The Funny Farm Gazette

CassPurr  and  Sophia

  I didn't blog yesterday.  I couldn't blog yesterday. Yesterday was one of those "Funny Farm" days...

     You see, the day before I had thoroughly cleaned the house. Everything except our office was in order, neat, clean, pretty.  (The office is another story for another day.)  All the floors, especially, were just swept, mopped, and vacuumed.  The only chore left to do was laundry... a piece of cake, right?
     So, once breakfast was over, my plan was to start the laundry and to work on some little decorating touches in the bathrooms, maybe hang a picture or two in the living room, kind of putter around between loads of laundry...
     Then, Moshe said he was going to re-vent the clothes dryer so that the heat would return back into the house during the winter. Just a little project, right?  I postponed starting the laundry because he had to move the dryer out from the wall and remove the canned goods from their corner so that he could work in the little laundry room.  We found new "homes" for the canned stuff and some of the other things that had been stacked  in the tiny little laundry room. Anything that couldn't readily be put somewhere logical got piled either on the screened-in porch or in the guest room.
     In order to redirect the dryer vent into the house, Moshe had to cut through the wall, into one of the hall closets, then put the vent hose in and secure it. Simple, right?  Except that this particular hall closet was piled with stuff floor-to-ceiling.  It had been a catch-all closet. A giant junk drawer. A hiding place for whatever it would hold.  Ugh.  We moved all that stuff into the guest room. 

    
     Moshe, of course, had to go out to the shed and get his power drill, etc.  Every move Moshe makes, his shadow - Moxie - follows.  So, the two of them made a few trips back and forth to the shed. (Oh, did I mention it had rained the night before?)  Leaves, twigs and muddy dogprints now decorated my floors...
     Around noon, Moshe realized he would need to buy a part in order to finish the dryer vent project. So, I gave him a small grocery list as well, and off he went to town.  Still in my PJ's, I debated whether to get right in the shower or clean up a few things first.  I decided to clean house for a while.  Someone knocked on the door. Mortified, I answered it.  It was a fellow looking for Moshe, and he said he would try to get him on his cell phone. Okay, enough humiliation for one day -  I went immediately to the shower, got dressed, put on makeup, etc.
     Moshe returned just as I was finishing the dishes. Things were still chaotic, but I was beginning to think I would get things straightened up. CassPurr, who had been sleeping at the foot of our bed all day, got up, ate some canned catfood,  used the litter box, then went back to our bed and threw up on one of my antique quilts.  Deep sigh. Another load of laundry added to the collection, which, by the way, had still not been started.

 
       But, I must also back up and remind the reader that we have six baby chicks in a big birdcage on the work table in our office.  These babies talk.  Alot. They have different sounds.  There's the morning singing while they are eating.  There's the conversational sound, which is a bit louder.  And then there's the distress call, which is ear-piercing.  Like all babies, the peeps need food, water, warmth, touch and talk.  About once an hour, I take a break from whatever I'm doing and check on the peeps.  I make sure they have all these things. This involves sitting down, holding two or three chicks in my lap for a few minutes to quiet them down.  I try to remember which ones I had last time and rotate shifts so that they all get some personal attention.  Moshe helps alot with this, too.  Often, we both are sitting at our desks, each holding three peeps. We bring out their little food bowls so that they can eat in our laps. The chicks scatter their mash everywhere.  This is minor compared to the fact that baby chicks poop almost constantly. Oh, what-the-heck.  At this point, a few more tee-shirts, added to the laundry pile won't make much difference, will it?
    The dryer project DID get finished!  It was about 3 in the afternoon.  I had washed one load of laundry in anticipation of the dryer being usable.  So, I started drying that load and washing another.  By now, it was 76 degrees outside.  Quickly, it became  80-something degrees inside. Ugh.  Reminder: until it gets really cold out, use dryer only in early morning to prevent overheating of house.
  

      Sometimes Moshe can be a little absent-minded... At one point he was the one who put the chicks back in the cage after a chick-sitting episode... About half-an-hour later, I was in the kitchen putting together the lasagna for supper.  I was busy, but realized that the peeps' noise was getting louder, and louder, and LOUDER.  I looked up from my work, and all the peeps were marching down the hall towards the kitchen!
The office and hallway  are carpeted. ( Did I mention that peeps poop almost constantly?)  I gathered them up and put them back in their cage.  And I closed the door to the cage - this was the step poor Moshe had omitted.
     Okay, so it wasn't exactly a "Better Homes & Gardens" day.  Maybe I need to start a new magazine.  How 'bout  "The Funny Farm Gazette"???