3517 Filthy floors

Tuesday, April 17, 2012

Stories are simple sequences of events, plots are about causes,
motivation ..., what stories mean. ...life is all stories, and fiction is all plots.....
-- Peter Ho Davies --

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Well, I am only a little stiff today. A little bit of pain down the left hip and thigh. I put the brace on anyway, just to make sure. So far, so good.

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My floors are gross. I haven't swept or vacuumed in ages, and there are crushed leaves, dirt, and cat hair everywhere. I passionately hate vacuuming. The weight. The dragging and controlling of the cord. I purposely rejected carpeting in the new house so it would be easier to keep the floors and stairs clean, but, uh, I hate sweeping, too. The bits escaping, the dust flying, the trying to corral it all. The moving of things in the way.

I bought two vacuum cleaners for this house so I wouldn't have to carry any up and down stairs. But the flipping things are heavy to use. I prefer canisters, because the weight stays on the floor and the head is light, but good canisters are next to impossible to find these days. So I got bagless uprights. I hate them. Being short, I hold the handle lower than most people, which puts the entire weight of the mechanism on my arm, and then moving it out and back strains my lower back. Hate, hate, hate!

So I got the Roombas, one for each floor. But there are a lot of table and chair legs the Roomba can't get between, and the floor is cluttered with cat and toddler toys that I have to pick up first, plus the cat's food tray, and curtains that touch the floor, and shoes under the bed with shoelaces that the Roombas like to eat, and, and, and, and it's a LOT of work for not such a great job (Roomba's exhaust tends to blow dirt, especially cat hair, sideways onto tracks it's already cleaned). I haven't turned them loose in months.

Sigh.

I hate it all.

I looked at the floors today and thought, "I've GOT to do something, now!"

So, I bought (online) a rechargeable vacuum stick. It's lightweight, no cord. We used to call them electric brooms. It's a Eureka, so it should be adequate. With its ten inch wide head it should be easy to maneuver around stuff. No bag.

I don't know how long it will take to get here, but nothing will be done with the floors until it arrives.

Temporary reprieve.
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3227 Naughty Pets

Sunday, January 9, 2011

"I laid my bed, now I've got to sit on it."
-- A-Rod --

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Roomba:

The kitchen island, the snow thrower, and many other items have arrived packed in that semi-solid foam stuff. Lots of flat sheets of it. It sheds tiny balls of static-charged plastic foam that stick to everything. After putting the island together, my kitchen floor and Jasper's tail were covered with bits of it, and it quickly spread throughout the first floor.

I got the big vacuum cleaner out to clean it up, and coming around the corner I bumped the Roomba. He took that as a signal to start cleaning, so I let him go. He actually did a pretty good job, so I let him take care of it.

I goofed.

I had stacked the sheets of plastic foam against a wall in the dining room until I decided what to do with it. I was sitting at the computer with my back to the dining room, when I saw balls of plastic foam floating past my shoulders.

Roomba had found the foam, and was stuck in the middle of it, and was chewing it industriously. His exhaust (and the fact that his belly was full with what he'd already eaten) was blowing the chewed bits. The freaking stuff is now stuck to walls, ceilings, curtains ....

Bad Roomba!

Jasper:

Almost all my adult life I'd had lots of houseplants. The old house had high ceilings and glass across much of the west-facing walls. Before Jay died, I had several 8' and 10' plants in the livingroom and bedroom. One schefflera had an 8" diameter trunk. The last year of Jay's illness most of the plants died because I wasn't able to care for them, and the rest died during the long darkness after. I hadn't bought any more plants.

So, since he's been living with me, Jasper has had no experience with houseplants.

The new house doesn't have the light of the old, but what it has is sufficient, plus the Home Depot is selling plants that appear to be in excellent condition, CHEAP, and if I travel Daughter can water them --- so I bought some.

Jasper has been chewing on them. (Yes, I know which are poison, not to worry.)

Either he doesn't know they'll make him throw up, or he does know and that's why he chews them. Actually, that's ok.

He apparently does NOT know that kitty cats must NOT throw up on Mommy's prized hand-knotted, natural-dyed, pure silk, pastel, imported oriental carpet. That's definitely not ok. Especially since 90% of the floor space is bare.

Bad Jasper!
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3171 Snow!

Thursday, November 25, 2010

M R teachers.
M R not.
S A R! C M MT pockets?

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Daughter and Hercules left this morning to visit H's grandmother in south-eastern Pennsylvania. (Yes, I was invited. No, it's not my thing. In case you haven't noticed, I don't "do" holidays.) They called from the road to tell me they were driving through a "winter mix" mess. Two hours later I looked out the door and it was snowing here. Not much, but any, so soon, is unwelcome.

Jasper met the downstairs Roomba this morning, and even though I was holding him in my arms the whole time it was on, he completely freaked. Even after I turned it off, he hid upstairs for more than an hour. Wait 'til he finds out there's a Roomba upstairs, too.

I did some further research on cable TV. Turns out I can get FIOS, which is Verizon. They have a better selection of basic channels, for less than Cablevision/Optimum. I think I'll go with them, since I already have Verizon broadband internet and cell phone, and I'll consider bundling them IF I can retain my grandfathered unlimited access. I saw a bunch of Verizon stores all along the highway, so I think I'll stop in at one of them in the next few days and see what we can do.
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3170 Wrangling the Roomba

Wednesday, November 24, 2010

M R snakes.
M R not.
S A R! C M BD Is?

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I bought two Roombas, both model 560, one new and the other reconditioned, one for upstairs and the other for down.

The third time the downstairs one climbed into Jasper's tray and ate his food, I caught myself slapping it on the nose and saying, "No! That's not your food!" Especially because just minutes before, it had been batting one of Jasper's belled balls around the room.

It nudges things hard - pushed a tall mid-eastern brass ewer filled with peacock feathers halfway across the room.

It interprets very dark surfaces as edges and won't cross them. I hadn't noticed before that the oriental rug in the living room has a band of dark around the center. I don't know how it managed to get in there, but the Roomba got stuck in the center of the rug.

I'm learning. I doubt that it is.
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