Cat Emancipation
Sunday, February 19th, 2023 11:47 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
snoozefestaudioSo, as planned, I was up before 11AM, and got the cat door installed upstairs here, first thing.
It took a while for Snoop to show his face upstairs, so I showed him the door first, and he went out to investigate the roofs for a while.
Prowly showed up next, and I showed him the door too. Then for a while it was the two of them both investigating the roofs.
I thought I'd have at least a day of them just being roof cats before one of them figured out how to jump down but nope! Snoop figured it out only twenty minutes in. He just went to the edge of the back room roof (the lowest roof) and jumped straight to the ground!
Now, my day just got more complicated!
I went outside to keep tabs on Snoop, over in the side yard, while trying to keep tabs on Prowly, still up on the roof and too shy to jump off.
After a few minutes I grabbed Snoop, brought him back upstairs, and sent him back out to the roof... like a reset.
--<>--
I then went outside to monitor the both of them on the roofs, from out in the yard... walking around the house this way and that way as they wandered over to this side of this roof, and that side of that one.
After a while, Snoop jumped down again... but into the fenced in dog yard. And Then Prowly finally mustered up the courage to jump down into the dog yard too!
For the next five minutes, they were both happy to just be exploring the dog yard, but then Prowly figured out how to climb up the fence and jump off onto an outdoor table on the other side.
From there, Prowly was free to roam the three back yards we have here, which have no fences.
I opened the gate of the dog yard to let Snoop out into the greater yards, and then did my best to keep tabs on both of them for another half hour.
They did split up, but they both stayed fairly close to the house... just on opposite sides.
--<>--
I realized that neither one of them was going to figure out how to get back UP to the roof in a single day. They needed a way in, on the main level.
So I left them be, long enough to open the back door (the one that opens to the dog yard) and left it open, as I gathered my second cat door and my tools, to install it there.
It was a warm sunny day at 51F, so... perfect weather for leaving the back door open all day long.
Yvette liked it! She went out into her dog yard and stayed there the entire afternoon until after sunset!
I cut a little hole in the dog yard gate fencing so that the cats could get back into the dog yard, without allowing Yvett to escape. And then I installed the cat door in the back door.
--<>--
Both cats came in the house a few times, thorughout the afternoon, and then went back outside to explore. And whenever I went out to check on them, they were fairly close to the house, and appeared when I called for them.
But things changed after nightfall.
And I'll get to that below.
--<>--
But Tim's been champing at the bit to remove the ancient living room carpeting for weeks, and last night we'd begun putting a few things from the living room out onto the parking for people to take... a couple chairs, a small table, a little radio.
Those things had been taken this morning, and this afternoon, Tim was busy emptying out more shit from the living room, and got me to start cutting up the carpet.
I cut it up and taped the rolls with duct tape. He scraped up the padding and put it into garbage bags. He vacuumed as I pried up the old tacking strips along the edges of the room.
It turned into a huge project that kept us busy for hours.
Tim was expecting to see pristine, hard wood floors hiding under the carpet, but what we got was a kinda mid-grade hard wood floor that had been painted several times over the years... with no single paint job being a complete cover... so it was a multi-colored mess!
I had tried to tamp down his enthusiasm for removing the carpet before he left, by explaining to him that it was gonna look like shit and trigger a ton more work, but he would not hear it!
Now that he saw how shitty the bare floor looked, he wanted to fix it up... maybe by sanding it.
But the paint on it is lead paint! A huge hazzard to sand down!
Then we started talking about repainting it, just to clean it up, but ya know... there was also the huge buckling plaster bulge on the west wall that needed to be dealt with. And now was the time... because the carpet was finally gone!
So I tore down the buckling plaster bulge, which left a three foot gash in the wall that now has to be patched.
And If I'm gonna patch it... we might as well scrape and patch the rest of the problem spots on the walls and ceiling, and repaint them!
And if we're gonna repaint the walls... well, you HAVE to do that BEFORE you do anything with the floor!
So basically... Tim got to see the floor he wanted to expose so badly, and would not be talked out of. But... refreshing the living room can't possibly get done in the week he has left before he goes home.
And that's why I didn't want to bother with it!
------------{=0=}------------
Okay, so Snoop finally did come inside after sundown and went upstairs. Prowly came back in too... for about a minute, but then promptly went back outside.
Snoop's been in the whole night.
Prowly's been OUT the whole night!
I have been going out there to check on Prowly, and for most of the evening he was still around the house, or could be heard caterwauling in the near distance.
I did see him out there consorting with a strange black cat with brown patches... a kind of dark calico cat with long fur. Not sure if that was his new girlfriend, or his new male rival.
Around 10PM, Prowly came inside for about three minutes, and then... went back out again!
And since then... he's been MIA. No sign of him, and no caterwauling.
Now I just have to trust he'll eventually come back!
But that's why I did this on a long weekend.
Prowly's been very desperate to get outside for weeks now, so this had to happen. And it's no surprise he's not coming back in tonight. He is a wild child, and he needs to stalk and prowl in the shadows out there!
------------{=0=}------------
In other news, Discover Card sent me an email saying my new card should arrive in the snail mail soon.
And my bank sent me an email, once again, offering me a personal loan for up to $35K... an offer that's been on the table since last summer.
I plan to take them up on it, but... I want to pay down or pay off the Discover card first, and also be full time with Geostaff.
The former should bump my credit score even higher... and I don't think the actual balance is very much. Proably only a few hundred.
The latter, allows me to show I have more earning potential.
I'm hoping that the two things together will allow me to get the full 35K, at the lowest finance rate.
--<>--
With that money I can pay off the car and go to liability insurance. Pay off my other two cards. Get the tree bullshit taken care of in the back yard. And then have a cushion of around $10K in savings.
The payment on the personal loan should be only half what I'm now paying to the car, full coverage insurance, and the credit cards... meaning I should be able to pay it out of my pocket, and not with the loan money itself!
The loan money itself, that 10K in savings, then becomes the emergency fund to use to make ends meet... instead of the credit cards.
All of this buys me time!.. a couple years, hopefully... to increase my income through pay raises, or graduating into Geostaff's maintenance wing.
With a paid off car, and three paid off credit cards that aren't being used... my credit score goes even higher over that time period... as I get closer to paying off the house!
--<>--
The entire plan is about surviving WITHOUT refinancing the house! The house needs to get paid off, and must never be mortgaged again!
Once it IS paid off, I suddenly have an extra $700.00 per month!
THAT money is how I pay off what's left of the personal loan.
Then I just fucking live the rent free life until I retire, using my disposeable income and maintenance skills to slowly renovate the house!
--<>--
I've talked of this plan before and will do so again.
But I don't think it's a sketchy plan, cooked up out of nowhere.
I'm in the position to do this because of everything I've done over the past ten years. I've worked hard and kept my bills paid... including accidentally paying the minimum on the Discover card for ten years.
But I also took care of Dad for eight years, which was not easy, and wound up inheriting his house.
Was it a weird way to get to an 800 credit score and a house? Yes!
Is it a weird plan to leverage the credit score instead of leveraging the house... well.. it's unusual, but it makes more sense, because the personal loan is unsecured.
And with that, I'm sure I've bored you to death.
Talk to you soon.
°¦}
https://soundcloud.com/snoozefestaudio
It took a while for Snoop to show his face upstairs, so I showed him the door first, and he went out to investigate the roofs for a while.
Prowly showed up next, and I showed him the door too. Then for a while it was the two of them both investigating the roofs.
I thought I'd have at least a day of them just being roof cats before one of them figured out how to jump down but nope! Snoop figured it out only twenty minutes in. He just went to the edge of the back room roof (the lowest roof) and jumped straight to the ground!
Now, my day just got more complicated!
I went outside to keep tabs on Snoop, over in the side yard, while trying to keep tabs on Prowly, still up on the roof and too shy to jump off.
After a few minutes I grabbed Snoop, brought him back upstairs, and sent him back out to the roof... like a reset.
I then went outside to monitor the both of them on the roofs, from out in the yard... walking around the house this way and that way as they wandered over to this side of this roof, and that side of that one.
After a while, Snoop jumped down again... but into the fenced in dog yard. And Then Prowly finally mustered up the courage to jump down into the dog yard too!
For the next five minutes, they were both happy to just be exploring the dog yard, but then Prowly figured out how to climb up the fence and jump off onto an outdoor table on the other side.
From there, Prowly was free to roam the three back yards we have here, which have no fences.
I opened the gate of the dog yard to let Snoop out into the greater yards, and then did my best to keep tabs on both of them for another half hour.
They did split up, but they both stayed fairly close to the house... just on opposite sides.
I realized that neither one of them was going to figure out how to get back UP to the roof in a single day. They needed a way in, on the main level.
So I left them be, long enough to open the back door (the one that opens to the dog yard) and left it open, as I gathered my second cat door and my tools, to install it there.
It was a warm sunny day at 51F, so... perfect weather for leaving the back door open all day long.
Yvette liked it! She went out into her dog yard and stayed there the entire afternoon until after sunset!
I cut a little hole in the dog yard gate fencing so that the cats could get back into the dog yard, without allowing Yvett to escape. And then I installed the cat door in the back door.
Both cats came in the house a few times, thorughout the afternoon, and then went back outside to explore. And whenever I went out to check on them, they were fairly close to the house, and appeared when I called for them.
But things changed after nightfall.
And I'll get to that below.
But Tim's been champing at the bit to remove the ancient living room carpeting for weeks, and last night we'd begun putting a few things from the living room out onto the parking for people to take... a couple chairs, a small table, a little radio.
Those things had been taken this morning, and this afternoon, Tim was busy emptying out more shit from the living room, and got me to start cutting up the carpet.
I cut it up and taped the rolls with duct tape. He scraped up the padding and put it into garbage bags. He vacuumed as I pried up the old tacking strips along the edges of the room.
It turned into a huge project that kept us busy for hours.
Tim was expecting to see pristine, hard wood floors hiding under the carpet, but what we got was a kinda mid-grade hard wood floor that had been painted several times over the years... with no single paint job being a complete cover... so it was a multi-colored mess!
I had tried to tamp down his enthusiasm for removing the carpet before he left, by explaining to him that it was gonna look like shit and trigger a ton more work, but he would not hear it!
Now that he saw how shitty the bare floor looked, he wanted to fix it up... maybe by sanding it.
But the paint on it is lead paint! A huge hazzard to sand down!
Then we started talking about repainting it, just to clean it up, but ya know... there was also the huge buckling plaster bulge on the west wall that needed to be dealt with. And now was the time... because the carpet was finally gone!
So I tore down the buckling plaster bulge, which left a three foot gash in the wall that now has to be patched.
And If I'm gonna patch it... we might as well scrape and patch the rest of the problem spots on the walls and ceiling, and repaint them!
And if we're gonna repaint the walls... well, you HAVE to do that BEFORE you do anything with the floor!
So basically... Tim got to see the floor he wanted to expose so badly, and would not be talked out of. But... refreshing the living room can't possibly get done in the week he has left before he goes home.
And that's why I didn't want to bother with it!
Okay, so Snoop finally did come inside after sundown and went upstairs. Prowly came back in too... for about a minute, but then promptly went back outside.
Snoop's been in the whole night.
Prowly's been OUT the whole night!
I have been going out there to check on Prowly, and for most of the evening he was still around the house, or could be heard caterwauling in the near distance.
I did see him out there consorting with a strange black cat with brown patches... a kind of dark calico cat with long fur. Not sure if that was his new girlfriend, or his new male rival.
Around 10PM, Prowly came inside for about three minutes, and then... went back out again!
And since then... he's been MIA. No sign of him, and no caterwauling.
Now I just have to trust he'll eventually come back!
But that's why I did this on a long weekend.
Prowly's been very desperate to get outside for weeks now, so this had to happen. And it's no surprise he's not coming back in tonight. He is a wild child, and he needs to stalk and prowl in the shadows out there!
In other news, Discover Card sent me an email saying my new card should arrive in the snail mail soon.
And my bank sent me an email, once again, offering me a personal loan for up to $35K... an offer that's been on the table since last summer.
I plan to take them up on it, but... I want to pay down or pay off the Discover card first, and also be full time with Geostaff.
The former should bump my credit score even higher... and I don't think the actual balance is very much. Proably only a few hundred.
The latter, allows me to show I have more earning potential.
I'm hoping that the two things together will allow me to get the full 35K, at the lowest finance rate.
With that money I can pay off the car and go to liability insurance. Pay off my other two cards. Get the tree bullshit taken care of in the back yard. And then have a cushion of around $10K in savings.
The payment on the personal loan should be only half what I'm now paying to the car, full coverage insurance, and the credit cards... meaning I should be able to pay it out of my pocket, and not with the loan money itself!
The loan money itself, that 10K in savings, then becomes the emergency fund to use to make ends meet... instead of the credit cards.
All of this buys me time!.. a couple years, hopefully... to increase my income through pay raises, or graduating into Geostaff's maintenance wing.
With a paid off car, and three paid off credit cards that aren't being used... my credit score goes even higher over that time period... as I get closer to paying off the house!
The entire plan is about surviving WITHOUT refinancing the house! The house needs to get paid off, and must never be mortgaged again!
Once it IS paid off, I suddenly have an extra $700.00 per month!
THAT money is how I pay off what's left of the personal loan.
Then I just fucking live the rent free life until I retire, using my disposeable income and maintenance skills to slowly renovate the house!
I've talked of this plan before and will do so again.
But I don't think it's a sketchy plan, cooked up out of nowhere.
I'm in the position to do this because of everything I've done over the past ten years. I've worked hard and kept my bills paid... including accidentally paying the minimum on the Discover card for ten years.
But I also took care of Dad for eight years, which was not easy, and wound up inheriting his house.
Was it a weird way to get to an 800 credit score and a house? Yes!
Is it a weird plan to leverage the credit score instead of leveraging the house... well.. it's unusual, but it makes more sense, because the personal loan is unsecured.
And with that, I'm sure I've bored you to death.
Talk to you soon.
°¦}
