Bowled Over

I've been on a tear this rainy Saturday. I've emptied two bank boxes full of papers, and put most of the contents into the recycle bin. The rest has gone into the filing cabinet.

I ran into letters from my late mother, which made me sob my little heart out. I found a missive from my favorite ex-True Love. He said – paraphrasing to protect the appalled – I was the person who'd cut the largest swath in his life, and he'd always be grateful to me. Right back atcha, babe!

Having cleared those boxes, I turned, in unprecedented zeal, to the giant, nine-drawer oak chest where I basically cram things when guests are arriving and I'm not ready – junk mail, magazines, books, odds and ends that belong in the studio but are always in the office. I emptied three of those drawers and then moved to the other side, in search of receipts for my taxes which will be done in time to prevent imprisonment, or so my accountant and best friend assures me. But first I had to move things out of the way, and one of those things was a huge plastic bowl.

If you worked the night shift with me at the Widget Factory, you'll remember those wonderful Rice Krispie® Treats I made. Well, it was in this very bowl that said sweets were born. It was the perfect size for swirling the cereal into the melted marshmallows and butter. Most recently, the bowl was holding two big plastic bags of beads, large and small, all colors, many shapes, shown above. It's also in this historic bowl that one of my cats peed.

Well, one of the reasons I was so set on cleaning this room was to find the source of the bad odor, so in that sense, it's been a very successful day.

But here's what gets me. If cats have such a fine sense of smell, why does their urine have to be so pungent? Can't they make their statements in a more subtle fashion? My god! the least twitch of a tail is a full paragraph in Feline Lingo! Cats are so graceful, so quiet, so mysterious, you'd think their communications would would follow suit. The teeniest poof of pee should be enough to get their point across.

On the other hand, who really knows what cats think? I assume they're marking their territory when they pee in the house, but maybe they're actually saying something like, "Aw, I'm too tired to walk all the way through the living room to the litter box, so I guess I'll just use this bowl. Hey! I wonder if I can make my pee get right into those heavy plastic, zippered bags? I'll bet I can!"

I brought the bowl and its piercing contents to the kitchen sink. Half a dozen loose beads had to slip down to the garbage disposal before I caught on. I plugged the trap and continued rinsing all those shiny orbs. Happily, most of them were still in necklace form, so it wasn't too bad. Those plastic bags may never be the same, though.

I got out the flashlight and peered into the garbage disposal. Now, when David installed the thing, he assured me that I couldn't lose my hand in there. He showed me the thick disks that spin and slice, and I could see the circle of holes through which the chopped gunk gets into Tampa Bay. He was trying to ease my discomfort about garbage disposals in general, but it didn't work. I saw Fargo. You can't fool me. Sure, that was a wood-chipper and this is for egg shells, but the principle's the same.

Still, I dug out the little pellets and then ran the disposal. It put forth a cacophony that made its normal clank and grind sound like chamber music. It took several tries, but I finally got all the bead bits out of there. They're drying, as seen above, but now I'm wondering if I should have given them to an artist friend before I wrote this blog. Maybe I'll distract her with Rice Krispie Treats.