Chapter Eighteen of Facilitate Your User Is Posted

I just put up chapter eighteen. DMaduks, you’ll be pleased to know we are getting precariously close to the “naughty bits” 🙂 Overall I like Keylee and Paul (as characters go). Oddly enough, this was one of the quickest stories I’ve ever written. Somehow the two of them just flowed.

Today’s picture is courtesy of Copernicus. I don’t have as many pictures of him as I do his brother, Newton. I don’t like/love Copernicus any less, it just seems like Newton gets into more funny cat antics than his brother. I actually wanted to post another one of Newton I took last night, but again, for some reason, the photos from my phone aren’t updating onto the computer. Anyway, this is a classic one of Copernicus lounging. He likes being on his back to sleep and usually finds a wall or some other sturdy structure to lean half his body against when he does it.

As usual, this past week at work was batshit crazy. For a change, I had Friday off, which was lovely. It gave me a chance to drive to a tile store and pick out something for the entryway of my home. I’ve lived here for over fifteen years and the carpet and linoleum (in the entryway) were there when I purchased the home. I’ve had much bigger fish to both fry and pay for, so it’s remained. For better or worse, leaving the carpet isn’t so much of an option anymore.

Both Newton and Copernicus still have all their claws and overall I’m happy with that decision. They don’t scratch up the woodwork or the furniture, but they do tear up the carpet. Since their cat tree is carpeted, and they scratch at that, I don’t think I can really expect them to know the difference between that carpet and the other stuff all over the house. Mostly it’s fine – just a few strands pulled up here and there, with one exception. The transition between the living room and the faux wooden floor in the kitchen, they’ve torn up the edge. A couple of weeks ago, Fennik trotted into the living room, laid down, and started chewing on something. When I went to investigate, I found he had a rather impressive chunk of carpet.

They say teamwork makes the dreamwork, but in this case, Fennik teaming up with the kitties to rip up the carpet is only going to lead to gastric foreign body surgery. And so . . . new carpet and also tiling over the “fabulous” yellow linoleum in the entryway. Well, it will be better in the long run, but the process gives me hives. As I said earlier, the carpet in the house was here when I moved in and the bedrooms are colored. I don’t know what I’m going to do without the pink-mauve carpet in my bedroom (if you couldn’t tell, that was said in a sarcastic tone). New carpet is leading to repainting the bedrooms and computer/cat room. It kind of makes my head want to explode, but I’m desperately trying to suck it up and say, “I can do it!”.

I ordered and committed to everything on Friday, but it won’t be done until the end of October. Fingers and toes double crossed as none of my home improvement projects have ever gone smoothly or as planned. And just for reference, that includes re-roofing the house, replacing a foundation wall running the length of the basement, rebuilding all the retaining walls lining the drive and leading up to the house, and a few other, more minor things. I love my home, but somedays I think it might lead me to an early grave.

That’s all for today. I hope those still reading Facilitate Your User are happy with where the story is going. I’m sorry for all the spelling/grammatical mistakes that are bound to be there. I don’t think I’ve edited it as well as I’d like. Time is a commodity that seems to be shrinking as the days pass.

Before I completely leave, I just wanted to say, for those of you living on the fire ravaged west coast, or the hurricane battered gulf shore, please know that many of us in the rest of the country are thinking of you. I lived in Virginia for 3 years and went through hurricane Isabelle and the aftermath it brought. I remember seeing power companies from across the country helping in the days after and can only hope that is occurring now. These are atrocious times and we just keep getting hit again and again. The death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg is just another punch to the soul.

Until next week, please stay safe and as well as you can.

MJ May