Sunday, August 17, 2008

Home improvement



The floors of the saintly household have been changed out. They're now lined with ceramic tile, instead of worn out, chewed up wall-to-wall carpeting.

It's been an exhausting couple of weeks. First, there was getting ready for the tile setters to come. Then, there was have the tile setters (actually, one setter and an assistant) in the house all week. Then, there's been trying to put the house back together.

Then, there was the lack of sleep. Poor little Jack the Brat cat was traumatized. He's scared of strangers, and runs and hides under the bed at the first sign of invasion.

Jack not only had strange men invading his domain, his whole domain changed!

The tile setters left my bedroom until last, and Jack stayed hid out by day. By night, he wandered the house, crying, because he didn't understand the changes. I could soothe him for only moments at a time.

The real trauma came when they pulled out the bed (his safety blanket) and tiled the bedroom.

Jack is just starting to recover. I got him drunk on catnip one night, and that seemed to help. I left out a catnip-infused scratching board, and he loves it. He rubs his face on it, then rips into it.


Betsy aka The Best Dog in the World got another hair cut - short - in an effort to reduce the amount of fur flying through the air. Hah.

I'm still trying to put the house back together, but not too much, because I want to paint first.


Meanwhile, I'm keeping an eye of Tropical Storm Fay, now near Cuba. The storm is expected to hit the Keys. She could strengthen into a hurricane, if she moves on into the Gulf.

So far, it's been a quiet hurricane season. I'm praying it stays that way.

2 comments:

Padre Mickey said...

Here in the Tropics I think that tile floors are much better than carpeted floors; much easier to clean, especially with many animales.

Stay safe in the storms. Growing up on Okinawa (Typhoon Alley) we had several typhoons a month. We looked forward to them during the school year. Of course, we built for typhoons: all the houses were made of cinder blocks. But I haven't noticed that los estadoünidense build for hurricanes, for some strange reason.

As you remember, we don't get them here in Panama, just the left over rain.

Hey, the word verification is a bit rude: awfux
I have been known to say that on occasion. . .

Saint Pat said...

Not all homes are built to hurricane standards! Now, newer homes in Floria are built to stricter hurricane standards, because of the devastation hurricanes Andrew, Frances and other have caused in the past 15 years.

My house is cinder block, coated with stucco, good for Florida weather. It's supposed to be rated to 120 mph winds. Haven't had to test that, and don't want to. Frances was bad enough.