updates from the crib

When we started on our renovation a year and change ago, I thought that maybe I'd have one of those renovation-centric blogs with lots of before and after pictures and stories about travails of working with contractors. Somehow it slipped my mind. The renovation took a long time and there was definitely before and after (and there's some of that over on Facebook), but basically it was more a grind than a drama. I think I wrote some about liking our rental, and, in truth, the rental was just fine, if a little tight.

Now, we are back in our real house.  There have been some traumas since then, like when one of our cats (the always skittish Leon) meowed all night once we moved back in, then high-tailed it out of the house when our house-sitter was in here while we were up north. We found him after he was living in the wild for 5-6 weeks and was being fed by a couple of eccentric cat ladies about half a mile away, and he was nearly feral, hissing at us and whatnot when Mary brought him back in the house in a cage she had borrowed from the local shelter.

But it gets better.  So Mary closed :Leon in Natalie's bathroom, so he could get re-acclimated, and he spent a couple of nights in there and seemed to be getting better, recognizing us and meowing a little. Then, Thursday or Friday morning, Natalie goes into the bathroom and Leon had pried the grate off of the duct in the floor and, as she came in, he dives down and disappears into the duct. I kid you not.  So I'm having visions of dead cat smell in our HVAC system, but we had to call in a couple of heating and air guys and they opened up the duct where he was stuck and had to push him out.  So now he's in the basement for the weekend and Mary will try to trap him on Monday and get him to the vet or whatever as we try to figure out whether to try to bring him back into the house or maybe find a nice barn for him where he can chase mice.

You can't make this stuff up.