The days slip by so quickly

When last I posted I had taken the kittens in to the vet and was awaiting time to go fetch them again. I did, and they seemed a little off, in exactly the way you might expect them too given that they hadn't gotten any food since the night before, then were plopped into a box for a half hour drive, brought to a strange place with new smells, but not let out of the box to explore it, and then someone stabbed them with needles (vaccines), stuck a chip in their necks, drugged them, and opened up their tummies to remove organs they shouldn't be using. They were both awake when I returned, and when I got them home and let them out of the box they were both looking not very happy, but they both asked for food. They'd been awake after surgery long enough that I gave them a tiny amount of food each, and they looked a little happier. Within an hour they were climbing up the carpet we have wrapped around a door jam to the top of the bookcase. More slowly and carefully than their usually scurry up the wall, but they didn't seem to think that the fact that their tummies had been cut open should in any way impede doing what they wanted to do. Our vet used steel stitches to hold the wound shut, and so they didn't get those plastic cones around their heads, which I am sure helped. We are aloud to take the stitches out tomorrow, which will be 10 days since surgery, but I suspect that Kalika has already managed to remove at least one of them. I distract her whenever I see her trying to tug on them with her teeth, but it wouldn't surprise me if she is also doing it when I am not looking.

In the meantime we have been making progress on home improvements, mostly decorative, as in the new art over the fireplace:



but we have also managed to take an important step towards my goal of putting a toilet and shower in the basement. D. came over and helps us put in a new electrical outlet on the wall where we want to move the washer and dryer to, and unhook the wires to the old outlet where they are now. This is important, as the part of the large downstairs room where the washer and dryer currently sits is going to be the new bathroom, and we don't really want that sort of outlet in the room. So now, before we actually move the washer and dryer we "just" need to cut a channel in the floor from the new site for the washing machine to the floor drain so that we can have the washer drainage tube under the floor rather than being a tripping hazard, and install ventilation from the new site to outside.

Then we can start the serious work, which will include (not necessarily in this order) removing the old tiles from the bottom half of the walls (those that hadn't already fallen off as a result of a previous owner blocking all of the basement ventilation so that a moisture problem started), put up the water proofing under layer and then retile the wall, especially in the area which will be a shower, taking off the wall mounted water circulating heater, and instead install under floor circulating heat, installing a wall-mounted toilet, putting in a sink, and putting in a wall and a door to the new bathroom. yah, this is going to take a while.

In addition to home improvements and responsible pet ownership tasks, we have been hard at work preparing for Drachenwald's 12th night Coronation, which is now only a week away. As the keeper of the event spreadsheet I think I now have arranged loaner camping bedding for all of the travelers who said they would need to borrow, and rides to the site from the buss station and airport (15 people coming in on the same flight on Friday!) and have the allergy list up to date (58 people of 161 registered either have allergies or a food restriction the kitchen should know about).

We are really looking forward to the event, which will be the largest one ever held north of Gyllengran, the shire in the city of Sundsvall, which is about a five hour drive south of this event.