Pimp Mah Bathroom

Beware a flipped house.

The people who do the flipping never have to live in it,

so they don't have to live with the consequences of their "upgrades."

Case in point:  my bathroom.

The guy who flipped our house 

covered the bathroom counter with four inch white tile with white grout,

and didn't put any cabinets above the sinks.

This meant we had to root around under the sinks for any cosmetics/toiletries,

which meant said cosmetics/toiletries usually ended up just staying on the counter.

Even I, with my lax housekeeping skills, was tired of it.

What to do?

Well, I headed out to Bed Bath and Beyond with my sheaf of giant blue coupons...

... and picked up a wooden shoe rack.

At the 99 Cent store, I got some little tubs.

Then I got to work assembling!

I was not happy with the results.

It looked like I had built an altar to, I don't know, clear skin and healthy gums.

"Oh, great Goddess Dermatica, please get rid of this zit before my big presentation."

So I sawed off a level, and added a curtain to the front.

Much better!

"Look!" I told The Sweet Man.

"Now we'll be able to wipe off the counters!"

"Yeah, we won't be doing that," he replied.

And... fair enough.

Mystery Solved!

'Member when I potted up some mystery tomato seedlings

that had taken root in some of my pots?

Well, the mystery has been solved!

These little tomatoes have the distinctive pumpkin-y shape of a Costoluto.

And these are the bright orange of Sungolds.

These two types of tomatoes are also coincidentally 

the best performers in my garden this year.

And speaking of "best performers"...

These were NOT.

This tomato plant was a "Lincoln,"

and it got munched on by some dang grasshoppers early in the season.

Instead of rallying, like a little punk it just gave up and and died.

So what to do?

How about some FALL tomatoes?

Armstrong Nurseries has taken advantage of California gardeners

just not being ready to give up our tomato harvest,

and has designated some tomato seedlings "fall tomatoes."

This is a bit of a racket:  these aren't specially bred tomatoes or anything.

They're just tough tomatoes.  I know this because one of the tomatoes offered is

my beloved Costoluto, the volunteer tomato already planted and growing in my garden.

But I picked up three new tomatoes last weekend

-- Long Keeper, Oregon Star, and Stupice --

and planted them in the super-duper expensive high-end potting soil that Armstrong offers.

Because I never get tired of fresh tomatoes.

Return Of The Garden

So, my garden?

Not looking so healthy.

That sad, shriveled thing is a zucchini.

A zucchini!

There was a time I was drowning in zucchini!

My tomato plants were also getting sparse;

many had hardly a leaf on the stems.

But I wasn't going to give up, dang it!

I live in Southern California,

 where summer weather stretches far past the supposed start of fall.

I have comfortably accompanied the kids trick-or-treating in shorts, y'all!

So I started fertilizing at all more often,

but then I realized something:

my water nozzle was totally weak-sauce!

I know from experience that grit and debris gradually clogs up a sprayer,

so while I had been watering for the same amount of time,

less actual watering had been going on.

So I bought a lusty, new sprayer...

... and things starting improving!

Zucchinis have once more been swelling,

and shoots have been popping up along my tomato stems.

Yay!

I should get a chocolate zucchini cake or two

 and tomato salad out of my garden yet.

 Though, y'know, not at the same time.

Because that would just taste weird.

Doin' Time With Sophie

Meet Sophie.

She came into my life about four years ago, 

an injured stray who ended up losing one of her back legs.

The vet said, maybe a coyote attack?

But I think, like the Book of Adam guy with his three-legged cat...

...I'm going to start saying she lost it to a shark bite,

like the surfer girl in Hawaii.

HOWEVER, I DIGRESS.

Sophie thinks I and the other humans in the house are the bee's knees,

but she and the other cats do NOT get along.

Most of the time it's an uneasy detente,

but for some reason the two little cats decided that Sophie didn't get to use their litter box,

and like little punks they ambushed her when she exited.

This meant poor Sophie was having litter box anxiety,

so to make a long, pee-filled story short,

The Girl hit upon having a dedicated litter box for Sophie.

We set up a Breeze litter box in the downstairs bathroom...

... but I hate seeing an open litter box every time I hit the bathroom.

So in a stroke of genius, I made my own covered litter box!

I realized the pet carrier taking up room in the garage

was just the right size for the Breeze box.

I placed the litter box inside, 

removed the carrier door,

covered it with a pretty towel...

... and voila!

a covered cat litter box!

This is what Sophie sees...

... and this is what I see from the sink.

The beauty of this hack is it only cost me the price of the towel,

and took me all of five minutes.

But again,

I DIGRESS.

What I wanted to talk about was last Sunday/Monday, when the unthinkable happened:

I forgot Sophie in the bathroom overnight!

Our usual routine is Sophie hops to the closed bathroom door...

...I let her in, close the door so she has privacy, and once she's done she sticks a paw out.

If I don't let her out right away, she starts hurling herself at the door.

But Sunday night, she was uncharacteristically quiet,

and I went to bed unaware she was still in there.

The next morning, The Sweet Man called up the stairs,

"Did you forget Sophie last night?"

"Sooooophieeee!!!"

I wailed as I clutched her to my bosom,

 as though instead of leaving her in a warm, safe bathroom,

I'd left her outside in sub-zero weather to become a cat-sicle.

What to do?

I tried lurking outside the bathroom until I saw the tell-tale paw,

but, y'know, sometimes it takes time for a kitty to get her business done.

Then I hit on the perfect reminder:

a scrunchy!

(You can actually see two Sophie scars on my furry arm.

I love her, but she's not a perfect cat.)

I leave the scrunchy on the bathroom door,

but when I let Sophie in, I slip the scrunchy on my wrist.

Since I am neither a kid nor in the eighties...

... I am very much aware of the hair band bunched around my wrist.

Has it worked?

No extended stays for Sophie so far!

I think she forgives me.

(P.S.  Seriously, click over to Book of Adam.  The guy is hilarious.)

Library Fail

The Little Free Library has been up for a few months now.

How has it been going?

I made a few changes:

taking a cue from my old Library Lady days, I started facing some of the books out,

with a little "Featured!" note on them.

This Ripley's book maybe lasted a day before it was gone.

I got one of those box thingies real estate agents use,

so I could have a waterproof place for the magazines, FAQ, and notes.

The results? 

Books have gone out (and some back in again)

and I've gotten several notes, 

many of them in the tippy writing of the under-eight crowd.

BUT...

There's one area  where I FAILED.

I was elbow-deep in my front yard garden when I heard voices out by the library.

I saw a daddy and a daughter, 

and went over to ask if she was looking for anything in particular.

"Junie B. Jones?" she said.

"Great!" I said, 

because there are two camps of grown-ups when it comes to Junie B. Jones:

those who think she's a sassy-mouthed abomination,

 and those who think she's freakin' hilarious.

I belong firmly in the second camp.

I explained that I had some in the house that weren't ready yet,

(I put Little Free Library stickers on each book and cover them with ConTact paper)

but I would put them out the next morning.

She took some Judy Moody and Calvin and Hobbes at my urging,

her father gave me her mother's cell phone number, and she headed off.

The next morning, this was in my library...

...and I gave the cell phone number a call.

But!  Her mother answered in Spanish.

I have taken several years of Spanish, but have never achieved fluency.

However, HOWEVER, I should have had the most important word at the ready,

because what is the first thing we learn with any new language?

I couldn't remember "biblioteca"!

What kind of library lady was I?

Fortunately, between the two of us, we managed -- she had just enough English,

and I had just enough Spanish.

But the books are still there, and I wonder if something got lost.

Perhaps young Jessica would have picked up her books

 if I had managed to dredge up "pequeña biblioteca."

Would it be too stalkery of me to leave a note at her house?

Hmmm... maybe. I'll have to think on it.