Pink Laundry and Feathers

One bright red slipcover + 1 load of light colored clothing= pink clothes. No, I didn’t do the laundry, this was the boy’s fault, and it happened to be all his clothing too. We bought a new-to-us couch that came with a red slipcover. (Couch is white with black stripes and well, that doesn’t fit our décor.) The boy washed it but also threw in a partial load of some of his dirty clothes which included several t-shirts, socks, and 3-4 button down shirts for work. Not long after he did this, I got a call asking how could he remove pink stains? Once I found out what happened, I laughed. And laughed. (I mean that’s one of the absolute rules of doing laundry. He knows better.) Two of the button down shirts are ruined as is one of the t-shirts. I was able to salvage most of the t-shirts, the socks, and surprisingly the khaki shorts, by washing them with bleach several times. Some of the button downs actually look ok with a little bit of a pink undertone. The black items escaped unscathed. So lesson learned for the boy: do not EVER, EVER, wash anything bright red with anything else unless you know it is not going to bleed, and then you really can’t ever be sure.
I’m going to dye the slipcover a darker red, more of a wine color this weekend. The red is a little faded, plus the wine color is more our style. Fabric dye is pretty cheap so I can get some more if needed. It will be a fun experiment to see how it goes.
The “new” couch is pretty comfy too. It’s bigger than our old one and doesn’t feel like it’s breaking every time we sit down. It’s nice. The cats love it. We’ve kept the old couch in the living room as well, as we just don’t know where to put it yet, so we have two couches. It works for now.
We also had some fun air-conditioning problems too. We live in Texas. It can hit 90 in April. AC is practically mandatory for comfort. On Friday, before the long weekend and before we were supposed to go out of town, we discovered that the condensation pipe for our AC was overflowing. Fun. I placed a call to our home-warranty company and we turned off the AC. It was supposed to rain most of the weekend so it wasn’t going to be too hot. When we got back, the water level had gone down so we turned the AC back on. The pipe overflowed again. So, for the rest of the week, until the service tech could get to our house on FRIDAY, we could only turn the AC on for about 2 hours at a time. Yeah, that was not fun. The weather was humid and in the high 80s. It was disgusting.
The problem turned out to be a blockage of sorts and was a really easy fix. We now know where the drain for the AC pipe is and how to solve any further blockages. (A bit of bleach and an air compressor.) These things happen and I’m glad it’s not a major problem like the one that one of my co-workers has. (Prev. owners never cleaned out filters and thus all pipes are filled with gunk. It’s bad. And an expensive fix.) Replace those air filters at least every few months if not monthly folks. It’ll save a lot of money in the long run.
On Wednesday I came home to feathers, feathers everywhere, along with little bits of dried corn. There was no bird, just a whole lot of evidence that it had been there. Yes, it was another case of cat catching bird.
Our ever skillful Pumpkin brought in yet another live, squawking bird to play with. That cat is a smart one. She knows that if she tries to completely mess with the bird outside, there’s a very good chance that it will escape and fly away, so she brings it inside. The downfall to this is that if one of us is home, the bird will be captured and let outside, which is no easy task but has to be done. That’s what happened yesterday. (The boy is the only one to have dealt with this twice so far. My bird finds have been dead.)
The boy was home and getting ready for work. Right before he was supposed to leave, Punk brought the bird inside. He heard the squawking and the fun cat noises that our little ones make and went to attempt to capture the bird. Punk had cornered it behind our large freezer and the bird had managed to squeeze itself into the motor area. Thankfully, the boy was able to shoo Punk away long enough with the broom to get the bird out from behind the freezer and out the door. Unfortunately, he was not quick enough in shutting Pumpkin inside and she zoomed out and caught the bird again. This time she didn’t bring it in.
The boy didn’t have time to clean up the mess as he was now late for work. Ever so kindly, he called me to let me know what had happened. And so, I came home to lots of feathers and a very loving Punk. (She’s become quite cuddly lately.)
This was bird number 2 this week. Pumpkin came trotting in Tuesday afternoon with a bird and laid it at my feet, all proud. This bird was barely alive and not really moving. Punk had mutilated one of its wings and it was just not doing well. I quickly wrapped it in a bag and threw it in the outside trash can before the girls could do any more damage to it. I say girls, because Gabby was sniffing around. She’s always following Punk around but just doesn’t have the patience to do anything.
This makes bird #5. Three dead birds inside and two “rescued” birds. (In quotes because Pumpkin is quick to recapture.) I’ve lost count of the lizards. (Only the top half of those too. Never the tail.) They’ve only been out for a few months too. The funny thing is, they really just play with the birds and lizards. Their play is just a little rougher than the animals can handle.
Oh, and to whomever is messing with my trash cans (not animals): PLEASE STOP!I don’t like having to go search for my trash can only to find it across the street in the cul-de-sac. Nor does the boy like coming home and having to move the can from the middle of the driveway so he can park. (I put it out the night before) I also did not appreciate having to move my neighbor’s can and recycling bin back to his driveway and moving my can back to its spot on the curb next to my driveway, not in front of it. I don’t know why it got moved there and it was put out early this morning so please stop it. Thanks assholes..