A Screen Porch

“The disrespect around here is staggering,” I told Ethel.

She gave me what I call “the one-eyed wink.” It involves curling her body into a tight circle so she can see me as she aims her anus at me, quivering her tail straight up like a middle finger.

My bedding was all over the floor, the mat off the dining room table was in the bathroom, the mat from the dining room was in the hallway and the ironing board cover was in the litter box and filthy.

Fred ran to watch me clean up the ironing board cover. Sheba wanted to lick it.

“A propensity to fecal snacks is taking feminism too far,” I told her. “And while we’re there,” I said to Sheba,” The game is called Hump the Hostess not Humping Hostess. Let the man lead.”  Every male leg is at risk in Pinecone Park.

And maybe it was watching me sort recycling yesterday, scattering different materials on the shed floor, that gave them the idea to do the same with the contents of the garbage pails in the bathroom and in my office. There was paper everywhere.

I think they must have been playing Truth or Dare last night.

After I refilled the garbage pails I fetched some wood. (I hardly have any left.) Perhaps she sensed my concern because after I fed the fire and returned to my desk to finish this post she’d left me gifts: The remote control and some “almond roca” (you know what I mean) on my chair. And as I dispensed with that, Fred and Ethel wrangled the package of their favourite treat onto the floor and were working at getting it open.

When I went to clean it up I discovered that not one, but both, of my vacuum attachments are gone. I searched everywhere but couldn’t find them. I still haven’t. I’m sure they’ll turn up some day somewhere.

•

Darrell was back yesterday. We’re building a screen porch off my dining room. Thank you DR for writing to suggest screening the porch in response to my whining about losing the sunroom.

It’s going to be a modest-sized enclosed room but it will mean that I can leave the dining room doors open in the summer without losing the cats. I’ll be able to put the cats’ litter box out there and a cat door through the dining room door so there’ll be no more asthma irritating ammonia in the house. And the cats will get exposure to fresh air and the plants I plan to install.

The prediction for a week of sun starting tomorrow has been changed to cloudy and showery, so no garden work. Pooey. However, Jane called last night — the woman who picked up my Styrofoam — and she offered to shop for me in Nanaimo. Sweet eh!