Perfect day

Sunday was just a perfect day, despite what prompted it.

We've had some of what I described to the vet as "inappropriate peeing behavior" at our house lately. It started about a couple of weeks ago--Bob noticed that one of the cats had urinated on the sofa. Lovely. We took off the throws that had been covering our old sofa, washed them, cleaned the cushions as best we could, and sprayed them with odor-and-stain remover. It happened again.

Bob bought some repellant that is supposed to work to keep cats away from whatever you spray it on, and that seemed to work for a couple of days, but then it happened again.

Obviously, with more than one animal, unless you catch them in the act it's hard to know who's doing it. And while cats are fairly complicated little creatures, I also know that it's possible there is some physical reason for it. When Dinah peed on the carpet right in front of me one night while Bob was out of town, I figured it was her.

I called the vet and he said he would have to check both of them, since even though I saw Dinah do it, she could have been trying to cover up something that Pyewacket had done. So I bundled them up and took them to the vet for urinalysis last week, which was, at best, inconclusive.

The vet called and said, "I have good news and bad news," which was what I expected. Of course, I didn't want one of them to be sick, but if there was something wrong, it would be a lot easier to fix than something psychological. Dinah's urinalysis showed "a few red blood cells," which is apparently unusual, but not the bacteria that would have been expected if she had a bladder infection or something. Pye was perfectly fine.

My personal theory is that Dinah just sort of blew a gasket over all the commotion that's been going around in our neighborhood lately--lots of roofs being repaired, lots of pounding and yelling and containers being dropped off by the trash trucks. She hates it--she'll sit in the window and watch and growl everytime there's a loud noise.

Whatever it is, or was (and we'll undoubtedly never know), we need to get it stopped, obviously.

Again, my personal theory is that for whatever reason, she peed on the sofa, and now it smells like that and she thinks she needs to cover it up, or whatever else might be going thorugh that tiny little brain . . .

Dave's going to lend me a Green Machine--the upholstery cleaner--but we've pretty much made up our minds that we're going to have to get a new sofa. We've needed one for awhile, but I've put it off. The one we have fits so well in the room, and it's comfortable, and yeah, it's worn out, but man, do you know what sofas cost?

So we made a trip to Nebraska Furniture Mart (not in Nebraska, but in Kansas City, Kansas) on Sunday to check out furniture prices. We found a sectional sofa that we both really liked. It's basically the same size (we think, we haven't measured yet) as the one we have, slipcovered in khaki-colored canvas. Very plain, kind of modern, very comfortable. Something like $1600 which, considering that I know we paid over $1000 for the one we have about twenty years ago, didn't seem all that bad. Well, it's bad, of course, but what are you going to do?

I also liked the idea of slipcovers that can be removed and washed if necessary.

After wandering all over the furniture store and sitting on a bunch of sofas and chairs (I'm also sort of idly looking for a smaller upholstered rocker for my front room), we went to Cabela's which, if you've never heard of it, is a kind of sporting goods superstore. Sort of like Bass Pro in Springfield, although I don't think it's quite as large. We looked around and bought Bob a t-shirt and some kind of a face cover that he needed for duck hunting, and he made me laugh trying on "mad bomber" earflap hats lined with rabbit fur (didn't buy one, though).

Then he took me to lunch at Chili's, then we went grocery shopping, then home, where I knitted for awhile then took a nap, and later, he woke me up from the nap in the nicest possible way . . .

Just a perfect day.

October is National Breast Cancer Awareness Month