The Dude went away and left me with the monsters for the week. I'm trying to not just eat chips and dip all day while sitting right here in my pyjamas watching you tube clips of other people's cats...but it's harder than it looks. The one with the cat who puts his head under the running tap? Hilarious!
So things I've done this week include...
1. Getting a dog license for Dodger. He wandered off this weekend. #1 let him out to pee and then went off to watch tv. She came up at about 10am and asked me if he was in. Usually when he's left outside he realizes that he's alone and goes the the door and knocks. He actually knocks. Either he didn't knock this time or he couldn't be heard over Spongebob Squarepants. So he met a nice neighbour lady who concluded that he must be someone's dog and promptly called animal control. He doesn't wear a tag because he's my first dog and I'm just figuring this stuff out. Plus I hate how dogs jingle. The nice man at animal control brought him home and didn't charge me for it (note to Michelle...it's like a $20 fine for an unlicensed dog here...) So I decided that I would make it legal and buy the license. $7. I guess it means he's staying.
2. I bought cedar rails to replace the rotten ones on our cedar rail fence. These cedar rail fences are useless decorative fences that are popular around here but don't actually keep anything out of anywhere. It's posts with two holes in them and then you balance two long pieces of cedar in the holes. Voila! It's a decorative demarcation. Until the deer hop the fence and knock them down. Then it's just a pain in the arse. But the cat likes to sharpen his claws on them so I mended the rotten ones. Well, first I had to go off to Home Depot and man, are they bored on a Monday afternoon. I must have been asked 8 times if they could help me. I felt like a teenager in a corner store. After deciding that I was actually going to try and work on this project I had a nice old gentleman help me load the 11 foot long rails into the car. They hung out the back window in an elegant "we're just waiting for you to hit a bump so we can kill someone" kind of way. The nice old gentleman asked if I wanted some white wine. I said that I'd probably have a glass after I finished the project...turns out he asked if I wanted some light twine to tie up the rails. I wish they did sell wine. Wine and power tools...that's a winning combo.
It also turns out that the posts in our decorative fence are not uniformly spaced. This will come as a huge surprise to those of you who are familiar with this house and the high, high quality of the workmanship that has gone into it over the years. And we don't own an axe or a chainsaw. So now I have several nice new rails that are too long to fit between the posts so one end is in the hole and the other is on the ground. Next to the wine bottle.
3. Project #3 was cleaning out the eavestroughs. So I find the gas for the fancy blower thing (hate the blower thing but when we bought this place with its monster trees we figured we needed something bigger than a rake...big mistake) and fill it up. I get out the ladder and balance the fancy blower thing while climbing the ladder and then I have to find a good spot on the roof where I can hold it with my foot while pulling the make it goer cord thing. I get it going for a bit and then it sputters and dies. Like all things mechanical around here (or built since 1982) it's a piece of shit. I resist the urge to throw it off the roof and then crawl around emptying the eavestroughs by hand. I resist the urge to throw the blower thing at the two old ladies who are walking by and helpfully call out "don't fall off!" because if they hadn't called that out and I hadn't turned to look at them I wouldn't have lost my balance. I didn't fall off but honestly!
4. Project #4 is trying to get rid of an absolutely shittastic snowblower that the far too nice Dude bought from the neighbour lady. The neighbour lady who sold us the house. That should have been a clue that buying stuff from her was a bad, bad idea. I'm sure she (and the homeowners) had no idea that the roof leaked...right into the kitchen sink... Not bitter, not bitter...moving on. So this POS comes home with him and it's a monster. The first snowfall we find it doesn't work. So it lives in the garage and prevents me from parking in the garage for two years. I decide I have had enough of this thing and I'm going to sell it. I put it on Craigslist - let's stop here and remind ourselves that I did not get us into this situation. I did not walk into neighbour lady's garage and see her POS snowblower and still hand her $200 for it. Had I gone to her garage and seen it...it would still be in her garage. So after Craigslist did not turn up a buyer for this thing I turned to Freecycle. I reasoned that anything that got the danged thing out of my garage and into someone else's was a win. So now I'm emailing with a fellow who wants it but isn't sure it will fit into his trunk...I took some measurements and I'm thinking that it's not going to fit into any trunk. And would I be able to help him lift it? Uh...no...time to make friends with a strong guy who owns a pick up. So the snowblower sits and waits for a new home. Another task not quite accomplished.
5. Project #6 is paying for my fingerprinting. Now that I've finished the third and final exam to be a teacher in NYS I have to get fingerprinted - but before you can get fingerprinted, you must pay for it. And then show a receipt. And you can go online and fill out the form and pay for it. If the page that you need to fill out is working. Which it isn't. But! You can call and talk to someone about it. If you get through the first time because there is no waiting on hold. The message ends abruptly with "all of our agents are busy. Goodbye." after you've spent a few dollars trying to decide which button to push to actually get the information you need or to tell someone that their effing site is effed up. So. No fingerprinting.
So that and a lot of laundry have filled the last 3 days unsupervised around here. Who knows what trouble I'll get into tomorrow!
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