Sometimes my life gets crazy!

To start the day, I got a crazy hoax phone call from a man with am Asian accent warning me there was a bomb in the house and I needed to evacuate immediately.  Of course I thought what a bunch of malarkey this is.  “Good grief!” was all I said, thinking he was full of s***.

Mu husband called the number back and the guy on the other end denied making the phone call, so he called the FBI and they told him they get hundreds of calls like this a week.  The best thing to do is not engage the guy and act scared or they will call back and demand money in exchange for something.  The FBI agent said more than likely the Asian guy’s phone was hijacked by someone from overseas.  He did say this was only the second report of a bomb call they’ve received.  This is a first for us.  It sounded like the extortionist callers are usually telling the recipients of the calls that their grandchild is missing, etc., or things of that nature.

He chatted with my husband a bit longer and then agreed that being on the do not call list doesn’t work.

On anther note, we’ve been cleaning house for several days to get everything perfect for a real estate lady who had an appointment today to come and video tape the house for one of her clients.  The potential buyer saw the pics and loves the house.  Well at ten minutes after the time she was supposed to be here, we called her and she told us she had forgotten to cancel. Her father had a stroke and she was on her way to Vegas and would call to reschedule when she returns.

Now, we have no reason not to believe her, so for now we are taking her at her word.  Things like this do happen all the time, so we’ll see if she shows up in a couple of weeks.  She assured us her client loves the house.

This was disappointing because both of us could hardly move to get out of bed today to finish the job.  At that point, we just wanted to get it over with.

 This is the resident lizard

To top things off, if you follow my blog, you know we’ve had a lizard living in the fireplace.  This afternoon it’s front left foot got caught in between the frame and the glass.  I have no idea how this happened because he’s been coming and going for a year.  At first my husband didn’t believe me, but Raven and I knew he was trapped.  So once my husband saw him squirm and couldn’t get out, he knew it was true.

We had to take the fireplace apart to get the little guy out.  So I shut Raven up in our bedroom and we took the pieces off one by one.  My husband nudged him, but instead of going the other way, he jumped out into the room and ran at full tilt toward the couch.  I knew we had to catch him because the cats would have a field day chasing him all over and breaking things along the way. 

I grabbed a cotton dishtowel to throw over him, but he scooted out and underneath couch.  So we moved tables and then the couch and there he was, but ran back under the couch again.  This went on a few more times with us moving furniture and him eluding us. 

He headed toward the kitchen eventually and got under the cupboard at the kick plate.  My husband opened up the patio door nearby, but he ran under it and back into the family room.  Finally, realizing the door to freedom was open; he bolted out, stopping near the water dish to catch his breath.  Then he got on the wall of the house outside.  My husband could walk up to him.  Either he was worn out from trying to escape with his life, or he trusted us.  I guess time will tell if he shows back up in the fireplace again.

We got everything back in place just in time for my husband to pick a neighbor up and have his men’s night out at a friend’s house in the neighborhood.  They are barbequing and telling stories.  I know this will be a fun evening after the east few days of non-stop work and these guys haven’t gotten together this year because everyone’s been out of town and not all here at the same time.

 Unwinding before dinner

I was going to the neighbors for a girl’s night, but she just got home from a trip and has to clean house, so we’re doing our thing tomorrow.  I have the whole house to myself tonight for a couple of hours.  I guess I’ll kick back, enjoy this peace and quiet, and read or maybe get some writing done.

The Bookcase



Kathump! Kathump!


“Did you hear that?” My husband wakes me at 2 am. Of course, I didn’t hear that and I still didn’t, despite him telling me that it was still going on.

“Listen,” he instructs me.

Finally, after about ten minutes we decide to get out of bed. I thought it was probably one of the cats up to something because things always go thump in the night around the house. I wasn’t very concerned, but he was, so we decided to investigate. It is common to think you hear a herd of elephants upstairs as they chase each other. Noises just come with owning a cat.

He wakes me up regularly when he nears noises. I don’t get that much sleep, so I always figure it can wait until morning with not a lot of harm done.

We inched forward through the house, stopping at intervals to listen for the sound, which was intermittent, but got louder as we approached his office.

We looked around and all was in order. However, the sound soon alerted us to a trapped cat in the corner behind a six-foot high bookcase. Hmmm... Now how did she manage that one? We knew darn well a cat could not jump that high in the air.

The ‘kathump’ was her jumping behind there, actually thinking she could jump all the way to the top and get back up the way she got down.

We eased the bookcase out and she came running out, not looking very upset over things, but then this cat is a cat that, trapped in the pantry all day on occasion, seems to look at this as an adventure of some sort. She loves to climb the shelves in there and entertains herself without making a peep. Usually the only way we discover her is when we go to the pantry for something.

We put everything back in place and went back to bed.

It wasn’t two nights later and the same thing happened yet again. We rescued her for a second time and moved everything clear, thinking she must have used a chair, or bench, to reach the top of the bookcase in the first place.

A week or so later we discovered how she was achieving her feat. She jumped up on the credenza against the other wall, with the craftiness only a cat can muster, walked across the curtain rod reaching her desired destination – the bookcase in the corner. From there she could jump down to the floor, trapping herself once more between the wall and bookcase with no way out.

I will never know exactly what enters this cat’s mind, but she is a determined little thing. We had to erect a barrier we could stand up on the curtain rod. Its purpose – to deter her for a month until she was on to something else she could get into that would be easier, making her forget about this adventure – or has she? You can never be sure when dealing with a cat.