Oh Stink!

Shots from Steve's living room looking west in LA.

My gazillion Daffodils are already up and they’re two inches tall! And my Clematis is covered in short shoots, in the beginning of January. I can’t believe it! On Monday morning, scanning the news online, I saw a headline that our January will be warm and dry. So, when we went trail walking and the clouds thinned and the day turned bright, it felt to me, having seen the shoots and the headline, that Winter was over. Tuesday morning, however, it felt like Winter again. The humid and cool air had me looking forward to getting home and the fire as we walked together through Elder Cedar.

For the past two weeks, I have been trying to find the source of a nasty odor in the living room. I looked under everything and in everything in case there was a dead animal in the house. I found nothing, so next came sniff testing everything. I hope nobody was looking in my front window as I moved around the living room on all fours smelling all over the furniture and rugs.

Two weeks of seeking the answer to the odor problem led to naught, so I spent a good part of Monday trying to find a carpet and upholstery cleaning service that would come to Gabriola, thinking it might be pet stink on my chaise and chair. I couldn’t find anyone who would come to Gabriola, and so I started looking for places to rent equipment, but it gets very expensive because they charge by the hour and there’s no way I could get to Nanaimo, come home and do all the cleaning, and get back to Nanaimo on the same day. Yesterday morning, therefore, I bought a portable steam upholstery cleaner on Amazon. For $140 I got the cleaner and the proper shampoo. Buying it was cheaper than renting one. It won’t be here for ten days or so, but I’m less stressed by the smell because I know that it may soon be gone. 

A spark of insight had me decide to wash my floors thoroughly in case there’s old pee between the planks. It really disturbs me to have a stinky home, and when we walked yesterday morning, when we came in the front door, the stink hit me like a hammer. It must me here, I thought, in my front door hall somewhere. That’s when I remembered Sheba peeing here when she was a puppy. I always cleaned it up, but what if I missed cleaning up some pee she left during the night? I washed the floor in the hall three times before we went for our afternoon walk.

We went to Elder Cedar to walk, and at one point as the sun broke through the clouds and lit up a glade of fallen trees and some standing beauties where everything—everything—is coated in thick brilliant green moss and moss hangs in thick strands off the branches. I burst into tears at the beauty of it all. As we walked it got brighter and brighter, and clear blue sky was everywhere. Oh, I felt good! And then, when we got home and came into the house… barely any stink!

Clear skies and no stink made my late afternoon one to remember. And the evening was just as uplifting because I was full of joy. I got notice of our upcoming ASL classes, and I chose not to register. I want to avoid people, especially people I don’t really know. I’ve been having seizures again, not many, but they are back and that was part of the reasoning behind my decision to stop learning ASL—that, plus all the medical appointments I have coming up.

This is so sad. My life is so dull, I’m reduced to writing about a stink in my home in Pinecone Park.