styrofoam and coffin pieces upstairs, where Rob put a ladder to access the storage space around the water tank on the third floor of the house. There was a light so Rob could see what he was doing, and the first thing he noticed was how cool it was, probably due to the water tank. Then he said that there was “enough room for a family of five” in there. Unfortunately, the front and back of the clock coffin were too wide for the doorway/hatch, so the boys ended up stowing them under the house until the next time I move, which I hope is never.

With the clock relocated, Rob’s bookcase was moved next to the sliding glass doors and my few remaining books placed in it:

When I discovered that there was space left over, I regretted some of the books I had given away, but I should try to look forward instead of back. And focus on not accumulating more stuff. Lessons have been learned. The hard way, as usual.

Jonathan put my bed together while Rob was disassembling the clock coffin. An esoteric piece of hardware was lost in the moving process and could not be replaced locally, so Rob made one. I am lucky to have such handy brothers who are willing to help me out. It was nice to get the bed off the floor. I was also pleased to note that it’s much easier to sit up in bed now that I don’t have to position myself oddly in order not to hit my head on the curved wall/ceiling. Rio observed that living at my old house was living in an art project, and I think she was right.

So things are coming together at the new place.

A YEAR AGO: Wednesday and I weren’t feeling too well.

FIVE YEARS AGO: Wednesday was not at her best then, either.

TEN YEARS AGO: Life in Oakhampton was not very exciting.

The day after I moved, there was The Mess to contend with. I kept fretting over where on earth I would put everything, even though I had given and thrown away tons of things and stuff.

The cats woke me up at 2:30 am one Sunday night, or early one Monday morning, depending on how you look at it, breaking a glass I had unwisely left on the bathroom counter. I discovered this by stepping on broken glass in bare feet. After I pulled the glass out, applied the non fun kind of alcohol to the wound, cleaned up the breakage without benefit of broom and dust pan, which were still at the old house, I tried to go back to sleep. You will be unsurprised to learn that this did not work. I decided to just get up and attack the reason I couldn’t sleep.

Thinking that I might just unpack a few boxes and then go back to bed, I started to work without benefit of caffeine, putting away the kitchen things first. It was nice to see my Dean & Deluca spice containers again, and the peppercorns my good friend Alice sends me when she goes to Cambodia and Thailand. Also the little ceramic blueberry jam jar I bought in Maine as a kid. These are the kinds of things that make a girl feel like she’s home.

Pretty soon I was stashing the 200 year old Wedgwood carefully in an appropriately wedge shaped cabinet and the familiar canteens of Grammie’s ivory handled silver above the cabinets. I had found a place for all the kitchen pots, pans, and et ceteras! There were quite a few et ceteras. I will probably have to tweak it as I use it and figure out what works and what doesn’t, but it looked a little better after my late night adventure:

Note the curious Dodge surveying the new improvements.

Encouraged by this success (though daunted by the rapidly accumulating pile of empty boxes), I started stowing food in the closet under the stairs. This space has some storage, room to hang coats and the washer and dryer, as well as a shelf which is now stacked with cans and dry goods:

Given the limitations of storage space, I should try to be more minimalist and less survivalist when it comes to stockpiling pasta, rice, coffee, tea, and canned goods.

By this time, the sun was up and the cats were interested in breakfast. I made a well-deserved cup of coffee and started going through the boxes of books. The only place I have to put them is Rob’s beautiful book shelf, so I sacrificed still more books – another 6 boxes. All my Jane Austen, Edith Wharton, Richard Ford, Raymond Carver, Evelyn Waugh…everything I can get from the library if I want to re-read it. I kept some sentimental favorites, my Dad’s books, and some cookbooks along with a coffee table book or two.

While difficult on the emotions, it did make an even more serious dent in The Mess:

Once the boys have time to set up the grandfather clock and switch its location with the book shelf, the room will be mostly done and I will finished with most of the boxes. I am hoping that we can unearth the old cherry table we used to have in our dining room when we were kids. It might need some work from Rob, and it will certainly need chairs, but it would be nice to use it again.

All in all, a lot of progress in just two days!

A YEAR AGO: Some delightful discoveries in the Village.

FIVE YEARS AGO: Rob’s amazing bathroom makeover (supervised by Clyde, of course).

TEN YEARS AGO: Wonderful in white.

When I first started the lengthy and horrifying moving process, I thought, “At least it won’t be raining”, but apparently I was wrong about that, as I am about so many things. It has been pouring since yesterday and rain is supposed to continue on and off until WEDNESDAY. I can’t remember when we have gotten this much rain this late. The radio cheerfully informed me that it will also be windy, with gusts up to 50 miles an hour, so I am just waiting for the power to go out. The fact that I was unable to close up my battered umbrella once I got to the office makes me fear even more bad luck as it drips into the carpet.

Also for the leaks to start in my house, which has been on the damp side anyway lately. Rob came over last weekend to remove some artwork, including the amazing vintage Toronto streetcar sign which I am selling on eBay*:

This required a large and heavy extension ladder, probably suitable for fighting fires, since the ceilings are so high. It was a lengthy and delicate procedure. When it was finally over, I asked Rob what was the strange hissing noise was that I could hear in the kitchen.

Rob’s opinion was that it was a water leak. He investigated under the house and under the kitchen cabinets, but finally had to cut a hole in the sheetrock under the sink, where it was revealed that due to the cheapness of the pipes James put in, there was a split in the pipes.

The bathroom, which is about 7 feet by 5 feet, promptly flooded as I watched in horror. Rob went to turn off the water to the house, while I grabbed a broom and swept the water out of the bathroom door which leads to the back porch. It was not the first time I was grateful for that odd, but useful feature. Then I mopped up the floor with towels and called Mark.

He got someone to come and fix it, but they came accompanied by dogs which they allowed to run into my house without asking me first, terrifying both me and the boys. I put the boys in the bachelor pad and banished the dogs. The fixers were notably Not Rob, since they were not only hillbilly looking, but took three trips to the store to buy parts and spent all day working on it. They still have to come back and replace the sheetrock.

As Rob said, I have picked a good time to move.

*A really nice guy who lives in the Annex area of Toronto bought it. Nice to know it’s heading back home!>

It’s not exactly official! I’m moving!

I have been looking for a new place since last August. There’s not a lot of houses for rent around here, and my specifications (not in town, no visible neighbors, preferably Hooterville, not in the fog) winnowed the short supply down even further. I found the new house on the local message boards. The rent is about the same as my current house, but the house is newer and nicer. It also has character and architectural details, being a working water tower:

and having beams made of old growth redwood:

There is a kitchen with more than three feet of counter space:

And a spacious bathroom with an actual bathtub! Lush, here I come!

The bedroom is lovely and has – get ready, folks – a closet! No more storing my clothes under the bed!

It is located on a different ridge in Hooterville, also about five miles inland. The landlord has owned the property for about 30 years. She and her son also live on the property, but I can’t see their houses from my new house. She built my new house herself, even milling the wood herself. She owns a business in the Village and works 6 days a week, so it’s been challenging to catch up with her and figure out the formalities, like getting something signed (if there is something to sign), giving her a check, and figuring out when I can move in.

It was hard to tell Mark I am leaving after ten years, but it hasn’t been the same since he left and there has also been too much weirdness. It will be the first time a member of my family hasn’t lived on the property in 25 years! We have had a lot of joyful times here, and I love my quirky old house. But it’s time for a new chapter.

A YEAR AGO: Let tourist season begin! Again!

FIVE YEARS AGO: The horror of Covered California. Just thinking about how expensive and crappy it was still makes my blood boil.

TEN YEARS AGO: the many joys of old movies.

My absentee landlord appeared as suddenly as he left, and with the same amount of notice. One day he appeared at the “front” door, which is actually at the side of the house. I couldn’t open it, though. That was one of the things I had emailed him about a few months ago, along with the alarming increase in the puddle population (in the foyer, above the refrigerator, the windowsill where Dodge sits) and some recently discovered termite damage.

I went out through the bathroom door so we could chat. It appeared that the main purpose of his visit was to shepherd the bank appraiser around the property. He is trying to get a loan using the property as collateral. Supposedly he will use the loan to fix things like my increasingly leaky roof and the driveway, which is now about 85% potholes and a joy to drive, even at 2 miles an hour, but I have my doubts about this and whether he will be able to repay the loan in a timely manner.

I kept these thoughts to myself, along with the fear that Mark’s overextending himself financially might lead to my living in a tent on the family estate. He claimed that the assessor was supposed to show up at 11 am on Saturday, but it was more like 12:30 before he appeared. He was somewhat surprised by having to come in through the door that leads from the bathroom to the back porch. Doesn’t everyone have an outside door in their bathroom?

He was an unprepossessing individual, to say the least. It was hard to imagine that he had ever seen the inside of a bank, let alone work for one. Let’s just say that I would not have picked him up if he were hitchhiking. It was quite unpleasant to have him looking around my house, and it gave me a creepy feeling as he measured things and poked around. I was reminded of having the appraiser at my now million dollar apartment in San Francisco making me feel like the place was a total dump.

Dodge disagreed with me, performing his patented jump while rubbing against the guy’s grubby jeans. Dodge is lucky he didn’t get a bath afterwards. The appraiser opined that Siamese cats were crazy, which did not improve my opinion of him, though Dodge’s opinion remained unchanged.

Eventually, the guy left, taking his creepiness with him. Now it’s a waiting game to see if Mark gets the loan and whether he can pay it back if he does.

A YEAR AGO: An exhibit of cookbooks, and some tales from the past.

FIVE YEARS AGO: A late season power outage for me and an unpleasant trip to the dentist for poor Rob. Is there any other kind?

TEN YEARS AGO: Jessica’s sixth birthday. Those among you who are not math challenged will realize this means she is now 16. SIXTEEN!

The doc really did fix me up as promised. The Cough has gone on to find someone else to torture and I am no longer exhausted. It took longer than I expected to regain my normal voice, and I sounded like Peppermint Patty for a while. Laughter led to coughing during those Peppermint Patty days, but my natural frivolity was impossible to restrain as usual.

Once I stopped my sickness cycle of work-bed-work, I realized that the house needed some attention. One thing about cats is they never do housework. They create it, but leave the Staff to take care of it. So when the Staff is unavailable, housework does not get done. They quite rightly flee at the sight of the vacuum cleaner. Clyde also abandons ship at the sound of glass cleaner being sprayed. No manual (or paw) labor for him!

Cleaning up led to more cleaning up. When putting away dishes, I noticed that the shelves needed cleaning. So I ended up hauling everything out and washing the shelves. Looking at all the things and stuff that had been stored there, I decided that the rarely used things should be relegated to the studio, and that the stuff that was no longer useful or being used should be thrown out or rehomed.

I also got rid of all the Tupperware which didn’t have lids, which was remarkably satisfying. It also led to some online shopping for esoteric items not readily available in the environs of Hooterville, such as a pot lid organizer (instead of having a jumble of them and never being able to find the right one) and another organizer for frying pans of varying shapes and sizes.

So the simple “let’s put the dishes away” became an hours-long extravaganza. Eventually, the cats’ – or at least the boys’ – curiosity won out over their disdain for housework, as Clyde showed Dodge how to supervise projects. As you know, he is an excellent project supervisor with a flawless track record, so Dodge is learning from the best. Audrey just looked at us all with disdain from her throne, as befits the empress she is.

A YEAR AGO: Taking a civilized little break in town.

FIVE YEARS AGO: Storms and power outages. What else is new?

TEN YEARS AGO: A little film noir festival at home.

Fires:

The Camp fire, located 200 miles away, is only 35% contained. The Woolsey fire is doing a little better at around 45%. It still amazes me that we are having such huge fires so late in the season. Maybe we will start having fires year round instead of a fire season. How scary is that? I am surprised that a fire 200 miles away made the air so unbreathable while smoke from fires that were only 50 miles away didn’t come anywhere near us. I am also perturbed by the fire raging all the way to the ocean in Malibu. I always thought that we were safer here on the coast due to topography and proximity to water, but apparently I was wrong about that, as I am about so many things.

H2OhNo:

Speaking of water, we do have it, at least for now. I still don’t understand what the problem is. It may have something to do with the underground pump or the electricity or something else that is beyond my limited means of understanding. My fear is that it is also beyond the people who are dealing with it, and that they don’t know enough to know they don’t know enough. I am pretty sure we will have to call out the cavalry in the form of Rob, even though they keep saying they don’t need his help. The fact that Rob lived on the property for 20 years and used to maintain the well along with my brother suggests otherwise, as does Rob’s general mechanical ability. We’ll see. In the meantime, I’m keeping my buckets loaded and my fingers crossed.

Kitties:

Audrey has been scarce lately. She no longer asks to go out in the morning, and most days I don’t even see her before I go to work to make money for cat food and litter. She has a mystery spot somewhere. She does still sit on her throne (aka the armoire) sometimes so she can look down on everyone both literally and figuratively. She still hates Dodge and is not shy about letting him know this. Dodge is unconcerned by her disdain. He just looks at her when she growls at him, and maybe this infuriates her even more. Clyde on the other hand has been completely won over by Dodge. They play together and give each other baths. Clyde even shares his quilt with Dodge:

And they often sleep together. Dodge is coming out of his shell and is spending more time downstairs with the rest of the family instead of hanging out on the bed, where he could be comfortable but also have a vantage point to keep an eye out for possible enemies. He slept a lot when I first got him. I imagine living on the streets was very stressful. He was terribly thin and missing a lot of fur when I first adopted him, but now his fur is plush and he has filled out. I think he’s beginning to feel safe and comfortable. Both boys are staying in all the time now, and I’m not sure if that will ever change. It’s nice not to worry about them. Audrey, as the undisputed winner of Survivor: Hooterville, still has outside privileges, but she doesn’t use them all that much.

Holidays:

Basically, they are not happening. The pre-conversion Grinch would be proud. We are having Thanksgiving at Rio’s this year. I have to admit I am rather disappointed that we will not have one last Thanksgiving with Erica and Jessica at my house. They will be leaving the day after Thanksgiving and they will probably never be back for Thanksgiving ever again. They may be able to come for Christmas next year, but who knows? It’s a long way from Nanaimo to darkest Hooterville.

On the other hand, Thanksgiving is next week and I have not had to plan, shop, cook, or clean. Nor will my house be a FEMA worthy disaster on Black Friday, so score.

Due to my siblings’ work schedules and the depressing lack of Erica and Jessica, Christmas has effectively been cancelled. I am not sending out cards or putting up the tree or decorations. This may make Twelfth Night much less depressing. Or it might just maintain the current level of depressingness. As my one concession to the holidays, I have set out the two amaryllis plants from last year, and will be interested to see if once again one is the overachiever and one is the underachiever.

A YEAR AGO: Unwilling to get ready for winter.

FIVE YEARS AGO: Sigh.

TEN YEARS AGO: Libraries past and present. Tomorrow I’m heading to a library Board meeting.

I don’t know about you, but I’ve always broken up with (or been broken up with) in person. Maybe it’s old school, but there’s never been a Post-It or ghosting involved.

Until now.

One day, I discovered that my landlord Mark and his wife Citlali had suddenly decamped to Southern California somewhere. They took everything in their greenhouses, but left their dogs behind with Citlali’s sister, Catrin, and her husband, Zac, who live in my brother’s former abode at the very end of the property. The dogs and I have greeted this somewhat shocking development with equal enthusiasm, though there was less barking in my case. At least on the outside.

Of course, pretty much the minute there was no landlord on the premises, things started Going Wrong.

I came home one day to find that the toilet had gone on strike in the sudden and definitive manner of French civil servants. I gazed at the errant fixture with dismay and trepidation before calling my long-suffering brother-in-law Rob, who has undoubtedly begun to feel that he and Megan did not move far enough away.

Rob turned up almost immediately and coaxed the commode into working order once more. But this wasn’t the end of the plumbing adventures.

Last weekend, no water came out of the taps. This was surprising, since our well has never run out of water, no matter how droughty the drought got. The guy who has moved into Megan and Rob’s house investigated all day to no avail, leaving the pump turned off overnight and notifying me that the 2,000 gallon water tank was unaccountably empty.

There’s nothing like not having water to peel off the thin veneer of civilization in a hurry. Dishes piled up in the sink, grooming was a challenge (OK, it was non-existent), and I was thankful that I had buckets of water to flush the non-operational facilities.

The next day, there was no further news or information, so once again I resorted to Dial-A-Rob, with its excellent service. It didn’t take him long to discover that the problem was that whoever was working on the front house renovation left the hose going and that had drained the tank. While stupid, it was also the easiest possible fix. Rob turned it off and before long, both water and my slightly shopworn veneer of ersatz civilization were restored. I really don’t know what I’d do without Rob, though I bet he’d like to know.

We have been getting some early season rain over the past few days, and I was sorry to see that it was not staying outside. I seem to have new leaks this year, including one over the couch. I wonder if I can get someone other than Rob to fix it?

A YEAR AGO: Mark was still around and working on the property. Those were the days.

FIVE YEARS AGO: My divorce became final. Also the legendary Tom Petty died a year ago today. Such a festive time of year.

TEN YEARS AGO: I had plumbing problems then, too.

I am pleased to report that the mattress nightmare is finally over!

Like particularly capricious dates, they kept standing me up at the last minute. This happened twice. The day and time was set, and then the night before, I’d get a call saying something had come up and they couldn’t make it after all. Each time, they would defer the fictitious pick up to the following week.

The first time this happened, I was annoyed. The second time it happened, I was enraged. Like the great Ramona Quimby*, I made a great big noisy fuss (though unlike Ramona, I did it via email rather than in person). I didn’t expect anything to come of it other than relieving my feelings, so imagine my surprise when they contacted me to tell me that the pick up was going to theoretically happen a mere two days after it was supposed to, instead of ten days. They also refunded all the money on the spot, which may have been the most surprising thing of all.

The date selected was Saturday, which also happened to be the day after the giant storm, or “atmospheric river”, as the weather men call it. So that made me even more dubious that they would show up.

I went about my regularly scheduled cooking marathon (braised chicken with goguchang; smothered pork chops; curried chickpeas), and much like lighting a cigarette at a bus stop, they turned up in the midst of it all, announced by Mark’s herd of canine doormen. Once again I had to convince the delivery men that the dogs were all bark and no bite.

It didn’t take them long to remove the mattress and be on their rainy way. I felt like a curse had been lifted from the house. I temporarily abandoned cooking operations and went upstairs to unfurl the new and hopefully improved mattress and leave it to puff up and recover while I finished the cooking.

Later, I went back upstairs and made the bed. I discovered that what I thought was a pair of pillow shams was in fact only one, so I ordered another one and used the old ones for now. I also discovered that they new sheets I ordered were not quite the same green as the new comforter set, but that’s the hazard of ordering online. They are 800 thread count, so they feel great, and with the bed all made up, you can’t really tell that they aren’t the right shade:

The new mattress also feels great, being a pillow top memory foam. It has the cloud of bliss feeling I was looking for. Thanks to all of you who recommended memory foam. I should have asked you in the first place, instead of relying on my ever unreliable judgment. It does make me wonder, though, how one mattress can possibly be worth about a billion dollars more than another. In this case, the cheap one felt a billion times better than the super expensive one. Maybe I’m just a cheap date.

*I am delighted to note that Ramona’s creator, Beverly Cleary, just turned 102 yesterday!

A YEAR AGO: A rather wintery spring.

FIVE YEARS AGO: A busy but happy Saturday.

TEN YEARS AGO: Meetings and music.

The outdoor flowers may be underperforming, but the indoor amaryllis has been picking up its slack.

The overachiever amaryllis has a third bloom on it, whereas the underachiever managed one blossom and was long ago put away to rest and recuperate and hopefully bloom next year. In its defense, though, it did jump off the shelf in despair – or was it pushed? – and that affected both the lifespan and overall jauntiness. I’m sure being right next to the overachiever, flaunting its seemingly endless and giant flowers, didn’t help either.

The line between indoors and outdoors is always somewhat blurred at Stately Suzy Manor, which is one of the reasons that Mark was performing surgery on the somewhat odd kitchen sink drainage system one sunny afternoon.

My house was hand built by a hippie back in the day. He was an artist and eccentric, who bent all the redwood himself by hand to create its characteristic upside down rowboat shape:

So you will probably not be surprised to hear that the kitchen sink drains into a sort of cement pan under what I rather optimistically call the back porch, though it is in fact just some wooden slats hammered together, seen here being modeled by our lovely spokescat, the Adorable Audrey Grey:

The outside shower also drains into this, and then into a pipe that snakes its way invisibly (which is somewhat surprising) to the nearby woods, where it empties into a ditch. I am guessing that the indoor shower might also hook up to the exit pipe at some point, though I’m not sure. The indoor bathroom was a later addition after the house’s architect went to the great drafting board in the sky.

So occasionally the pipe gets plugged and backs up into the cement pan, which in turn smells less than delightful. Mark basically snaked out the exit pipe and dug the ditch a little longer and deeper and everything was back to what passes for normal around here after he sluiced out the cement pan.

Needless to say, the dogs were extremely interested in the grossness of it all, as dogs are. They spend a fair amount of time at my house, greeting me when I come home from work and cruising by for petting when the mood strikes them, and I have gotten quite attached to whole herd of them, from the grande dame Luna to giant puppy Kovu.

While Mark was working on the drainage system and shooing the dogs away (or attempting to), he told me that he is planning to move to Southern California. He has a thriving business selling succulents on the interwebs, and says the plants will do better in a warmer climate. He is hoping I can take over responding to customer emails and maybe write a blog for him.

I’m happy to do that, but I am really sad to lose Mark and his family:

as my neighbors. I love knowing we are there for each other. Mark’s sister-in-law and her husband will still live here, but it won’t be the same. I will really miss the dogs, too. The thought of their not being there to greet me – and to keep the property safe from monsters, as they do with their patrolling – makes me sad.

I guess we’ll see what happens. In the meantime, I will enjoy my neighbors’ friendship and pet the dogs as much as I can.

Decision-making is not my forte. I tend to wait until a course of action becomes inevitable and then just go along with it, like the artist Edgar Degas, who believed we were all just “corks* in a stream” and that life was just a random series of events.

If I do make a decision, it almost always turns out to be the wrong one. You know, like getting married. And selling my apartment for a pittance just a few years before it was worth well over a million dollars. And moving to Oaktown. I could go on, but you get the gist. What was I thinking?

Maybe it’s only having two brain cells.

In my finite wisdom, I decided that it was time to replace my ancient Ikea mattress. In my defense, I have had it well over a decade, which is past the normal lifespan of a mattress, and resorted to mattress pads and a featherbed to make it more comfortable. I did a fair amount of research and settled on one that had new technology and rave reviews. I confirmed that they would deliver to what my beloved stepmother used to call “the back of beyond” and that they understood how long it would actually take to drive here from the Bay Area.

It also cost about a billion of my hard-earned dollars, but I had decided – there’s that word again! – that it was an investment in better sleep and hopefully an at least marginally improved Suzy.

So I was pretty excited.

Delivery Day arrived, and the truck pulled up within its delivery window. Its arrival also released the hounds, and it took some persuading to get the delivery guys to get out of the truck and into the midst of Mark’s flock of enthusiastic and enthusiastically barking dogs. The dogs failed to eat the delivery guys, living up to my claim that while there was considerable bark, there would be no bite.

They dragged the heavy new mattress upstairs, removed the old one, and went on their dog-free way back to Civilization.

I couldn’t wait to make up the new bed with the new comforter set I had bought for the occasion, which as you can see got the Audrey seal of approval:

Audrey’s opinion is always important, but since she spends most of the day on the bed getting her beauty sleep, it’s especially important when it comes to new bedding.

With promises of fabulousness dancing in my head, I got into bed under the Audrey-approved covers, and…meh. Rather than the cloud of blissful comfort I expected for the exorbitant price, it was unyielding and implacable, much like Audrey herself. I did not wake up notably more refreshed, or wake up less, either. Nor was it a haven of bliss.

I have to admit I was pretty disappointed. Yes, it met my usual goal of less crappy. It is much less crappy than a decade old Ikea mattress. But it also cost about 100 times as much, and is not 100 times better. And I spent a bunch of money on something that is not wonderful. I steeled myself to spend the money to indulge myself in a luxury, and it’s not. All that money and no enjoyment.

I have 100 days to return it, but now my decision deficient mind has to decide whether to keep the horribly overpriced yet utterly underwhelming mattress, ort search for another one when I have lost what little faith I ever had in my mattress buying acumen.

The entire process is additionally hampered by the fact that the delivery guys took away the old mattress, so if I do get another one, I have to do it before I convince the delivery guys to risk life and limb to come back and pick up the expensive mattress. No matter what I do, it’s going to be a hassle. And whatever I decide will undoubtedly be the wrong thing. Maybe I should be like George on Seinfeld and do the opposite of my instincts, and everything will turn out fine.

As so often happens in life, none of these options are appealing. What do you think? Some of you must be better decision makers than I am!

*It turns out Degas was something of a cork expert, or at least a cork aficionado, since he stuffed his statues with used wine corks.

A YEAR AGO: The local message boards were all aflutter about birds.

FIVE YEARS AGO: Almost time for Dad’s birthday. I still miss him so much, even after 17 years!

TEN YEARS AGO: It looks like I was counting down to the Sex & the City movie, but the post is having technical errors.