I woke up slowly today, with the intention of sleeping as long as Binks and Mr. Bond would let me. They actually let me go quite a long time for them; in fact, it was my own body's needs that pulled me from my comfy bed.
At about 7:15, I did the cats-between-my-feet walk to the kitchen and pulled their food dishes out of the drain. They howled at me as I wiped them out and put food in them. Just to be nasty (because I am, you know), I held the dishes over the cats' heads for a moment before setting them down. As usual they both headed for the same bowl and I had to pick which one to redirect to the second bowl. They never seem to mind that once they figure that, "Hey, I get a whole bowl to myself!"
After taking care of them, I started the next phase of my plan for the day - breakfast. There's a little restaurant next to my apartment building called the Village Inn. I pass it all the time, and have never gone in there. So I intended to have breakfast there today. And that's what I did. I walked down and ate strawberry crepes (not creeps--don't eat creeps, you never know where they've been...) with bacon and hash browns. Not great hash browns, just the typical breakfast joint hash browns. But the crepes were excellent, and the bacon fed my meat craving, so all was well. Oh, and the coffee. I needed the coffee.
I enjoy going outside so early in the morning. Living in Florida, this time of year, it's already hot by 9 am, so if you want LESS hot air, you go out early or late. The air was suggesting to me that the rest of the day would be better spent indoors until later in the afternoon.
That was fine with me, since I also intended to do the laundry I've ignored all weekend and do some other little chores around the house. Luckily for me, the building I live in has a washer and dryer on each floor. Unluckily for me, the dryer on my floor likes to stop working while it's full of my wet laundry. Today was no different, but at least it finished drying my first load before it conked out. And since it happened on the first one, I didn't waste the quarters on the second one.
Sometimes, rather than chance mechanical failure here, I'll just load it up in my truck and go to the Laundromat down the road. But that's a bit more expensive and I have to carry the laundry farther, so I usually try it here first. Today’s efforts were further challenged by one or more of the youths in my building.
Someone thought pulling the fire alarm was a good idea. I opened my balcony, which is where I store the cat carriers, and lured the cats out there in case it was a real threat. I went out into the hall to see if there was any sign of an emergency. No smoke… No people running in panic… I walked down to the laundry room to look out the window into the courtyard below. Families were sitting at the picnic tables lunching calmly. Children were splashing innocently in the pool. I went back to the balcony of my apartment. The cats had decided that the noise was unbearable and had both burrowed under the blankets of my bed rather than hang around waiting for me to trap them in their carriers. I looked towards the road because I could hear that the fire department had arrived.
I still saw nothing to indicate an immediate need to evacuate, and I certainly wasn’t evacuating myself without my cats, so I decided to wait and see what happened. If I saw any sign of real trouble I’d stuff the cats into the carriers and get out. Now, they REALLY have to lose weight. Normally when a fire alarm goes off, the elevators are automatically shut down. This building is no different from the norm in that. If we have a real emergency, I’ll be carrying these two brutes down six flights of stairs. Uh-huh, their diet is going to continue.
So, since there was nothing else for me to do but wait for the situation to explode or clear up, I continued with my laundry. As I said, the dryer stopped tumbling towards the end of the first load. So I put both loads back into my basket and brought them back here to hang on the shower curtain rod. Great, the laundry is done. Now to the vacuuming: As if the alarm noise weren’t enough, I pulled out the Eureka and went to work with it, causing the cats to disappear deeper into my bed. I do this at least once a week, and I’m always amazed at how much cat hair (and my hair) it sucks up; especially since only about half of the apartment is carpeted.
While vacuuming, the noise in the hall apparently stopped. What a relief! So I decided to visit the pool – another thing I have yet to do since I got here. My phone rang. It was a friend from Virginia calling to make me feel guilty for not calling. I said not to feel left out; my parents called yesterday and said the exact same thing. It’s true. It’s not that they aren’t on my mind; I just don’t have that much to talk about. Besides, I still don’t have local phone service, so I have to do all my calling on the cell phone. The cell phone is cheaper for calling but has a totally suck-ass battery, so I almost always have to plug it in as soon as I get done talking so that it doesn’t die before the next call comes in. And since this building is designed to survive a hurricane, it is NOT built to allow a lot of phone signal through, so the battery dies even faster and I lose the call about half the time.
After that call, I decided a nap was in order and proceeded to lie on the sofa with Mr. Bond and my big green blanket. We had a nice siesta watching “Shrek 2,” and then my sister called to see what was going on. We talked about the (&^% kids with the fire alarm, and about my upcoming trip home. She understands the idea of keeping things brief. She’s a good sister.
I finally went to the pool at about 4 pm, which was late enough in the day that I didn’t think I’d get fried to death in 3 seconds. I stayed out about 30 minutes. Keep in mind, I haven’t gotten much sun in the last few years, so I have the usual tan arms and face (and a little on the shoulders) but everything below the neck is white like the moon. So the process of turning myself into a tanned Floridian will take time and care. Oh, did I mention that the elevators are still not working after the alarm? So I had to take the stairs back up. I’m really out of shape. Yep, I’m really glad I didn’t decide to take the laundry out with me.
And that’s my excited Memorial Day.
Wow, I really need to get a life, don’t I?
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