Snow is falling...

I can see it falling through the twisted blinds at the window just above my head.

The blinds in this and a few other windows in this place are the victims of my cats. They want to see what is going on outside and nothing will get in their way. They are independent creatures in almost every way.

For them, I am here to put out food and fresh water and clean the litter boxes.

Occasionally one or the other will want to crawl up onto my lap. This is to get a bit of warmth from me, as the heat in this place is iffy at times at best, or to see what I might be doing on this computer. Other times it's an effort to con me out of a treat.

I'm easy about that kind of thing.

One of them is starting to piss me off to a degree though. It has always had this thing about peeing in places where it shouldn't. Some have said that this is because of a possible UTI. Considering the time this has gone on and the fact that it is not constant, that idea was put to rest.

She does have an affinity to peeing on carpets and runners that have a rubber backing. That was obvious last winter when she was constantly peeing on a runner I placed at the back door. A place to stomp the snow off of my boots and them keep them there until the next time I went outside.  The other thing she has taken to is peeing on certain types of paper. In particular those glossy magazines and junk mailers that business send to us all.

Today I heard her scratching on a pile of mail I had forgotten about.

I have been lazy about picking up around here. Sometimes it seems like weeks before some pile of one thing or another is gone through and properly disposed.

Sometimes it's months.

So there is this scratching going on behind me. It seems as though a pile of mail and magazines fell in between a chair and the wall. She was in this little hidey hole, face out and scratching the papers like it was a the clay in a litter box.

Sighs...

My nose is not nearly as good as it once was. I could smell a gas leak hours before anyone was aware of a problem. The smell of weed burning could be detected a block before arriving at the party place.  Someone cooking or smoking crack inside a locked house was picked up way before opening a door. The smell of cooking liver would destroy my appetite for hours.

Perhaps the things I've ingested over the years have destroyed  most of my olfactory senses. Perhaps my room mates have helped to a degree as well,making me immune to their scents.

Today though, after hearing her scratch and pulling her out of that space reawakened my nose.  Pulling the envelopes and bulk mailings of political candidates, grocery and drug store fliers, and past issues of magazines created a stench beyond belief.  Spraying Febreze, some cat odor neutralizer as well burning some Nag Champa has done little to abate the stench.

The snow is still falling though... I can see it through the twisted blinds at the window just above my head.

While this is another chore avoided mightily, I can't think of a better time to go out and shovel the stairs and the walk.