Life Kicks You in the Rear End Sometimes

Life - or you could call it fate, karma, kismet, etc. - has a way of kicking you in the rear end at times.

Point in fact #1: My friend Stephanie had a cat who peed in her stash basket, I believe while she was gone for the weekend, so she got a wonderful surprise when she returned from her trip.

I laughed my butt off.



Point of fact #2: One (or maybe both) of my friend Christy's twin boys dumped an entire plate of spaghetti - noodles, sauce and meatball - into her knitting basket. He then closed the lid and said nothing, giving her a fun surprise the next time she reached in to pull out her project.

I really laughed my butt off.



Life kicking my rear end time: We had a leak in a bathroom shower, which we fortunately caught right away and were able to fix. It involved going into the pipes from the back of the wet wall, which happens to be the other side of a hallway - also fortunate, since we didn't need to replace any tile that way.

The pipes were replaced and the drywall patched up and things were starting to look back to normal except for the thick layer of drywall dust on every surface in the house. Drywall can be insidious stuff, but I have the power of cleaning in me (sometimes) and industriously wiped down surfaces and such, making everything pretty again.

That was Tuesday night.

I walked in from work Wednesday to see a thick white cloud of what seemed to be smoke, although nothing smelled like it was burning. (My boys were sitting all zombiefied playing video games - I think the house could really burn down around them as long as the power held out. But I digress.)

After frantically running in to the kitchen and determining that the cause of the clouds of white smoke was not really a fire, I had the boys help me open all the windows to vent the air. (November in Sacramento - I think it was close to 80 degrees that day so there was no loss of life or limb due to the extreme cold or anything. I know, all of you up in the Northern climes are thinking daggers at me right now - knitting for me is simply a hobby; for you Northerners, knitting is more of a life skill. But I digress again.)

I then heard a noise and after investigating, found my husband in the hallway with a belt sander and a big grin. He thought the drywall texture had gone up a bit thick and was sanding it down. Boys never do completely grow up, and he's just a big kid with power tools. (But it's OK - he puts up with my knitting, so we're even.) The problem was, now I had drywall dust in absolutely every nook and cranny of the house after working so hard to clean up the mess the night before.

Here's where it gets good (and somewhat gross): We inherited a geriatric cat from my mother when she went into the nursing home. I think this cat is about 20-25 years old. She occasionally gets the runs (the cat, not my Mom). This cat also likes to sit in my desk chair when I'm not home. (Anyone getting where this is going?)

Exacerbated by the mess, I went to my computer to relax for a few minutes before starting the clean up efforts again. I sat down in my desk chair and this foul, sickly, kitty-cat poo smell poofed up in a cloud of white (or maybe more brown-ish) drywall dust, spreading yet more crap - quite literally - into the room. I'm now typing from the comforts of a kitchen chair. My desk chair is out of the way, needing to be febreezed another 100 times or so and then shampooed. Repeatedly. Many times. (Lather, rinse, repeat, and repeat, and repeat...)



Steph, Christy - I really shouldn't have laughed at your pain, even though it was really funny. I'm sorry. I'll try not to do it again, but if I do - and I probably will - you can laugh your butts off at me.