One Step Forward, One Step Back

So I fixed my slipper that Blackjack chewed the laces off of last week. I even caught him in the act of trying it again right in front of me this weekend! (Yes, we've been carefully putting them out of his reach, but I hadn't expected him to grab one and start gnawing on it while I was just putting on my clothes!) We just stopped by a shoe repair place before going to the farmer's market today and they replaced the rawhide tie. $6.00 was maybe a tad steep, but considering he did it on the spot and it was Sunday I'm not complaining.

Then again...

This afternoon I noticed that the bulb in the light fixture over my dining table had gone out. I've never replaced this bulb (or any in several other fixtures in my house), so I had to figure out how to remove the cover of the fixture. Which was hard, because it had a screw which came off but didn't seem to do anything - but then I realized it was attached to its nut with a spring in the middle, so I put it back on and pushed the other side to release its latch using the spring, and...

Well, you see where this is going, right?

The whole thing popped loose and started to fall immediately. I tried and failed to grab it, though I deflected it towards Debbi, who also tried to grab it, but also couldn't manage it, and the glass cover hit the chair and shattered.

Aargh.

The halogen bulb in the fixture also turns out to be a big pain in the ass to replace, too, basically requiring two people to press back the sides which hold the bulb in place.

In any event, I have no idea where the fixture came from, and we couldn't find anything like it after a short, late-afternoon search. The fixture itself doesn't say, either. I dropped e-mail to the previous owner to ask if he knew, but I suspect I'll have to end up buying a new fixture, which means looking around to find one I like, and then installing it - during the daytime, of course, since I need to turn off the circuit to that light - and all the others on the floor - to replace it.

Gah. What a pain in the ass. It's doubtful I'll get this done before Dad arrives, though the naked bulb is not too bad. The light itself is on a dimmer switch, so I can turn it down to a reasonable level, so that's something.

(All this illustrates one of my less-favorite sides of my personality: I know the problem is surmountable, and I can live with working around it for a while, but it bothers me to hell that it was preventable and it still happened. It's the sort of thing that can ruin my whole day, though I try not to let it when it is something relatively small like this.)

In the plus side, I did get all my vacuuming done. Even the stairs!

We had a quiet weekend otherwise, which I needed (falling light fixtures aside) since Thursday and Friday were pretty rough days at work, trying to slam in a bunch of code on deadline. I got it done and think it came out better than I'd expected. Guess I'll find out tomorrow!

Saturday was mostly given over to shopping, followed by a reading evening at Borrone. Deb and I both feel like we're coming down with something, but hopefully it will be a small, short something. Early to be tonight for me!

Got zero work done on my story this weekend. I'd like to finish the first draft before Dad arrives, which I think is entirely achievable. I think I'm within 3,000 words of being done, maybe less.

At this point I'd say the cats and kittens are getting along better than we could have hoped. We get the occasional growl or hiss from the cats - usually at Blackjack because he's harassing them or they think he's going to - but otherwise they sit around together (especially when hoping we'll give them some dinner), follow us around, snooze on our bed with us, and the cats will even get up to follow a kitten to see what it's up to. Newton and Blackjack even had a brief wrestling match on Saturday! No real fights, no injuries or biting, and even some mutual cleaning from time to time.

Couldn't have asked for much better. Considering the problems I've heard people have had with introducing cats to each other, we couldn't have asked for much better.