The House Across the Street

I was doing some engraving today that requires heavy-duty concentration (very expensive pieces)when I noticed this 30-some-odd white guy come out from behind my house & walk up my drive toward the street. He stood on the street looking around then proceeded away. I made a mental note of what he was wearing & his appearance in case a police report might be required later. Ten minutes later, my head down into the machine and my loupe to my eye, my screen door banged with a knock. I just about jumped out of my skin. It was the guy. "Have you seen a really little kitten", he asked. I stepped outside (sharp calipers in hand, does that make me parnoid?). He explained that he just moved into the house across the street & when he took out the trash today, he thinks his new kitten may have slipped out. He's had the kitten 3 days. It's small, he didn't know how many weeks old, but it's the same color as a cat he had seen in my yard (Cujo). I hadn't seen it, and I had been working in the sunporch all day, engraving. I told him to check at Catherine's-she puts out food for strays, and her yard attracts cats.
I resumed my work and as I worked, I thought of the same scenario played out in late September. A sixty-ish guy smelling very strongly of alcohol, knocked on my door looking for his cat. He had had the cat 5 years & was terribly fond of it. He had moved in the day before and intended to keep the cat in for a few weeks until she got acclimated. His wife went out to smoke a butt and let the cat out purposely, thinking it should just get used to the new environment. He called and called, but she didn't come. He was very distraught. I directed him to two neighbors who are out of work and who are crazy cat ladies; they would be more likely to spot the cat than I. I agreed with him that felines need to acclimate slowly to a new home and told him that I had put mine on a harness & leash the first few times out. We live on a busy street & there are frequent animal carcasses. A day later, he knocked again: kitty had come home-could he borrow my harness? I gave it to him and showed him how to put it on her, told him to keep it. He said he didn't like the apartment or the town. I never saw him again and I assume he moved back to his more rural town.
Two people in the same house in six weeks who move in and lose a cat within a day.

Then I started thinking; is my fate to always have a weird house across the street? This house in this small town has several units: I can't tell if it's 2 or 4. There is a never-ending parade of people moving in and moving out. Over the summer there was someone who played violin; he or she practiced in the afternoons, never at times that would bother anyone. It was lovely to listen to and do my work with music in the background. And then it was gone. I wonder why this one house always has trouble keeping tenants upstairs; the downstairs family has been there at least 7 years. They keep to themselves but their dog is always chained to the porch. A forlorn little terrier, my cats have no fear of him & taunt him by strutting on the doorstep, knowing he cannot reach them.

When I lived in the big, ugly city, the weird house across the street was a six-apartment tenement up the street a bit more, across from my friend Sue. There was an endless procession of moving in and moving out, children left unattended and hollering, drinking, fighting and blue lights in the night.
When I grew up in the big, beautiful city, the weird house across the street was a six-apartment tenement right across the street. We had no relationships with any of the myriad people who moved in or out, unlike every other house on the street.

As I worked and thought about all the weird houses across the street, I realized they have always been there and the theme is always the same. Absentee landlord who doesn't care & lets the place get rundown. Misfit tenants who take the place until they can find something better; they seem to move out the minute they do. And anything must be better, because they stay a month or two, a year at most.

Always having a weird house on the street has made me into a wary neighbor; the residents are never invited into my home, although I do interact civilly when necessary. Male residents of these houses make me conscious of my need to hold a sharp object in my hand, such as my keys or my calipers; I am pretty sure my voice registers in alto when I speak to them, and that my city accent comes out loud and clear. I've never had a major problem with the transient people in the weird house, but I don't intend to start now.

Does every neighborhood have a weird house? Or is it just a phenomenon I've discovered?

So How Hot Is It?

The northeast US is undergoing a huge heat wave. Dan got my air conditioner in the parlour window. I keep the doors shut and I have one room it's easy to breathe in. I can't sleep in air conditioning so I have a fan in my room.
So anyhow, my morning routine is get up, use the bathroom, come downstairs. Usually the kitties escort me to the cabinet where the cans of wet food are kept, chatting and bickering all the way. They somehow feel that every night I undergo selective amnesia and forget where their chow is kept.
This morning I got up, hit the bathroom, and was escorted downstairs by the two older cats. They led me into the parlour and sat in front of the air conditioner expectantly.
THAT's how hot it is.

Good things and bad things

BAD things first- let's get them out of the way.
1. I had walking pneumonia last week and lost a whole week of work. Starts with a viral upper respiratory infection (that's a cold for all you non-medical types). Progresses to serious when the lower respiratory tract (that's the lungs) gets infected. If you hack up white or clear crap, it's viral. Green means bacterial, and hie thee to the ER, which I did, and saw a doc who knew me from the hospital. Got put on a nice strong antibiotic. I was so ill, I had to call Kate and ask her to come fetch me cough syrup, kleenex, and cook me chicken soup (there is data on the efficacy of chicken soup, you know). This is maybe the fourth time (in 20 years) that this has happened, and I really thought I'd get better faster. My voice was gone for a week, and I was too weak to read, even something simple like Harry Potter.
2. I lost a WHOLE week of work. My paycheck's going to suck.
3. The major side effect of antibiotics is GI upset. Right now I am lying flat because my lower GI tract is pretty pissed off. I didn't know it could swear like that.

OK time for the GOOD things:
1. Put this under EXTREMELY GOOD: my Authorization To Test letters came last Saturday, the day after the NAPLEX re-opened. I logged on and signed up to take my NAPLEX on Nov 6 and MPJE two weeks after. (I could have taken Oct 31 but debated pros and cons with Kate, who wisely suggested a coin toss with my lucky Irish penny.) I am back to studying slavishly now that I can read and retain again.
2. Vegetarians are completely capable of making really good chicken soup. Thanks, Kate, it really did help.
3. Buck took my trash to the Transfer Station (PC for dump). It's a weekly ordeal, not fun when you're sick. He made me American Chop, and it hit the spot.
4. It's raining like crazy. We needed rain badly. It justifies the want to snuggle up in my nice purple room with good music on my laptop and a big pharmacy review book.
5. My kitties haven't left my side since I got sick. It's nice to wake up as the filling in a kitty sandwich, all toasty warm. Sorcha must stretch and give me a kiss every hour or so. Her deep bass rumbly purr is a funny counterpoint to Cujo's soprano trill. And Daimhnhait keeps sneaking in and purring under the bed. They seem to have forgiven me for running out of cat food and substituting tuna.
6. OK, it's not something I really care terribly about, but it qualifies as GOOD: how bout those Sox? It would be nice to have one more series for my dad and aunt.
7. I hit paydirt at the Christmas Tree Shop yesterday. Got Hallowe'en cards (we are a card-sending family) and trinkets for the five-year olds, Trick or Treat candy and toys, and a cabinet for my downstairs bathroom, and a candle that smells deliciously like apple. I love the apple candle scent in fall.
8. I may get to visit with my boy, who is now walking, and the big girl, so now I am Hallowe'enly prepared. I don't take much time to do things I like, but whenever I have a chance to see my kiddos, I make an effort.

Three Cats vs One Canary

I have a lot to do but I have to tell this one real quick.
Buck is on his way to India as we speak for nearly a month, business trip. He called me Saturday; the heat in his building went out and it was bitter cold with no landlord in sight. Could I mind the canary while he was gone? He was worried that if he didn't get it out fast it would get sick and die (they are really sensitive to drafts).
Enter Bandit, the little yellow guy with the black mask on his eyes like the Lone Ranger. Buck set the huge cage on the floor and Sorcha started sniffing- then Bandit moved and you should have seen the look on her face: eyes dilated, whiskers twitching, ear forward... We quickly cleared the dining room table and placed Bandit up (the leaves come out and it folds into a narrow table. We moved all the nearby furniture away. He is near sunlight, out of drafts and a heat register is right near him.
Sunday I spent the day chasing the cats from jumping on the edge of the table (there really is no room but they are determined). I am working on my poster presentation- due next week but draft due tomorrow, trying to set up organizational charts in Powerpoint so I can illustrate treatment arms and graph outcomes of studies.
I set up shop on the cushy chair where I study, near Bandit. I have candles around, had my puter playing Irish music while I type and Sorcha likes to snuggle behind my head. Well, every time a song sung by Katie McMahon of Anuna comes on (she has a really high soprano), Bandit would sing and flit around the cage like a maniac. I played several different sopranos and he goes berserk for Katie. He got so animated, Sorcha leaped from behind my head and landed on the 8 inches of table not covered by cage. Unfortunately for her, there was a lit candle there (next to the squirt bottle I kept squirting them with, apparently it isn't the deterrent I had hoped). She leaped off the table and tore up the stairs as I registered scorched fur smell. I tore after her, thinking she was on fire and ready to set the whole damn house up. She raced around, ending up on Buck's bunk- she stunk but was unhurt and not on fire, but she had big clumps of wax on her fur from the candle. I could hear her licking all night even tho I managed to cut most of them off.
After all the excitement, she left the bird be for the most part. But at 1 am I heard the unmistakable thump of a cat falling off the table again.
This morning he was waking up and cheerful and chirping.
This evening I got home and he seemed happy to see me- chirped back at me. Cats were lying around being nonchalant. When I came back in with the mail, I saw something bright glittering from the top of the cage. It was a collar- the kind that come off when a cat gets his head stuck somewhere. The big tag read "Cujo". I swear the bird was snickering.
I sat down in the cushy chair to work after supper and I noticed that on the back of Bandit's water dish (hung on the inside of the cage) is a huge chunk of cat fur- beige and fluffy (Cujo).
Bandit may be holding his own for now, but I think I am going to stop off and buy a hook and eye lock tomorrow. Bandit's moving to a safer location.
Bird 2 Kitties 0. Go Bird!