Steamed

I haven't been doing much of anything lately, I'm in a bit of a funk. It doesn't help that Scarlett has started peeing on the furniture. I clean the couch and recliner everyday, it's like Groundhog Day, but with cats and pee and without Bill Murray, so maybe a little bit better than Groundhog Day.

In trying to clean up the pee, I turned to steam. My Shark steamer decided to stop working entirely, so I got  out my My Little Steamer. Steam is steam, right... well, not really, but in this case it would do. I filled it up, added a bit of vinegar to help with the pee smell and my very hard water, and fired it up. Now, I've added vinegar before, it's like cleaning out a coffee maker. I did not expect it to start shooting out boiling water (I would have expected that from a coffee maker, however).  It burned my feet a little, and nearly got Emi, who has a fascination with steam that I really don't understand.

Because I don't learn, I assumed that the issue was vinegar related, and tried it again the next day (maybe not so much better than Groundhog Day) and again burned my toes with the fountain of boiling water that spewed forth from my little yellow steamer. And, again, Emi was nearly caught in the line of fire. I did have enough sense to scoot her out of the way, but not enough to move my feet.

Determined that steam would be my ultimate weapon against pee, I decided I needed a new steamer, though I did contemplate using the steam mop on the couch. My nocturnal nature meant that it was after 9 PM when I made this discovery. I struck out at Wal-Mart, but was able to find a garment steamer at Kohl's, plus I got some Kohl's cash and a cute dress. The steamer is great, but I'm having trouble keeping up with Scarlett.

I've started taking her to the litter-box a few times a day, because I think the issue is that Jasper and Emi like to watch her. I'm hoping it will work, because I'm really sick of cleaning up pee, and I like my furniture and can't afford new. Furniture protection and cat transport has been taking up all of my energy. It's an exciting life.

Dollars and Sense

I knew using a tripod purchased from the Dollar Tree with my DSLR camera seemed vaguely like a bad idea, but could not come up with a good, solid reason. Well, that reason is that the cheap plastic screw that holds the camera to the tripod will break off in the camera, leaving the camera unable to connect to any tripod, even the nice Nikon sitting in the corner.

Yes, the cheap tripod worked better while it lasted, but now it is going to be difficult to take good close-ups. I'm not even going to worry about how much it will cost to get the stupid thing removed because there is no camera store anywhere near me, I am a do-it-yourselfer by nature (hence the massive screw-ups), and I have about $10 and an occasional need to eat. I'm uncharacteristically worried about hurting the camera in an extraction attempt, so I guess it is staying for now.