The Wood Floor Saga, Part 1

Our Beautiful New Wood Flooring is RUINED! Yes, life is sad all over but not quite so sad as seeing your 1 year old flooring buckling. So, the long and short of the story is this: our A/C has not been checked since, well who knows, we've never had it checked anyway. I didn't even know you had too have the A/C checked regularly. Geez people, someone needs to tell us these things, I've never had my own house, I've always lived in apartments. See this is the practical life lessons stuff they should teach you in home ec. Not that I took home ec, but I digress.

Well, the point is we figured out the A/C was leaking all under our floors because I noticed they were getting all puckered looking. I was all for blaming this on Bushie, Felicia and Nik's Black Lab. He came and stayed with me the weekend before and spent the entire time ignoring the puppy and panting all over our floor. and shedding too, but I doubt that damaged the flooring anyway. So we figure out the A/C is leaking and turn it off and Brad bravely volunteers to stay home until it's fixed(really this is both brave and just lack of trust in me to get it fixed in a timely manner, Brad looooves him some A/C)

The nice A/C people come and clean out system and find out our condensation coil is clogged. How this happens is a mystery to me, but I thought it might be best not to know. Anyway, all better. The nice flooring people came to give us an estimate, the nice insurance man said "Yes, of course we will pay to replace your floor even though it's your own stupid fault for not knowing how to take care of your house and it's not like we're giving those poor suckers in Ike's path any help or anything." OK, maybe not the last part, but mostly accuarte.

The flooring people take a couple of days, but finally get us an estimate for the damaged parts, then call a few days later and say ohhh, that floor is discontinued, let me see if I can find some extra boxes packed back in some warehouse. A few days later: "Yeah, um, no, no one has any, you'll have to replace the whole thing with something else. " The nice insurance mand says yes we will still cover it, just make sure it says the old flooring is discontinued. No Problem!

So we're getting a whole new floor downstairs! We only have to move everything! Yeah! OK, no that part sucks. To anyone who thought this was actually going to be a short story, You don't know me very well do you? WTF are you doing reading my blog?

Return of the Hamster and other Tales

Yes, we can step down from the Oatmeal Alert. Hammy has returned home and the feared abduction turned out to be an escapade behind the kitchen cabinets. See the above photo of possible suspect with accomplice at a chain restaurant in Arhus, Denmark and the following news item:

Martinez, GA - Escape hamster Hamdini "Hammy" Blake was recaptured last night at 10:25pm. Reports put Hammy at the original scene of his escape, his cage. Captors cleverly placed the cage near his hideout in hopes that hunger and thirst would drive him back. "I told Zoey it was a good plan" Mrs. Blake was quoted as saying. Zoey was said to bark in agreement.

So all is well. Hammy is safely restrained and immediately tried to re-escape upon realizing his mistake in going back to the scene of the crime. Alas, my clever hamster trap failed, but my clever putting his cage by where he was hiding did not. I knew he couldn't resist coming back for his nut stash.

In other news, Bradley is back! Yes, my husband arrived in one piece from Copenhagen, via the Atlanta airport. I picked him up just after 7pm on Sunday night. He'd been up since like 2am our time at that point. He did manage to eat dinner and shower. He attempted to fall asleep in from of the TV, but I made him go to bed. It was 8:30. He woke up around 4:30am then, and spent the morning with the puppy. In hopes of pulling his schedule back to normal I forced him to stay awake until 9:30.(I know I'm so mean!)

He must have been awake when the puppy woke up at 6:50 this morning because he got right out of bed and took her downstairs. He returned ten minutes later with coffee for me:-) I could get used to this. Normally, I take the puppy down because he is so dead to the world, he doesn't even notice her trying to jump on him. And then I make my own coffee. I could get used to this, maybe I should let him go to bed at 9pm. Hummm.

On the side, for your entertainment are pictures from Denmark. A picture of the canal and the National Library.

OATMEAL ALERT!!

Well of course when Brad is out of town the puppy will play. But last night I came home and let the puppy out and then noticed something was weird with the hamster cage. In fact it appeared that the wheel was no longer attached. AHHHHHH!!!! Hammy the escape artist has done it again! Hammy is our affectionate name, but he was early on named Hamdini after his favorite role model. Seen here on the right.

So, I began the search. It's important to know, when searching for hamsters, their weaknesses and also all small holes in your house. I figured Hammy probably escaped sometime Wednesday night, but in my usual morning daze had not even noticed him missing. So first thing, check under all couches, tv consoles, tables, puppy beds, etc. This though search of the downstairs, led to nothing. Occasionally they'll hide under furniture, but for the most part they like darker smaller hiding spots.

This of course leaves under the stove and dishwasher int he kitchen. Like most cabinets ours were placed with some space between the wall and actual cabinet also with a few inches underneath to lift them a bit off the floor. All accessable from under the stove or dishwasher. I do believe the hamsters have a nest already prepared. Based on last night's observations, they must have stocked it with provisions too. The usual method is to wait until dark and then shake the food bowl near their hideout. It works for all kinds of animals.

This had no effect on Hammy at all. I didn't hear a peep. OK fine. I left a bit of food on the floor, just in case he came out. I also transferred his cage to the floor in case he decided to return to his home. Wishful thinking on my part. This morning there was no food on the floor, and no Hammy in his cage still. Well at least I know he's around. I set up a hamster trap for him. A little hook and bait thing hopefully he'll fall for sometime today. I'll post a picture if it's successful. Zoey is also posted to keep an eye out. In the picture you can see them bonding. It was hard to get a picture where they weren't moving, but right after this Hammy places his little paws around her nose. So cute. She didn't even try to lick him.

Zoey being cute

Amanda pointed out a good fact to me yesterday. Despite my love for the puppy, all you ever hear about is her eating my sill and flip-flops, etc. So the theme for today is my adorable puppy, with lots of photos as evidence.

So here we have photos of my puppy being cute. Since these are when she's sleeping one might still be tempted to think that my puppy is only good when unconscious. Not true! It's just the only time I can take a picture where she's not moving. She moves constantly and even more so when I'm trying to take pictures.(I swear) Moving and ripping open toys to pull out the stuffing are here favorite activities.(Besides sleeping, eating, and barking, she has a very full schedule) Right now Sheep and Cookie Monster from the pictures are due for some major surgery. For once it's not her favorite squeaky toy hedgehog. I've sewed up his side, including reinserting an arm, and his back. Tonight it'll be Sheep's back and CM's lip. She's also decided that pulling the squirrels out of their tree is boring, and she would rather eat the tree trunk part. (picture to follow)

Everyone has heard and seen the window sill incidence, so you might be surprised that I have once more placed Zoey alone in both the kitchen and dining room. I'm a bit surprised myself, but considering she can't really do much damage that will matter on her tasty windowsill anymore, and that she's now 7 months old, we thought we'd try again. I sprayed the windowsill with bitters again. Amanda left me this wonderful note about how someone else had tried Vick's Vapor rub and it worked great. The smell and taste kept the dog from eating the area. So I got some, and I let her sniff it and she licked it. Ewwww! So, I thought, well the smell doesn't bother here, but the taste probably does, I bet she will go away this time. But NO! She licked it again! My weird dog likes Vick's. That just can't be good.

Spiders

I'm all creepy crawly the last few days. I found a beautiful spider in my garden. These are called Writing or Garden Spiders. Garden because that's where they live, Writing because of the pattern on their webs. They have a normal web shape, but with an additional thick scribbley type pattern down the middle of it. You can't really tell in the photo, but if you look below her you can kind see it. I got too close after this and she jumped off. Yes she, in spiders girls are usually large and pretty and boys are little and drab.

We used to have one of these in my classroom. Actually we had a couple. Once they lay eggs they die and we had to get a new one. (I could contain a large spider, but a bunch of small ones might escape, they had to be put back outside.) Certain class days we would head out and hunt bugs. Crickets were an especially easy target. The kids would catch the bugs and we would choose one to feed to the spider. Every time she built a web, we'd throw a bug in it. The kids loved to watch how she'd move to grab the bug and immobilize it, then roll it up in webbing. Well, of course, there were as many ewwws as cools, but they were all watching.

I have decided to name her Zola. I showed her to Brad, but he was not impressed, he was also very concerned that she was poisonous. I assured him she wasn't poisonous, to him anyway. The large dead moth she had at the time didn't help much. However, since she's outside and easily avoidable(he never goes near the landscaping, that's my area) he's decided not to put out a death decree. Lucky Zola. Now as long as the puppy doesn't find her we're in good shape.