I’ve kind of kept going with the ‘busy in the morning, lazy in the afternoon’ model of this holiday. On Friday, we had to go to Lincoln to buy two things: Christmas lights for a tree at school and a cat tree. We went late in the morning to avoid as much of the Black Friday crowds as possible (for me), and it went pretty well.
The tree decorating was time-sensitive because a photographer from the architecture firm that designed the Child Development Center was coming to take photos, and the giant tree in the commons didn’t have any lights on it. (He was supposed to come earlier in the year, but stuff kept coming up.) Lloyd helped with that, and then it was home to assemble the cat tree!
The cats (really just Emme) are using the new furniture as scratching posts. We got a deal on a cat tree at PetSmart, but after I assembled the SEVENTY-INCH TALL tree, I realized it was a bit of a monstrosity.
I took the top levels off and it’s much better. Nobody’s really using it yet, but I’m encouraging participation with lots of catnip.
On Saturday, we finally took the old living room chairs to the dump. I was so excited to go there! It was a bit anti-climactic since I didn’t get to drive to the edge of a garbage cliff and send them careening down into the abyss. We just drove up to a big roll-off and chucked them in.
After that, we were close enough to the little town of Beaver Crossing (population 418), I suggested we go to Beaver Hardware, a store owned by a high school friend of Lloyd’s. It is a crazy, awesome store. It’s really all the stores along one block of this tiny town, connected through the walls to become a giant store. I love it. Lloyd wanted to buy two new snow shovels since ours are rather battered. I felt good supporting Shop Small Saturday (or whatever that’s called).
Back home, we relaxed for a little while and then (don’t panic) – dug a grave. Ralph is still with us, and in many ways he seems to be just fine, but he now weighs as much as Emme (11 pounds), and has been barfing a lot. (I’ve been saying that if he ever weighs less than she does, maybe it’s time for him to go. He used to be 20 pounds, for cryin’ out loud, and we throw away six pounds of cat litter each day – it’s those giant bricks of pee.) If he goes in the middle of winter, it would be tough to dig in frozen ground. So, there’s a hole out back with an empty five-gallon bucket in it to save the space. Not the happiest thought, but it seemed good to be prepared.
Sorry for ending on such a downer. Who knows? Maybe he’ll perk right up.