March 22, 2007
Dear Everyone:
It’s been nearly a month since “Jeannie’s” two cats moved in with me. In that time they’ve learned the “schedule” around here. On weekdays, the lamp comes on in the bedroom, the alarms clocks go off and the TV turns itself on.
This does not mean that I will be going downstairs anytime soon to feed them. So the one sits on my bed and watches me pull myself together. The other stays downstairs on the chair, only coming up once in a while to find out if I’m going to come downstairs now or later. Then they camp out on the stairs because they know I can’t get out of the house without going past them.
When I do come downstairs and put out the dry food, they each get their own paper plate. Lucy on the left. Myrna on the right. The water dish in the middle.
Around 4:30 in the afternoon, Lucy parks herself in the dining room, waiting for the sound of the patio gate opening. She’s always there when I get home. There’s always the chance that I’ll let them out for a few minutes of outdoor time before dinner.
Dinner is half a can of wet food for each of them. If there’s “gravy”, Lucy gets a little more of the food and Myrna, who has few teeth left, gets the “gravy”. That’s why “Lucy on the left, Myrna on the right.”
During the day, Myrna sleeps in the exact center of my bed. Lucy prefers to stay downstairs and move from the living room window to the patio door and back. At night, Myrna sleeps in the exact center of my bed, allowing me to perch on the edge nearest the lamps and alarms clocks. Lucy sleeps downstairs most of the time, but will come upstairs if she feels lonely.
So far, we’re all getting along fine.
As for “Jeannie’s” remodel, she calls nearly every evening to report on progress and lament about how much she misses her cats. The tile floor was delayed a couple of days because the requisite tile and tile-layer (aka “’Valentine’, the tile guy”) weren’t in place on time. Then the grout that we had picked out a couple of weeks ago turned out to be a “custom” color. So “Jeannie” had to leave my place in time to be at her place at 7:00 in the morning to meet “Valentine” and go pick out grout again.
As of this week, the tile has all been laid, “seasoned” and grouted. “Jeannie” is in the process of “sealing” the grout. It is my understanding that this is remarkably similar to painting your toenails with clear nail polish as the brush used is just about the size of a brush on a bottle of nail polish. It’s very time consuming.
On the plus side, “Jeannie’s” sofa is now inside, where it tends not to rain as much as out on the patio. She has hopes of getting the appliances and the rest of the furniture back in place soon.
Then she starts the whole process over again with the upstairs, although the upstairs will not be tiled, but covered in some kind of simulated wood (or “real” wood?)
In other news…
I have just survived four days of Business Analysis III training. And that’s as much as I want to say about that.
All this activity did not prevent “Jeannie” and me from seeing a movie (finally!) this weekend.
Music and Lyrics is a Hugh Grant movie. Right off the bat you know certain things: It will be light and fluffy. It will have clever repartee of the sort that you would only think of at 3:00 in the morning, long after it’s too late for a witty comeback. It will be fun.
Grant plays Alex Fletcher, a former 80’s pop (as in singing) idol. He’s a has-been, but he’s OK with that. He makes a decent living on the nostalgia circuit, singing his old songs to women in their thirties who want to recapture some spark from their youth. There’s a particular piece where Alex uses a move that was easy in his twenties, but virtually cripples him when he tries it now.
But Alex has a problem: He’s not as “hot” as he was and his gigs are starting to dry up. He gets a chance when a popular teen sensation asks him to write a song for her new world tour. But Alex writes music, not lyrics.
Enter Drew Barrymore as Sophie Fisher, Alex’s temporary plant lady. She has a knack for tossing out rhymes. Maybe they can work together.
That’s the gist of it. Lots of scenes of Alex and Sophie’s emerging working relationship, etc. Lots of songs, some of them almost memorable. Friction, of course, because you have to have a fight in order to make up. Thoroughly enjoyable.
Love, as always,
Pete
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