The Thing I Love Most About Not Showering For Four Days

Is that your hair goes from looking a little funky to really dirty to just like, really strong. I like to think that by not washing and/or shampooing for so many hours gives my hair a nice, healthy reprieve from the damage I do on a regular basis, right? Also, you can style your hair in just about any fashion (mohawk) and it'll just stay there.

So how've you been?

My tooth ordeal was far less traumatic than expected. I am suffering still from a mild case of "chipmunk cheek" but otherwise, it's not been too bad. I spent all of Thursday in a fog -- and, sadly, have no stories to tell of stupid things I said or did while under the anesthetic influence. Friday and Saturday were also spent in recovery mode, and I'm still taking it easy. But overall it was pretty okay.

And while I still hurt, I have also learned that I do not like Vicodin. It makes me groggy and nauseous and just kind of icky. I'm instead simply trying not to OD on ibuprofen. So far, so good.

IN OTHER NEWS, Ish and I are in a new, all-out cat war.

I would really like to be able to make use of our patio.

The wall between our patio and the neighbor's patio is probably about three-plus feet high. (That's not at all high to a cat.) As I mentioned earlier, we haven't really done anything to make our patio space alluring (yet). Whereas our neighbor, who is an architect, has a lavish spread. It's got dark woods and loungers and pots and flora and a whole, put-together look that makes you think the man living there must be gay and wealthy.

Our cats want very much to go outside and we want very much to let them. The problem is keeping them from jumping over the wall into the neighbor's patio. He has planters with some kind of mini-bushes in them that covers 3/4 of the wall, but the 4th quarter is empty because the planter doesn't fit.

This means that the first line of defense is flawed.

Last weekend, Ish and I went to Home Depot on our THIRD attempt to find some sort of wall-related covering that might deter the cats and not look heinous. We finally settled on a collection of wide trellises, that we would ground in some planter boxes.

Brilliant, attractive.

Until yesterday, when we actually planted the trellises in the boxes. And discovered that if the boxes are flush against the wall, the trellis cannot be. Because, right, they are inside the boxes.

Attractive. Not so brilliant.

Another excursion -- this time to Lowes. (Note: for those of you unfamiliar with San Francisco, there is no Home Depot nor Lowes nor any such store inside the city. Each of these trips requires getting in the car and driving on the highway to such beautiful and exotic locations as South San Francisco, Daly City, San Carlos, and even Redwood City. (Not to mention Palo Alto to Ikea for the patio furniture trip that resulted in us buying a grand total of two frozen yogurts.)) Where I bought a 6'x15' wall of reeds.

This brilliant idea was that this reed wall would go along the wall already in place, and would totally block the cats.

But how will the wall stay up? Ish asked me in the store.

I don't know, but it's only $23. We will figure the rest out later. Maybe the trellis boxes will hold the reed wall in place.

So this morning, we tried it out. Extended the reed-wall across the actual wall, pushed the trellis boxes up against it. Held it in place okay, although the trellis boxes are about 14" high, and the reed-wall is six FEET high. So the top kind of leaned forward.

Forward, but not so forward that the cats could get through it.

We thought.

We arrogantly opened the doors to the patio, let the cats out. Felt smug.

Until about ten minutes later, when Ish went out to check on them. He called to me from the patio with defeat in his voice.

Just come look at him.

I went outside. And while the reed-wall was still up, still leaning forward ever so slightly, Eddie was lounging languidly on a lovely chair in the neighbor's patio. His head was on the armrest, his eyes half-open, staring at us. He didn't budge when we called to him, except to blink, as though saying, You guys have got to chill. Have you tried hanging out over here? It's very relaxing.

There was nothing to be done about it, until eventually we checked up on him and couldn't see him at all.

Afraid he'd actually jumped into the neighbor's apartment (again!), Ish ran downstairs to see if the neighbor's car was there. It wasn't, so Ish jumped the wall, found Eddie curled up in a potted plant, snatched him and returned to our desolate side.

We need to find something tall to hold up the reed-wall, we determined. (Duh.) Maybe long, tall planters of some sort?

But we didn't want to drive down the Peninsula AGAIN. So we went to a few local stores.

What if we got a semi-tall planter, and like, planted a small TREE? I suggested, in something akin to desperation.

And Ish replied, in the middle of store number three: Why don't we just push the trees we ALREADY HAVE against it?

Yeah, the tenants before us left us three small potted trees, and it hadn't occurred to us to use those. Because we're not even remotely brilliant.

So that is what we've done and that seems to be working. For now, anyway.

But seriously? That was a lot of work. To keep the cats on our side of the patio, there are now approximately four-and-a-half lines of defense: a low wall with planters full of small bushes, a tall reed-wall, three trellises in planters, and two trees.

Photo taken with Ish's phone.
(Yes, my digital camera broke again. This is the third one I've broken.)
It could not capture the whole thing, but you can probably get the point.
That's Monster's butt you see between the two trellises.

Lastly, I wanted to give you an update on our patio furniture situation. I would normally think this is the most boringest kind of update, but once I mentioned we were looking for non-fugly, non-expensive patio furniture, I was inundated with suggestions from everyone.

You are all very savvy.

We took heed and started looking into all kinds of options.

And then we found it.

At Safeway. (That's the grocery store, for all you non-left-Coasters.)

Seriously. It's all wood (though not the best quality, it's still wood). It's got a giant round table that ostensibly seats six. And it comes with six armchairs that come with cushions. In the land of patio furniture, this is amazing.

Usually the tables come with non-arm-having chairs and the cushions are separate and cost like, $20 each. In the case of this Safeway furniture, the whole thing costs $559. Except when we went to purchase it -- finally -- we discovered it is half-off. So the seven-piece set came to a total of $298, and they are delivering it for no fee.

(If any of you need patio furniture are are looking for a steal, this is it. They have one set left at the SOMA Safeway.)

I am a little concerned that I have over-estimated the size of my patio and that the table will only fit if no one sits at it, but whatever.

Worst case scenario, we can just push it up against the wall. HAHAHAHAHA.