I have a cat with one eye - Albert Nigel. He had two when I got him which is partially why I haven’t had kids. It’s frowned on when your children lose an eye although the SPCA probably doesn’t condone it in cats either. To be fair, it wasn’t my fault, I didn’t remove it, I just paid thousands to have it detached and sewn up. It was not really recoverable, last I saw of it, the iris was bulging out. But, it was on my watch so I’ve been trying to make up for it ever since.
Every time I move house, it’s all about the cat. Except this time. This time I just had to move and take what I could find. So, I told him he would be an indoor cat. He went outside to think it over. I told him to wink if he agreed. The move goes more or less as planned, I put in the litter box in my bathroom – 2 days later, I've decided he's going back to an indoor/outdoor cat. That litter shit (the litter, not the shit) is everywhere and I can’t get him to wipe his feet when he steps out. Also, it’s a little uncomfortable when we both have to go at the same time. Both of us look away and pretend it’s not happening. We just hum. Well, I hum. I don't know what he's doing. He's lucky, he can just put his eyeless side to me and genuinely not have to pretend to avoid eye contact.
With this new place, I have to find a new way for him to come and go and the only possible window is the kitchen one – it has a sash type window and I bought a cat window panel that fits across and has a flap that he can go in and out of. He has to jump up on the bar stool inside the kitchen and then go out the flap – unfortunately, it’s too high for him to jump up from the ground outside, unless he perfects the standing jump followed by dive roll and let’s face it, he only has one eye and couldn’t guarantee hitting the target every time. Would sound like a bird hitting the window over and over until he got it right and popped through the slot.
So, I called Wolfgang. Wolfgang is the neighborhood handy man – I gave him the bits of wood I had cut at Home Depot, the brackets and the screws so he could make a series of steps for Albert. Wolfgang had other ideas and made a ramp. Great! So now, Albert jumps up on the bar stool, goes out the window flap, ignores the ramp and jumps down to the bone-crunching concrete below. Walks it off and makes his way to the front of the apartment to hide in the bushes before making a wild dash to the next set of bushes in front of the next apartment block. Then he comes to the front door, crying to be let in. At first I thought he was just stupid and hadn’t figured out the ramp, especially when my neighbor said he saw him hanging from the screen outside one of my other windows and mewing to come in. Literally hanging - like he was velcroed on. More guilt heaped upon me – reinforcing the no children thing. You can’t push children out a small slot in the window, leave them out there to face traffic, dogs and raccoons, then demand that they scale a near vertical ramp to get back in. I mean I haven’t seen a handbook or anything but that just sounds wrong.
So when he comes to the front door, I take him round to the ramp and show him how to go up it and that’s when I realize that the poor bugger is sliding back down it and it’s too steep. Kind of why I wanted steps in the first place. And now in order not to hurt Wolfgang’s feelings, I have to take down the ramp in the dead of night and install the steps myself and honestly after the blind debacle, we all know it’s not going to go well. Will get bandaids. Do I need a special drill bit for concrete? Is my house even made of concrete? Will drill random trial hole on neighbors side and see what happens. Will get safety goggles. Also, what is a drill bit?
And then Wolfgang comes up with a better plan - steps on the ramp. And carpet. I'm skeptical but too lazy to do anything myself so I let him take a crack at it. And voila, custom cat ramp, complete with camo carpeting. Albert actually uses it, the neighbors have yet to hit it with their cars and I'm changing my decor to match the color palette.
Blog Earnings Update: Promise of $1NZ
Before I explain how to put them up, I have to go back a little and explain why I have to put them up. I’m calling it “A raccoon moved into my house and then my landlord sold it”. Both of these things happened while I was still in it. Quite frankly, Albert and I had gotten used to the raccoon, we had scheduled times for using the kitchen but I couldn’t see a way of making it work with a bunch of strangers living there as well. So we moved.
Note:
- Raccoons can use cat doors. However a "husky" raccoon should not attempt it.
- Raccoons like cat food but they like to open the bag in seven or eight different spots and they’re not real fussy about any spillage.
- Raccoons will eventually move from the kitchen into the living room despite the agreement you have in place with them.
- Raccoons watch TV too and when you change channels, they will hiss at you. It’s how you know they are in the room. On the couch. Next to you.
- Raccoons are not afraid of cats. Especially cats that are under the couch.
- Raccoons will not sit and wait for you to take their picture, they want to make it look like you are a sucky photographer (see below). Instead, they will just keep coming through the door. Then they will hiss some more at you and eat the end of the broom that you are warding them off with.
Operation House Invasion. Level: Raccoon.
More Notes: When your landlord sells your house, you move to a new area which has its pluses and minuses:
- Plus: You are no longer next door to a gang house and the police helicopter hardly ever flies over and demands that the occupants come out with their hands up.
- Minus: There is nothing to see at 3am.
- Plus: You no longer have to share your house with a raccoon
- Minus: You are back down to one friend. And by friend, I mean a cat.
- Plus: You no longer live on a hill so you don’t have to drive everywhere because it’s too tiring to walk up
- Minus: You have no excuses for not walking. But you will find one.
- Plus: You no longer have to take care of the yard
- Minus: You didn’t do it anyway, your landlord paid for gardeners so this doesn’t really count
- Plus: You de-cluttered and are now a minimalist who will never let it get out of hand again
- Minus: Some things got out of hand and now you can’t open that closet safely.
So, that’s the back story and I’m now pretty much settled in my new place. Curtains are up but blinds were a new challenge. Hopefully this will help someone else that is a blind beginner. Instructions:
- Buy blinds – mourn the fact that you can’t afford wood and have to settle for vinyl wood look-a-like version
- Take blinds out of box. Read instructions. Leave blinds on floor and hope they put themselves up. For a whole week, the blinds refuse to get off the floor.
- Reassess the actual need for blinds
- Remember about the upstairs stalker and determine to put blinds up
- Youtube how to put blinds up
- Write to Target to complain about instructions for hanging blinds
- Get out drill. Drill hole with one hand, holding bracket in place. Clean up blood and look for new place to drill hole. Keep drilling holes until something fits somewhere.
- Take small break of five days
- Get hammer, hammer screw in and resolve never to move again
- Slide blind into bracket
- Pick bracket up off floor, tack sheet up over window
- Wine.
Blog Earnings Update: The promise of $1 Canadian dollar
