Busy Weekend and Minute Mystery

The weekend was action-packed. Daisy Dumont's paw is fully recovered! I will not miss the visits to the vet but I will miss leafing through the NYC Pet Project book while waiting for the doctor. Look! It's Richard Kind and his three dogs! Look! It's George Hamilton. Look! It's a lesbian couple with a three-legged cat! Anyway, thanks Veterinary Emergency & Referral Group.

Saturday night we watched The Good German which was OK but not very interesting and not worth of an Everything I Consume.

Sunday we went to a friend's birthday party in New Jersey and by Gwendolyn's bed time the family was completely exhausted. I walked a cranky Owen around the apartment as The Wife read stories to Gwendolyn.

Drip. Drip. Drip.

I know and dread that sound. As a homeowner, I hate leaks like Darren McGavin hated the neighbor's dogs in A Christmas Story. We had two bedroom leaks in our old apartment and have a had a bathroom and window sill leak in our current one.

Drip. Drip. Drip.

I found the source. It was a new one; the water was coming from the top of the heating pipe in my kitchen. I stared at it for a minute hoping it would stop and go away.

It did not go away.

I went outside and climbed up the fire escape to look inside the Upstairs Neighbor's apartment. Maybe it was an air conditioner or, as has happened before, a hose was left running on the roof. The apartment was dark and I remembered that the Upstairs Neighbor had been out of town. There was nothing going on on the roof, either. I went back in the kitchen and looked at the ceiling.

Drip. Drip. Drip.

At this point you have all the clues you need to solve this mystery! Can you?

The Wife was still reading to Gwen so I grabbed Owen and went upstairs to check things out. The Upstairs Neighbor's door was open but the apartment was dark. I knocked and called out, "Hello!" but I didn't hear anything. Even though I know from mysteries this is when you usually find the dead body in the bed I went inside. Hopefully, holding a seven-month old would protect me from trespassing charges or fleeing killers.

"Hello?"

No answer. I looked around the apartment and saw the refrigerator open, empty and out of its usual position.

"Hello there, give me a second to get dressed."

It was the Upstairs Neighbor calling out from the bedroom. I walked out of the apartment and waiting in the hallway. A few minutes late the Upstairs Neighbor came out and said she'd been defrosting her refrigerator and fallen asleep. Since she had been away for so long there was no food in her fridge so she thought this was the perfect time to defrost. She said she was still on "London time" and had been sleeping since 4:30. The Upstairs Neighbor got out some towels and dried up her kitchen floor. In a few minutes the dripping had stopped.

Home ownership is never dull

Be Careful What You Wish For

Obviously, I miss my wife and kids when I'm not with them but I'd be lying if I said I wasn't a little excited about being by myself from Sunday night until I pick up the rest of the clan at LaGuardia tonight. It has not gone well.

My flight was delayed leaving Akron-Canton.

I was seated in the middle of a college musical theater group that frequently broke into song. I thought I was through with that when I left Northwestern.

It took forever to get a cab and the cab driver couldn't open his trunk.

I yelled at the cab driver and had to apologize to him.

I ordered takeout and it was cold.

The next morning my train to work sat at Delancey Street for 20 minutes destroying my first chance to get to work on-time since my hours changed.

When I got home from work my PS2 broke destroying my chance of a night of NCAA06 bliss.

One of my cats took a poop on the rug.

It took a very long time to clean up all her other poops on the rug.

I was too tired from doing everything else to work on the new family budget.

This morning, I was rushing to get a pre-work haircut (if you don't have two kids you have no idea how hard it is for me to get a haircut) when I noticed Daisy Dumont's paw was bleeding. It didn't look that great. After a lot of wondering what to do I took her to the Vet. She has an abscess and will have to wear a collar and go on antibiotics but she'll be up and stealing my food again soon.

Because of this I had to take cab to work and got in at 11. That is not getting to work on time.

On the plus side I finally saw Cradle Will Rock and that was pretty good until the actually performed their heavy-handed titular play. Everyone in the world was in it including the ubiquitous Uncle Junior and Miranda's housekeeper.

"Now We Have Lots of Animals!"

We adopted two cats yesterday. Or more accurately, two cats and a balloon unicorn. I'll focus on the cats. We'd been down to one cat since January when Pippa T. Cat passed away on my birthday. Our surviving cat, Syren is almost 19 and has dementia. She needs Metamucil and pees on the rug half the time. She spends most of her day either sleeping or scavenging food off our plates. I think Gwen is a little scared of her. The two newcomers have adapted nicely. Having lived with surly old cats for so long kittens are a shock. They play with toys! They explore! They crave love and attention! They run! They poop in the litter box!


This is Daisy Dumont. She walked out of the carrier as if she's lived here for years. She's about four months old and very sweet. She already sits on our laps.





This is Cleopatra. Her tail was pretty badly mangled when she was younger. She's ten months old and looks like Syren but is bigger. It took her a little while to get used to the apartment but now she's very comfortable and loves to play with cat toys. She's already using the Litter Robot!


The Litter Robot is a self-cleaning cat box that the other cats never took to. I thought it would be an improvement ofn the Litter Maid which broke every few months. Syren never used it and Pippa would sit with her butt hanging out and poop down the front.

I used to have this theory One Cat, Two Cats, Three Cats that applied the number of cats you owned to the level of your personal interests.

I own one cat was a casual fan, sort of a mild social identifier ("I like the Fantastic Four", "I root for the Mets").

I own two cats equalled a strong interest, entertaining but not threatening to others. ("I love the FF. Check out my Marvel Masterworks", "I have weekend season tickets to the Mets").

I own three cats meant you were a fanatic and a bit off-putting. ("I'm casting my own figurines of the first coming of Galactus because the Franklin Mint ones suck", "I'm hosting a Mets trivia contest in Patchogue Tuesday night, can you drive me?").

Anyway, three cats isn't as crazy as I thought it would be or else I've become immune to my own craziness.