The New Throne

Attila is hard at work this evening. He waited until I arrived home from work, then offered me my very last chance to grace the old throne. It has been retired, at last, to be replaced with a very inexpensive, low-flow, dual-flush model.

Mist does not approve.

Mist has a thing about forbidden sources of water. The toilet is her favorite watering hole. She lurks nonchalantly by the door, biding her time, when it is in use; because she hopes we will forget to put the seat down. She is always disappointed in us, we don’t forget. Last year Mist had a bad infection in her face. We didn’t know what caused it and it was frightening; we feared for our Mist. We decided at that point that she should stop drinking out of the toilet bowl, just in case the infection originated there. Luckily her face cleared up nicely on its own, she recovered completely. The seat of the toilet has been diligently closed ever since.

Lately, as I emerge from my shower, Mist has taken to jumping into the tub to lick the water from the wet surfaces. As I was showering this morning I looked down and there was Mist’s nose, poking around the edge of the shower curtain. I gently pushed her head away, but she would have none of that. Determined, she jumped into the shower with me; for a second. Shocked and horrified by the torrent of water coming from above, Mist leapt out of the tub. She was outraged! Attila and I, very unkindly in Mist’s opinion, laughed and guffawed.

Ah yes, back to the issue of the new throne. We did get our bargain, sale-priced toilet after all. When we went to the store they were out of stock. I lamented this to the salesman, who then mentioned that a few had not arrived with the order and that they were selling them pre-paid until they were gone. We were the eighth customer on the list of twelve.

Yesterday Attila called me at lunch time to say the toilet had arrived and could be picked up. I called and arranged to pick it up after work, which is what I did. The young man who assisted me with getting the heavy article into the car did not find my toilet jokes very amusing; no sense of humour. He probably thought I was just another batty old woman. Hmm… perhaps I am! Wonderful!

Tonight Attila is installing the new toilet, one which will please Mist no more than the old. The lid will still be down.

Worldly Distractions

Weather

24 °C
Condition: Light Rain
Pressure: 101.6 kPa
Visibility: 16 km
Temperature: 24.0°C
Dewpoint: 14.8°C
Humidity: 56 %
Wind: S 8 km/h
Humidex: 28

Quote

“There are some things you learn best in calm, and some in storm.”
Willa Cather
1873 – 1947

Note

Willa Cather

“Willa Seibert Cather (December 7, 1873 – April 24, 1947) was an American author who achieved recognition for her novels of frontier life on the Great Plains, in works such as O Pioneers!, My Ántonia, and The Song of the Lark. In 1923 she was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for One of Ours (1922), a novel set during World War I. Cather grew up in Nebraska and graduated from the University of Nebraska; she lived and worked in Pittsburgh for ten years; at age 33 she moved to New York for the rest of her adult life and writing career…

Throughout Cather’s adult life, her most significant friendships were with women. These included her college friend Louise Pound; the Pittsburgh socialite Isabelle McClung, with whom Cather traveled to Europe; opera singer Olive Fremstad; pianist Yaltah Menuhin; and most notably, the editor Edith Lewis, with whom Cather lived the last 39 years of her life…

Beginning in 1922, Cather spent summers on Grand Manan Island, in New Brunswick, Canada. She bought a cottage in Whale Cove, on the Bay of Fundy. It was the only house she ever owned.”
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willa_Cather