Winning the Battle
The festive season is finally over. It feels like Christmas and New Years flew by. But it's nice that everything is getting back to normal. And now it means that work should be nice and quiet for a few months which I really appreciate. Christmas in retail is always incredibly insane. Christmas eve was a bit of a gong show, of course the debit machines went down so the store was filled with people trying to buy giant carts of groceries. A girl at work and I were talking and we were really happy to have all the grocery shopping done before then. Instead I watched Christmas movies and finished my gingerbread house. And ate candy. Lots of candy. But it was a good way to spend Christmas eve, however next year Tracy told me that my challenge is to decorate a house using only good tasting candy, not candy that is easier to decorate with.
Tracy and I headed out to the sticks for Christmas and we had a quiet day at my parents. No random guests this year. So we lazed around and watched movies. And finally my mom accepted that 4 of us cannot collectively eat 25 pounds of turkey. So we didn't have the entire fridge filled with leftovers like usual. Best present was my new door security system. After all the visits of random strangers to my front door when I'm home alone my mom found me a camera/intercom. Basically, it's a fancy doorbell with a camera attached. When you ring the bell it activates a remote inside where it shows a picture of whomever is there and lets me talk through the intercom to the random person without having to open the door. I think that this is a fabulous idea. My dad was even so excited about it that he came 2 days later to install it. So of course nobody has come to the door. But I'm okay with that. I was also surprised that my Dad didn't tell me I was being melodramatic about the door. I know that in the grand scheme that most of the people at my door are there to sell me something, most likely, and ironically, an alarm system. But still, sometimes I'd like to tell them to go away, but without opening the door. And you never know when one of them will be there for entirely bad reasons.
We also got the grand unveiling of the wine room. I forgot my camera so I don't have pictures, but wow. I shouldn't be too surprised as my dad is incapable of half assing things. But his wine kitchen is bigger and nicer than the average kitchen. He has a crazy amount of storage and space. He could actually put a small table in there. He even framed the area under the stairs into a closet and put in more under floor heating so he can keep the closet at the right temperature for the wine. Seriously. He's really precise with his wine and had to feed it sugar a few times and measure the specific gravity. So it's good that he's still interested as we also saw his freezer of fruit. So far he has multiple batches of saskatoons, chokecherry, regular cherry, blueberry, blackberry and raspberry. It really all will just add up to a lot of wine and port. And some of it he's mixing together. And no, I haven't actually tasted any of it. We aren't really a wine drinking family so nobody thought to bring it out. I guess I'll have to steal some from him one of these days. He'll never notice it missing!
In exchange for getting Christmas and boxing day off I had to work New Years. Which I was okay with. I watched Kathy Griffin torment Anderson Cooper and celebrated New Years with New York and went to bed. New years day is an easy shift. We wandered around trying to find work for most of the day. The weird catch was that there was no night shift. In all reality there is always someone in the store except for 2 evenings a year. And the night shift crew are the ones that turn off the alarm and unlock the doors so we can get in the store in the mornings before it opens. So if I wanted to leave work at a decent time I had to unlock the store. It wasn't that big of a deal but getting the key and code to get in was. I did manage to successfully get in, I did take too long in relocking the door but got the alarm off by the time the security company called. And then realized that half a dozen other people had shown up.
The orangy battle has been continuing. As much as I enjoy having to trap Wally into rooms to calm her down I decided that something needed to be done. I have discovered that orangy can't climb fences very well. So I stuck up some chicken wire on the deck. It looks ugly as hell but orangy won't come in knowing he can't get out. So that is one battle that I seem to have won. I have a feeling that it's going to be a long summer with orangy this year. I suppose the nice part is that at least I know how the cats will react. Cate will run and Wally will attack. And next time I'm going to let Wally do what she wants. But at least for the meantime it looks like my problem has gone away and maybe I won't have to break up any cat fights with the door between them.
Tracy and I headed out to the sticks for Christmas and we had a quiet day at my parents. No random guests this year. So we lazed around and watched movies. And finally my mom accepted that 4 of us cannot collectively eat 25 pounds of turkey. So we didn't have the entire fridge filled with leftovers like usual. Best present was my new door security system. After all the visits of random strangers to my front door when I'm home alone my mom found me a camera/intercom. Basically, it's a fancy doorbell with a camera attached. When you ring the bell it activates a remote inside where it shows a picture of whomever is there and lets me talk through the intercom to the random person without having to open the door. I think that this is a fabulous idea. My dad was even so excited about it that he came 2 days later to install it. So of course nobody has come to the door. But I'm okay with that. I was also surprised that my Dad didn't tell me I was being melodramatic about the door. I know that in the grand scheme that most of the people at my door are there to sell me something, most likely, and ironically, an alarm system. But still, sometimes I'd like to tell them to go away, but without opening the door. And you never know when one of them will be there for entirely bad reasons.
We also got the grand unveiling of the wine room. I forgot my camera so I don't have pictures, but wow. I shouldn't be too surprised as my dad is incapable of half assing things. But his wine kitchen is bigger and nicer than the average kitchen. He has a crazy amount of storage and space. He could actually put a small table in there. He even framed the area under the stairs into a closet and put in more under floor heating so he can keep the closet at the right temperature for the wine. Seriously. He's really precise with his wine and had to feed it sugar a few times and measure the specific gravity. So it's good that he's still interested as we also saw his freezer of fruit. So far he has multiple batches of saskatoons, chokecherry, regular cherry, blueberry, blackberry and raspberry. It really all will just add up to a lot of wine and port. And some of it he's mixing together. And no, I haven't actually tasted any of it. We aren't really a wine drinking family so nobody thought to bring it out. I guess I'll have to steal some from him one of these days. He'll never notice it missing!
In exchange for getting Christmas and boxing day off I had to work New Years. Which I was okay with. I watched Kathy Griffin torment Anderson Cooper and celebrated New Years with New York and went to bed. New years day is an easy shift. We wandered around trying to find work for most of the day. The weird catch was that there was no night shift. In all reality there is always someone in the store except for 2 evenings a year. And the night shift crew are the ones that turn off the alarm and unlock the doors so we can get in the store in the mornings before it opens. So if I wanted to leave work at a decent time I had to unlock the store. It wasn't that big of a deal but getting the key and code to get in was. I did manage to successfully get in, I did take too long in relocking the door but got the alarm off by the time the security company called. And then realized that half a dozen other people had shown up.
The orangy battle has been continuing. As much as I enjoy having to trap Wally into rooms to calm her down I decided that something needed to be done. I have discovered that orangy can't climb fences very well. So I stuck up some chicken wire on the deck. It looks ugly as hell but orangy won't come in knowing he can't get out. So that is one battle that I seem to have won. I have a feeling that it's going to be a long summer with orangy this year. I suppose the nice part is that at least I know how the cats will react. Cate will run and Wally will attack. And next time I'm going to let Wally do what she wants. But at least for the meantime it looks like my problem has gone away and maybe I won't have to break up any cat fights with the door between them.