Because Home is Where the Heart Is

And today, my heart is with my friends Kira and Travis in Ohio.

Normally, my blog is a place where I share what I find to be the frequently overwhelming and hopefully hilarious stories of finding, buying, rebuilding, and creating something that feels like home. My aim is usually to be entertaining, or at the very least informative, in my posts. After all, why else would you be here?

That's not the case today. Today, all I have to offer is a very sad story told in an attempt to help the aforementioned friends.

Kira and Travis are fantastic, intelligent, compelling people with warm hearts, wonderful senses of humor, and the sort of opinions and ideas that open you up to a whole new world of things you might never have even considered until you discussed it with them. I have many, many happy memories of time spent at their old apartment here in Pennsylvania before they moved out of state for Travis to pursue his graduate degree. Although I haven't had the chance to meet their new dog, many of those happy memories included their two cats, Faustus and Mika, whom they have had since college. In fact, the very first time I went to their house, I ended up sleeping on their couch and waking up bleary-eyed to Mika cuddled up against me on one of the pillows. He has always been a wonderfully loving and patient cat, curious about everything our pack of friends were doing in the livingroom, tolerant of all the times we plopped Kira's handmade jewelry on his head to dress him up as Pharoh cat, and more than a bit of an affectionate, purring mooch whenever one of us had nummy-smelling food.

Sadly, Mika has spent the last several months fighting a very aggressive form of kitty-cancer. Tragically, Mika lost his fight last night. To quote Travis, "He fought for life with a courage and ferocity and grace that will inspire me for the rest of my life. Those we lose will live on in that way, in our choices and actions, the thumbprints made while shaping our character." Travis can be incredibly eloquent like that.

Mika of the Big Eyes

Mika will be sorely missed by many who knew and loved him and, as a long time pet-owner myself, I know all too well the sort of hurt that my friends are experiencing right now. You see, that's the thing about pets - they fill our lives with laughter, and happiness, and comfort, and love. They wiggle their furry way into our hearts. And, eventually, they break them. The fact that, knowing this, we continue to bring them into our lives and forge that amazing bond is a testament to all that they give to us. Often, we do all that we can to return the unconditional love that they show us. Sometimes, it feels like it isn't enough.

In Kira and Travis's case, they tried to return Mika's love by giving him all the time that they could.  While I wish that these sort of things could be fought purely with the love and support of friends and family, the reality of the situation is that they require medicine. And as someone who works for a pharmaceutical supplier, I am keenly aware of the fact that medicine costs money. Heath care costs are not, much to my dismay, something that can be paid with loving messages, or hugs, or tears of sympathy and support. As a result, they have taken on - and I quote - a "staggering" amount of debt to cover the cost of Mika's veterinary bills and are now still left with that even though sweet Mikachu is gone.

And so, when I sat down and thought about what I could possibly do to help them from several hundred miles away, what I came up with was this. It isn't much, but here it is:

In an attempt to offset the debt which they took on in order to care for their cat, Kira began a special line of jewelry dedicated to Mika that she sold through her jewelry business, Anima Metals. She also started a blog about the process, The Mika Project, which can be found on Wordpress. The Mika Project, like all of her jewelry, is lovely. I own two of her necklaces and two pairs of her earrings. One of these sets was given to me as a Christmas gift and, every holiday season, I find myself gravitating to it again and again. I'm pretty sure a fair portion of holiday pictures taken of me by my boyfriend's family are ones in which I'm wearing something that Kira made.

Keeping that thought in mind, I feel compelled to say that not only is her jewelry physically beautiful, but it's been created by a fantastic person in a gesture of love made towards a dear member of her family. I can't think of a better Christmas gift than that.

If, in the course of the coming holiday season, you have a gift to buy for your wife, or girlfriend, or sister, or mother, or aunt, or nana, or good friend, I'd like to ask you to consider buying something from Kira at Anima Metals. I certainly will be. And if the heart-felt emotion behind both her work and this request isn't enough to convince you? All of her items are handmade, sold through a small business operated entirely in the United States. You can find her work  to view at the following sites: 

http://www.etsy.com/shop/AnimaMetals
www.flickr.com/photos/animametals/
www.facebook.com/animametals

Click on them. Give them a look. See if anything shiny catches your fancy. For purchase, please use the Etsy site.

(Note: Kira has kindly informed me that although she does not have many items in her shop right now - due, presumably, to both having to travel for her day job and her need to care for her beloved cat - she intends to spend the next several weeks creating more jewelry dedicated to Mika. If you don't see something that strikes your fancy now, please continue to check back throughout the holiday season.)

In the meantime, rest in peace, Mika. You will be missed.

Kira and Mika in the Jewelry Studio, on a Happier Day

Image Credits: All images are copyrighted to Kira Scott and/or Anima Metals. 

Meet the Baconator

Bill and I went shopping in Delaware for tiles today. On our way home, we stopped at Target to get groceries. I found this:

It's absolutely hideous. It was 99-cents. I couldn't help myself. We decided to adopt this poor, hideous creature and name him Heroin Bob. (If you don't get the reference, you're on the internets. Go look it up.) The downside is that Heroin Bob makes me miss my days of pink spiked hair, studded leather, and purple faux fur coats. The upside is that I now get to refer to saving our change as "feeding a porker's smack habit".

The Thing About Toilets, Part Deux

I swear, I really do post - and think! - about other things. But since toilets apparently seem to be the running theme for my week, that's what you, my dear audience, get to read about.

The toilet in my current apartment is not flushing properly. It isn't clogged. We just live in a building that was built in 1925, one which not only has fabulous architectural details, but which has its original electric and plumbing. The latter two give us frequent trouble, ranging from frying our computers to barfing water all over the contents of the cabinet under the kitchen sink. This weekend, we got air in our pipes. Hence the not flushing. Unfortunately, the old trick of turning on every faucet in the house starting from the top floor down doesn't work. I live in a building with 115 apartments. Even trying to do that would take a very long time and involve annoying a very large number of neighbors.

So, after a long afternoon/early evening of looking at tile and shower curtains and other such things for my bathroom at the new house, I decide to stop at Lowe's. I thought they might have a better selection of vanities and vanity tops than Home Depot and that I could get a plunger while I was there. Efficient shopping that eliminates stops?! AWESOME.

Except somehow, what should've been a half hour excursion into Lowe's at the absolute most turned into me spending an hour and a half in the store. Unlike Home Depot, there was no overly friendly saleswoman to ask me far more questions about FLUSH POWAH than I had ever considered. No, no. There was instead one salesman who was busy placing a special order for another customer. Since I found a vanity cabinet I liked but was hoping I could get it without the hideous sink, and since I also couldn't find the plungers, I decided to sort of meander around the bathroom cabinet area looking at other cabinets while I waited. It turns out that the gentleman placing the special order had a lot of questions, so it was taking a really, really, really long time...

...Aaaaand cue ignorant ass with an iPad! Despite the fact that I was visibly waiting in the help desk area, and had been for some time, this man in his overpriced hipster glasses that were an attempt to make him look younger and with-it-er (yes, that's a word now) than his silver hair would indicate swooped in just as I was opening my mouth to ask for assistance. He shoved his iPad under the salesman's nose and announced indignantly, "My faucet is leaking. It's this one!"

The salesman looked at the picture, then proceeded to give Mr. iPad a blank look. There conversation went something like this:

"Do you know what model it is?"

"No. It's this one." Cue pointing of photo at his home bathroom, like the salesman has an encyclopedic knowledge of every faucet ever made stored in his brain.

"...Okay. Do you know if it's the hot or cold line that's the problem?"

"No."

"...Okay. Do you know what part of it is dripping?"

"What do you mean?"

"Is it dripping from the tip of the faucet or from the handles or from underneath the part attaching it to the sink?"

Insert exagerrated sigh from Mr. iPad. "I don't know! But there's water on my counter." Clearly, this is a travesty of epic proportions and one with which the salesman should be incredibly concerned.

At this point in the conversation, the salesman takes Mr. iPad around the counter and down an aisle, out of both earshot and my line of sight. I don't know what the ultimate resolution of the situation was, but I sincerely hope that it involved the salesman informing Mr. iPad that he's both ignorant and incomptent and should've called a plumber instead of inflicting himself on the general public. Whatever the ultimate result was, though, the salesman never came back. Ohh, I hunted for him. I hunted another Lowe's associate down, seeking help. I was informed that he didn't work in plumbing and would I please go wait by the sales desk while he paged his co-worker? I went back to the sales desk, where I proceeded to stand around becoming increasingly agitated by the fact that I had two simple questions and, at this point, I had been waiting to have them answered for almost forty minutes.

My anger must have been visible on my face, because as a stock boy who must've been working his first after-school job walked by, took one look at me, and stopped dead. I immediately felt somewhat guilty despite being entirely justified in my anger because it wasn't his fault that I'd been waiting for so long and because, well, my facial expression was apparently the sort that inflicts the same sort of sudden shock and fear as, say, walking into your back yard to discover a bear mauling your childhood dog, Mr. Wiggles. He tentatively asked me if I was alright, to which my response was a very blunt no, and then offered to help me with my two, eventually three, ridiculously simple questions. Can I get this vanity without the sink that's being offered in a package deal? No.  Not even as a special order item? No, sorry. Where are the plungers? Three rows down, in Aisle 20. There. That wasn't so hard! I thanked him and was on my way.

Admittedly, I probably could've found the plungers on my own, eventually. But then I still wouldn't have an answer about the vanity.

Over in Aisle 20 was a selection of plungers, including one that comes with a white caddy so you don't have an ugly plunger laying around plainly visible in your bathroom. Win! I decided to get that one. Except on my way to cash register, walking through the plumbing fixtures aisle, the handle popped off, right there in my hand. At this point, my patience was thin. Despite reading a lot of Raymond Chandler lately and wanting to be more ladylike and stop my born-in-New-Jersey-where-fuck-is-a-comma swearing, I let a few words out. And who else should be standing there to see my sudden rush of irritation? Mr. iPad, looking as snarky and condescending as ever. I really need to work on my psychic powers because not only did my laser-beam-death-glare fail to melt his face off, he didn't even look vaguely uncomfortable. So much for consolation prizes.

Sigh.

So, back to Aisle 20 I went to trade my plunger for a different one. That one made it all the way to cash register, where a bright eyed young man asked me how I was doing that evening. In an attempt to avoid a repeat of terrifying the stock boy into paralysis, I gave him a bright-eyed, bushy-tailed smile and, as I was halfway through a Venti Chai from Starbucks, answered in a chipper voice, "Frankly, I am pissed off." This must not have been the answer he was expecting, as I once again paralyzed a Lowe's employee - this time with laughter. He blinked twice, cracked up to the point that he had to catch his breath and wiped tears from his eyes, and then thanked me for making his night. Well, at least that's one of us in a good mood, I told him!

I eventually made it home across the Delaware/Pennsylvania state line with my tile samples, my design books, and my toilet plunger. Of course, at this point I had made it the rest of the way through my enormous chai and was on the verge of doing the kindergartner potty dance. But my toilet still wasn't flushing, so to work I had to go with the plunger.

I spent about twenty minutes in the bathroom, working the plunger while muttering to myself about how, as a renter, this is one of the things I shouldn't have to be doing until I move into my new house. No, that's what maintenance is for, except calling maintenance in my building might result in my landlord calling me back on Wednesday and sending a plumber next week. And in the meantime, would I mind using the bathroom in the empty apartment down the hall? (Yes, that was seriously their solution the last time my plumbing broke, which was the time I couldn't wash dishes in my sink without water flooding the kitchen cabinet and leaking into the apartment below.)

Now, having to spend that much time staring into the depths of my toilet while pumping away at the plunger would've been bad enough - ohh, hey, I never noticed that slight stain near the rim! - except that I forgot to close the door. And my boyfriend and I have three very curious, very friendly, very affectionate, very clingy cats. Clingy to the point that two out of the three of them will follow me into the bathroom every single time, like a pair of miniature perverts in fur coats. One of them has even been known to stare curiously then decide to use his own litterbox while you're in there, regardless of what you're doing. Showering. Blow-drying your hair. Performing the second half of Mozart's "Don Giovanni". It doesn't matter what you're doing - to him, it's like it's some sort of communal bathroom activity. I don't know what's wrong with him. We suspect he's seriously brain damaged. And he was once spayed. Yes, spayed - but that's a story for another day.

So, I'm standing there plunging away at the toilet when the smallest and clingiest of the three decides he wants my attention. This is relatively normal. He likes to interrupt a lot of daily activities by literally launching himself at my boyfriend or me and then digging his claws in, waiting for us to catch him and cuddle him like a baby. Except I was bent over, so he landed on my back. To give you a mental picture of what this looked like, imagine this 5'3" girl with a bright red pixie cut in a black sweater and jeans flailing around her bathroom and shrieking yet more New Jersey swear words, swinging one arm violently behind her in a futile attempt to get the cat off, and trying to keep the plunger steady in the other hand so it doesn't drip clogged-toilet-water on her bare foot. All the while the other cat - the one that thinks bathroom time is communal - was staring up at me in confusion, trying to determine what the appropriate response to this shrieking and flailing should be. Ultimately, he made a decision. Which was, naturally, climbing into his litterbox and proving to me how much less complicated his toilet is than mine.

The Thing About Toilets Is...

...There's apparently a lot more going on there than I ever really thought. I think that's pretty scary. After all, I'm not the stereotypical helpless girl that sees a jiggly handle and shrieks, "There is no God!". I've done some minor plumbing fixes myself - replaced a cracked seat, reattached the chain in the tank, replaced the chain in the tank when it rusted through, tightened a jiggly handle. But despite my amazing Fem-Power muscles and Ms. Fixed-It-Herself title... well, there's a lot more going on there than I ever really thought.

I had my meeting with my contractor and my consultant yesterday, to review the renovation work to be done on the house. We went over the time-line and the budget. I signed yet more papers. Included among them was an allowance sheet and an unnaturally large number of house-minutiae that I have to pick. My contractor's list of things to choose included a number of items which I, as an apartment renter, really never gave much consideration to. "Hey! It's a faucet! Water comes out of it. Call the landlord if it begins vomiting water all over the floor!". Honestly, it's a bit overwhelming. But armed with Tony's handy-dandy list, off to Home Depot I went. I figured I'd start with the bathroom. It's the smallest room in the house, so it couldn't possibly be that bad, right?

The lovely lady who was taking inventory in the store last night proved me entirely wrong. Even what I thought would be the simplest decision turned out to have far, far more components than I anticipated. I think our conversation went something like this:

"So, what sort of toilet are you looking for?"

"A white one."

"That's it?"

"Well, a white one, yeah. Maybe one of those new low-flow ones that doesn't use so much water it sounds like an airplane is landing in your bathroom might be nice. Are those expensive?" (I am, after all, on a government-reviewed budget. When the money runs out, they don't magically give me more. I'm not a too-big-to-fail bank.)

"Well, do you want luxury height or standard height? Do you want a round or elongated bowl? What sort of tank style do you want? Have you considered FLUSH POWAH?!?!?" (Which she didn't really say that way, but that's how it came out in my head.)

At that point, I realized that I had absolutely no idea what I was doing. At all. Nor was I especially concerned about any of these things. As I said, I wanted a white, relatively water-efficient toilet that wasn't particularly expensive. As long as it performs its essential function, the rest is bells and whistles I'm not especially concerned about. So I gave her this sort of confused look and then proceeded to explain to her that given the price range of toilets and the allowance permitted by my contractor, I would like a "nice" one. This narrowed it down to four as opposed to well over a dozen, although there were apparently still decisions regarding bowl shape and seat height to be made. Please excuse me while I ask, "Who the eff cares?"

Cue helpful boyfriend, who spends entirely too much time on the internet reading Cracked.com articles, informing me that although the "luxury height" one - which, by the way, apparently means it's the height of a regular chair as opposed to lower down - had a fancy looking tank, the standard height ones that are closer to the ground are "healthier" for the user. Why he knows this? Aside from the generic "INTERNETS!!!" excuse that also explains why I know a lot of things I really shouldn't know and would probably rather not consider? I can't really say. Either way, I'll spare you the gross details that Cracked.com included, which it seems he felt the need to share with me. Let's just say it involved the words "muscles" and leave it at that.

The ultimate result of this is that somehow, my complete and utter lack of any sort of real knowledge regarding plumbing combined with my apparent lack of enthusiasm for toilet aesthetics turned me into a raccoon in headlights, entirely too paralyzed to make any sort of rational decision. After all, what if I pick the wrong one?!? This really shouldn't be bothering me all that much. As I said to my friend Marian last night, "....It's a toilet. It's sole purpose is to make poop and other yucky things not be in my bathroom. Does this toilet do that? Will it continue to do that without having some catastrophic failure some time down the line? THEN IT'S FINE."

My sole consolation in all of this is that although I appear to be lacking some sort of fundamental girl nesting gene, I'm not the only one. Thank you, Marian, for reassuring me that you don't care what your toilet looks like, either.