The plant pimp

It's sort of odd. Even though she's lived there thirteen months, it's not been since this week that Suzanne decided that it's really her house, too, and started acting like it. She's spent the week doing all sorts of things, moving the rabbits from the upstairs to the room off the kitchen (which is linoleum, not wood, floors) and rearranging everything to make more space. A big inspiration for this apparently was the cleaning jihad we went on before the wedding, and she's managed to keep that energy going.

Today's project, for example, is stripping the paint off one of the windowsills in the dining room. She seems disappointed that the citrus-based stripper doesn't take everything off in one coat, though I've told her several times that she's dealing with paint that in some cases dates back to the administration of Millard Fillmore, and the dozen or more coats of paint atop it. It ain't leavin' without a fight. I've been through this, having refinished the windowsills in the bathroom and at the top of the stairs, and starting to strip one of the windowsills in the living room. It takes days, and even when you take all the "modern" oil-based and latex-based paints off, there's old milk paint (casein paint) at the very bottom, and modern chemical strippers basically don't work on that stuff... you have to sand it off, or use ammonia (which can darken the wood) or special milk-paint strippers that tend to be hard to get and rather expensive.

Anyway, the house looks and feels different now. For me, it's a nice feeling to know that if anything happens to me, she'll have the house and the cats and the rabbits will have a home, and we don't have to go through any hoops to make it so.

Speaking of cats, Max is at the specialty vet today having eye surgery. His left eye apparently got clawed or something, and was badly ulcerated. He's not a good candidate for the very-rare corneal transplants and the new plastic corneas aren't yet in use -- in fact, just a short while ago a dog had its eyesight restored with a plastic cornea. In Max's case, they will graft a little skin from above his eye over the bad spot in his cornea, leaving him with only peripheral vision in that eye. He's been getting around just fine with the other eye, though he's really annoyed at us, since we have to put this antibacterial gel ON his eyeball multiple times a day. He tends to run when he sees us with the little tube of stuff now.

The roses are about to bloom, the azalea behind the house is enormously purple, and I should plant my kiwi and blueberry bushes. The kiwis made it through the winter in its pot, so I guess it's hardy enough.

I have no idea if I'll actually get any kiwis... probably not, since both plants are the same gender. I'll have to go looking around this year to find some they can pollinate with.

That's me... plant pimp.