Sunday, April 26, 2009

Injury to Insult

The middle post with half up round perch, which was a piece of plywood that formerly was part of my cat wheel. I dissassembled the cat wheel last fall. The second perch up, still in the construction process, will connect with a cat run from the pink pole against the green wall. Theoretically. Eventually.
My big toe, injured by a falling jig saw.



Ice pack on my eye. My eye was injured when it collided with a corner of the couch.
Buffy just loves Sam. All the cats like napping together on the table by the window.

Gretal, formerly of the Highway 34 shoulder.

Cattyhop, rescued as a very sick kitten from a yard next to a Slaughterhouse, cuddles with Miss Daisy, formerly a stray tossed from a car on Seven Mile Lane.

Have you ever decided to do a project, after pushing away the misgivings pestering your brain with pesky doubts? Do something you may not have the expertise, physical capacity or tools to do correctly? But you just push forward to do it anyway?

Today was a day I went a project too far.

I wanted a post from floor to ceiling two thirds of the distance from the west living room wall to the east wall. This post would connect, eventually, via near ceiling level cat run, with a post I would attach to the north living room wall and to the end of the hallway wall on the west. Eventually, it would connect, also via skyline cat run, to the east living room wall. Such big plans!

My garage has only a few feet of working space. I didn't even map out my project in a small area of my brain first, let alone on paper. I just plunged in.

I get this way. Sometimes I just don't care if I do a shoddy job or even if I hurt myself. I make movements and work almost as if in a trance. Usually I'm sleep deprived or have troubles on my mind, that keep me unfocused on what I am doing with my hands or to my house.

I slipped, on thrown up hairball, barefoot, carrying a 2x4, inside the house. It was a slo mo slip, in which I clearly saw the end of the 2x4 heading towards the big front window and altered my course on the way down to avoid that expensive messy eventuality. The altered course of my fall prevented the 2x4 from connecting with the window, but did not prevent my right eye from connecting with the end of the couch.

For the next hour, I couldn't bear to open my right eye. It hurt. But I still did not have the sense to stop. I kept working, one eye shut.

Outside, in the garage, I drilled a hole in the middle of a small square of plywood to use as a shelf on the pole. I would slip that plywood over the pole through that hole and secure it halfway down the pole, as a halfway up perch. The halfway perch would also be secured to the base, with a shorter pole, to help stabilize the taller floor to ceiling pole that would support cat runs in all directions. Eventually.

I had the plywood propped on the end of a trap while I drilled a starter hole, then used a jig saw to cut out the large square hole the pole would fit through. I forgot the plywood was barely balanced on the end of the trap, reached up to rub my sore eye, and rested the jig saw on one side of the plywood to do so. The board began to tip. I reached to catch it, and the jig saw fell off and hit my foot squarely on the end of my big toe. AWWWWWH!

I began cursing and hopping around on one foot. A big blue bulb appeared on my toe just below the nail. I went inside and got two ice packs. I applied one to my toe and one to my eye and plopped down onto the couch.

I was up and at it again within ten minutes, determined to finish. But my battery operated screwdriver's batteries don't hold a charge long anymore. Nor much power to effectively drill in a screw longer than an inch and a half. I was trying to ream in 3" screws. I was trying to build a brace for the top of the north wall pole, to attach the cat run to, but the drill screw bit skewed off the cheap drywall screw top and into the base of left thumb. AHHHHHHHHHHHH!

I pulled a third ice pack out of the freezer. Nevertheless, like a zombie, like a war damaged and worn soldier, I methodically pressed onward.

I have pink paint on most toes tonight. And some in my hair in the back. The pole is pink too. I painted it! My thumb is swollen and so is my big toe and my right eye is bloodshot a color close to the color of my floor to ceiling pole!

But it's up. The cats are ignoring it. I think it is a work of art!

I could have done something far more productive today. I could have driven to Corvallis and taken a walk in a park. But my tiny garage space won't hold all this scrap lumber I've accumulated for the creation of the final picture I have somewhere in my brain, all painted and put together, of the interconnecting cat runs that will encircle my space and be magnificent.

That's my excuse for wasting a decent day inside, being repeatedly assaulted by tools.

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