Well, Happy April Fool’s Day (or what’s left of it, anyway!) Did any of you get caught out in a “Fool” today? Himself managed to catch me out, just after midnight this morning – I said it was already April 1st, and he said no it wasn’t. So what did I do? I looked at the clock, and became probably the very first April Fool of the day! 
So there you go – even the Great Madam Winter, who Sees all, Knows all, can get caught out by her cruel and mean husband 😉 I know I said I wanted to get out of the house today, but he talked me out of it – said it was going to be hot today, and that it would be better to go out tomorrow, instead (I think he was more worried about the bank balance than he was about the heat, and my comfort! 😉 ) However, I will be going out tomorrow – and I have a specific place in mind that I want to go to (two places, actually!) I positively must go to Office Works – there are a couple of things I want to look for there (one being a clipboard that will stand up by itself, like a photo frame) and I’d like to go back and visit one of my old haunts… Box Hill Central. I haven’t been there in years, and yet when we lived just off Station Street in Burwood, I used to be up there so often that the thought occurred to me that I should really just pitch a tent in the car park… But our cleaning lady raves on about how wonderful it is, and I heard on the grape-vine that there’s a shop upstairs that sells very interesting and unusual “cat caves”. We bought a slightly Swiss Chalet shaped cat cave for Flipper, because she’s old and was feeling the cold, and she absolutely loves it! She was really funny when we first put it on the couch for her! We moved her old basket off and put the new one in its place. She was curled up asleep on a forgotten towel down at the other end of the couch. We stood back to see what would happen…. she hadn’t noticed? All of a sudden, her head popped up, and she stared and stared at the new cat cave. She got up, walked gingerly over and stared at it some more. We made encouraging-type noises. She poked her head, and then her shoulders into the cave, and had a good sniff. Then she turned around and went back to her towel, to think it over… but she kept staring at this new… “thing” that her basket seemed to have turned into. She got up again, marched over, and repeated her earlier performance, then went back to her towel – this obviously needed a lot more thinking about! About twenty minutes or so later, she got up, marched firmly up to the new cat cave, and walked in and curled up in it – I wonder if she thought it was just her old basket that had grown a roof? Anyway, we got her another one today, to put in the Den – she’s so happy in her new cat cave that the only time she comes down to the Den now is when she wants a snack from her bowl of pussy biscuits (kibble!) that we keep down here. She used to spend at least half her time down here (the computers and screens keep the room fairly warm) and she used to sleep in here most nights – but she seems to have totally abandoned the Den for the warm and cosy comfort of her cat cave in the lounge room (and strangely enough, she doesn’t seem to have even noticed the new sofa bed in the spare room. Cats can be very strange – especially very elderly ones!) We haven’t put the new cat cave in here yet – we don’t know where to put it! If we put it on the chair where her old basket is, she won’t be able to get into it properly. The one in the lounge room is sitting on the couch, with the opening facing towards the middle of the couch – making it easy for her to jump onto the couch first, and walk into the cat cave. If we put the new cat cave on the chair in here, she’d have to jump directly into the entrance to the cat cave. With a younger and less arthritic cat, this wouldn’t pose a problem – but she’s 20 years old and very stiff in her joints. She occasionally goes to jump somewhere and falls, because she can’t quite make the distance any more, and we’re always on the look out in case she injures herself. So, not only would she have to jump straight into the entrance to the cat cave, the chair, being an ex-computer chair, swivels. She could hurt herself badly if she jumped, missed the opening, and the chair swiveled – so we’re not sure where to put the new cave. It can’t go directly on the floor (too draughty), so we need something to raise it up a bit – and I’ve just thought of the perfect thing to get! One of those smaller dog beds that looks like a miniature trampoline (it’s not a trampoline, it just looks like one! She wouldn’t bounce off it if she jumped onto it!) one of those would do the trick! They sit about six or seven inches off the floor, are firm enough to hold a small to medium-sized dog without sagging, so she’d be able to jump up onto that, and then swagger into her cat cave. We must have a look at some tomorrow (as well as the interesting sounding cat caves up at Box Hill Central!) So, lots to do and look at tomorrow – there used to be a very nice rug place up there, too – I wonder if it’s still there?
I did play a bit of Rift today – got Satai up to level 23 and into Stonefield (the next zone on from Freemarch, the starting area) I played until just after lunch, when I went and did some more graphics work. I’ve found a very nice two-fish line drawing that I can “colour in” (so to speak) I’ve done a part of it, but oh boy, is it fiddly! Once upon a time I would have thought nothing of spending hours and hours (quite literally!) zoomed in to the maximum, selecting areas, one pixel at a time, to colour and style. I started on the two fishes this afternoon, and the parts that I’ve done do look really stunning… but it took me two and a half hours to select and process just two fish bodies, and one fish eye. I still have the tails, fins, and another eye to do, before I have to move on to the even more complicated water weeds and water “eddies”! Still, I think I will do it – finish it off – it’s really going to look fantastic when it’s finished! 🙂
Weigh-in this morning. Really pleasing… I don’t for a minute think that I’ll stay at this weight for more than 24 hours – I’m sure to go back up again, especially as I started on those wretched pills this morning… but I was down to 96.9kg. Perhaps I should push myself to that fourth level… though I think I’ll just do the three level Stair Walks for now… until I build up a bit more stamina…
So that was the day that was – call in tomorrow night and find out how our shopping expotition went! Will there be any money left in the bank account? Will Flipper have a new cat cave down here in the Den, and will it be sitting on a doggie bed! Is there a rug shoppe at Box Hill Central, and if so, did we find a suitable rug for the lounge room? What will my weight have done? Will it have gone back up because of those ‘orrible pills, or will it be down? Or the same? At the moment, I don’t know, but I will tomorrow, and I can assure you that all your questions will be answered, this time tomorrow night, in all of my usual meticulous and detailed descriptive fashion (or, why use five words when twenty will do quite nicely! 😉 ) So until then, bee good, don’t eat too much sugar, and above all…. stay safe! 🙂 ciao, all! 🙂
My Word! 