We were fortunate enough to rate a visit from Avdi between business trips to Chicago, St. Louis, and coming up, Cape Town, S. Africa, his first visit to the continent.  He had lots of exciting adventures to share, including hanging out with Adam Savage, Jon Scalzi, and many other notable colleagues.

Of course E showed off her impressive shower install.  Just a few tweaks remain.  Misu is so blasé now, she just sleeps through it all.  It almost feels like back to a normal erev.  I took photos of Avdi from so many angles to make up for all the times I don’t get to see him.

Today E installed the actual shower.  That sounds easier than it was!  It took a lot of adjusting and readjusting components (plus more sweat and blood), but the good news is, she got to take a shower!  It works!  Phew!  The job’s not completed, but the worst is over.

The whole process was mystifying and exciting for Misu, but eventually she just settled down to wait by her food bowl, then inspected the final product.  It met with her approval.  What a relief!

The hideous horror from the abyss is mostly a thing of the past today.  These photos don’t even begin to hint at how much labor by E went into tearing out the decayed ruins, rebuilding the whole infrastructure, and starting to install the new shower components, including proper plumbing.  Much sweat and blood was shed.

Next up–finishing the installation and fine-tuning.  E has definitely earned the eventual shower she will seriously need!

Misu is shown here proofreading my report.

Meanwhile, confused (and forced) flowers are blooming up a storm here in late January.  They didn’t get the memo that it’s f-ing winter/ the new spring.

I’ll just sum up the ordeal of overhauling the shower, which had to be done, trust me.  Façades can be deceiving.  It was like a dank, hideous nightmare of stupidness under there, once revealed in all its horror.  It’s a wonder anyone even took showers in there.  We almost gagged to death.

Misu and I are just keeping a safe distance, “supervising” or “helping”.  Mostly Misu is hiding behind things while extremely loud machinery is screeching.  I’m hauling off disgusting debris and watching the sparks fly.

E is actually doing all the real work herself, of course.  It took a lot of planning and getting her nerve up.  It’s a daunting project, but coming along nicely.  Here are before and during shots.

Before the dig:

Misu supervising/hiding:

E hard at work tearing it up and rebuilding, including the dreaded plumbing fix:

Installing her framing for the eventual shower insert:

Stay tuned for the exciting conclusion.

Our old Ohio friend Rex has died, after a long, painful struggle with pervasive cancer.  He chose the hospice route back home with family in Indiana, rather than the grueling, unaffordable ordeal of chemo/radiation.

We had lost touch with him, but missed the many happy times we spent hanging out at his house, meeting his friends, or doing repairs/maintenance he needed.  He had a beautiful front sunroom full of tropical plants, where I was always taking photos, when I wasn’t playing with his two cats, or drinking the scotch he generously kept refilling.  He was a lovely person.  I’m sad, but happy he’s finally in peace.

Here are some of his flowers, plants, and cats, from pleasanter times, in his memory.

Misu sums up the week:

Apply as needed.

It is frigid out there.  It’s not supposed to be frigid down here!  Nothing for it but to hibernate more, and dream of native wildflowers stratifying down below.

These tulips are fooled!  I wish I could feel as blissfully ignorant.

Here’s Misu watching the sun come up.  She thinks she wishes she could be out there.

I’ll just say I hope that evil orange clown gets everything he deserves, and we can get back to restoring some sanity on our planet before it’s too late.  I try to believe there’s some justice left in the world.  And now back to Hiber Nation.

It’s COLD.  I don’t do cold.  There are even flakes!  We are hibernating.  Nothing to see here, it’s all frozen.  I’ve run out of things to photograph.  Even Misu is scrunched up behind me on this chair to keep warm!  She makes a great butt-warmer.

There’s only one thing for it…a seed catalog.  Almost time for my first 2020 order.  Where there are seeds, there is hope.  (I heartily recommend Annie’s Heirloom Seeds, by the way. It’s where I get most of my veg seeds.)

Spring in winter was too good to last, so now it’s dropping down to below average temps, now that all the spring bulb shoots have shot up.  On the other hand, native wildflower seeds require a period of freezing for stratification and eventual germination.  So I guess it all balances out in the end.

Inside, bulb flowers continue to bloom, and Misu continues to make clever forts and lounge about.  She seems almost resigned to her indoor fate.  Yesterday a guy working on the vacated house dropped by to report on his scary encounter with the gigantic raccoon in their shed, and Misu didn’t even bolt for the open door.  She has been assimilated.