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On Thursday, my son stayed home to clean his own apartment.
I updated the job bank, looked online for jobs, and generally laid low.
I took about eight bags to the Goodwill store. I went in and bought some ugly Campbell’s Soup mugs for LotStreetWiz. Then I went on to Loblaws and bought groceries.
We’re having a heat alert–in May. That’s ridiculous.
Tuesday was garbage day. We put out about five bags of garbage, most of it dry garbage from the house cleanup.
On Wednesday, I changed the beds and my son did the dishes. We went to the hardware store and bought a new garbage pail and a couple of raccoon-proof straps for the composter and garbage pail. As well, My son got a green bin for collecting household scraps for the city’s compost collection. I drove him home, with the green bin, his bicycle, and my vacuum cleaner so he could vacuum his apartment.
We did laundry, slightly hampered by predictions of thunderstorms. I found a few more receipts.
On Tuesday, we took our cats, Emily and Marlowe, to the vet for their annual innoculations, as well as my son’s cat, Aurynn. The cats did not appreciate the attention; but they are all in good health and safe for another year. My son’s cat, which gets extra-specially good cat food, not grocery-store brands, is especially beautiful with a shiny, healthy coat.
Thanks to Cat Macros for the science-themed LOLcats and a hat-tip to Blake Stacey, for pointing them out.
I met LotStreetWiz at Pilates class and then we rode home together.
With all my blogging about Mark Twain’s descriptions of Noah and the Biblical flood, this book seems more interesting and I’m going to give Not Wanted on the Voyage a try. It’s been kicking around the house forever; in fact I remember my mother explaining to my small son that one of the members of Noah’s family had turned blue…
UPDATE: This is a fascinating book. Findley does not hesitate to take our old myths and turn them upside down in the small world of Noah’s farm, orchard, surrounding woods, and cities-next-door. And after the magical flood comes, all is not harmonious on the Ark.
We had Andie this weekend. She marched in Hamilton’s Scout & Guide parade for its 100th anniversary. It’s the biggest in the world. We missed it this year because our cat Shelley had a convulsion and we were rushing him to the vet instead of driving to Hamilton. Then I picked up my son and made a dash to Hamilton.
After marching in the morning, Andie didn’t want to go contra dancing in the evening, so we stayed home and watched a movie about a horse in a logistically impossible race across Arabia’s Empty Quarter.* Andie was not very interested, preferring to catch up on her computer work and glancing at the movie occasionally.
The next day Andie continued setting up her computer account and adding contacts, until after lunch when we dragged her downtown to pick up her dad for some family time. Since it was raining, I suggested going to Doors Open Toronto. We ended up visiting Old City Hall, which is a beautiful old sandstone building, but there was very little to see–no tours of the teamways and courtyard, dungeons, attics, gargoyles, clock tower, or old-fashioned elevator with metal grille doors. (The picture shows Old City Hall at night.) We knocked it off and went shopping at the Eaton Centre. After that I started to drive her home, made a detour to drop off her dad, and finally got back on the highway for Hamilton.
Then we booted back to Hamilton in a driving rainstorm. LotStreetWiz, meanwhile, was biking from Toronto to Hamilton as part of his Ironman training. I picked him up near Dundurn Castle, wet and cold, but pleased to have ridden 47 miles.
Our senior cat, Shelley, has started to have convulsions more and more often, in spite of medicine, low-protein diet, and subcutaneous fluids. His blood tests for kidney and liver failure have come back OK, so the vet thinks it might be a brain tumour. He had a seizure last week, then one two days later, then twelve hours later, then six… he had one last night, one this morning, and one at noon. They are getting longer and stronger, and could result in injury or brain damage. Between times he’s weak, bewildered, and restless. Any medication we give him would leave him sedated and dopey. So he’s scheduled for that last trip to the vet this afternoon.
Shelley has been a magnificent cat. He’s been smart, wise, restrainedly friendly, dignified, and a good mouser. His purr is deep and loud. He has been LotStreetWiz’s best cat for 17 years and part of my household almost as long. We’ll miss him.
We haven’t installed the air conditioner yet, but we did make progress. The living room is dotted with boxes and piles of half-sorted papers. Gothgirl got Andie’s bedroom ready for Andie’s visit by tidying it and changing the beds. LotStreetWiz did the inevitable dishes and I did a bit of laundry.
Lizbot returned the cooler and some maps borrowed for her trip to Nova Scotia. They are still sitting in the kitchen.
Mostly we did yard work. Gothgirl and I weeded the lawn of dog-strangling vine and garlic mustard (two recent invasive species), dandelions, small trees, and lilies-of-the-valley escaping from the flower-beds. I thinned the lilies around other plants in the border. My son mowed the front and back lawns, then took the excess lilies and wove a crown of flowers. I raked up excess grass and sprinkled it on the flower beds. My heirloom purple irises are starting to bloom here and there around the garden. Then the younger generation rode off into the sunset, crowned in flowers. We have space to store bicycles downstairs but my son and his girlfriend are parking their bikes in the house when they visit. I think I need to dig up some “guest locks” so that they can leave the bikes outside.
Marlowe just came in meowing with her mouth full: she was carrying a half-grown rat, quite dead. She put it into her cat cave to make sure it didn’t run away. When it didn’t move, she pulled it out again and ate it. Then she meowed for more, looked to see if it was still in her cave, had a bite of crunchy cat food, and went out to get another one.
We are making progress sorting receipts from stray places around the house. We’ve started filing other papers and shredding documents we don’t need. I washed the rest of the downstairs curtains and my son hung them out to dry in the fresh air.
We cleaned one downstairs window and got it ready to receive an air conditioner. Between the two conditioners, we’ll be able to keep the house relatively cool.
Lizbot came over and we all went out for sushi on Danforth Avenue’s restaurant strip. We walked down so that we could have beer and walk home without needing to drive. This is a new restaurant for us, Katsu Sushi. It has a skylight, restful decor, and vast quantities of quickly produced sushi. I think that our grand-daughter would like it. 
