Cottage Status Report 20230611

The minute the hummingbird feeder went up, I had customers, and it appears they are the same assholes as last year, chasing each other away even though there is more than enough to go around. Luckily, the racoons (the other assholes) have not yet made an appearance, so the feeder has remained unmolested. I am not dumb enough to think this will last.

Even though this year there is only one cat, Dennis, there are still two litter bins in the laundry room. The floor space of the room is pretty much spoken for by the extra fridge, a metal shelf that hosts random stuff like one of those DeWalt portable radios that runs on a drill battery, an iron, and (inexplicably) a bottle of rubbing alcohol, and of course there is a washer and dryer (never hooked up, don’t ask). Because of this, one litter location is between the fridge and a sliver of wall and the other lives front of the washer. This makes it a little tricky to load clothes, but even trickier to unload them since I don’t think the definition of clean garments includes contact with kitty litter that may or not have been recently used.

You might wonder why I don’t just get rid of the second bin, or even why a cat with two acres of land on which to do his business even needs inside facilities at all. Dennis disagrees. He likes his two-seater accommodation, thank you very much. He likes to decide on any given day which bin is a better bet and I’m pretty sure if I tried to downsize his bathroom I would hear about it loudly and clearly and often.

One of my other duties is to lift Dennis up to whichever sleeping location he wants, since his jumping abilities have deteriorated substantially in his old age. This can take up a large swath of time because often what I believe is an appropriate location – say, the couch – is not up to his high personal standard at that particular moment and I have to follow him around as he inspects the bedrooms (bed or chair?) several times before he makes his final decision.

The other day, after finishing his morning lounge on the porch, he asked to come in the house. I let him in, then returned to what I was doing, which was printing out some pages of the book I’m writing. As the printer churned, I heard the unmistakable sound of a cat barfing in the hall. He completed his task, although I’m sure he was disappointed he didn’t have enough time to make it to the rug, and demanded to go back outside. Then of course I had to stop what I was doing and find the barf to clean it up, lest I stepped in it or it congealed into a substance that would give concrete a run for its money.

If you’ve been wondering how my cottage season projects are coming along, like bread making and cake making and book writing, you have your answer. Clearly my schedule is not my own. As the live-in help I am firmly on cat standard time. So please don’t ask me when my new book will be out. Ask Dennis. He’ll tell you when he gets a chance, but right now he’s busy requesting lunch.