If I do nothing, I am "lazy." If Murphy does nothing, he is "a good boy."
This morning, Murphy did... nothing. No noise, no scuffling around, no walking on anyone. He just laid their peacefully while Joan and I slept in until just after 7:00. Yes, one in a row! You may remember that we had concerns about his internal clock, as we moved from Eastern to Central Time Zone. But, this morning: peaceful.
A couple thunderstorms rolled through last night... thunderbolts and lightning, but no one was frightened. Murph looked around, with mild interest. I took a moment to see what county we are in (Boone) to determine if we should have more than a mild interest. By 10:30, it had moved through. And then the next one fired up a half hour or so later; wind and thunder, but not as much pounding rain. Again, Murphy laid by our feet, unaffected. I drifted off to sleep with a light pitter-patter on the roof.
When we all got up this morning, the furry boy waited patiently for his breakfast. Dare I say: almost calm. Joan and I both took some Murphy photos. See if you can tell who took which...
The forecast for today (as of yesterday afternoon) was a 63% chance of rain through noon (that's a pretty specific number). The reality: clear blue sky and sunshine. For Murphy, the prediction is: an 85% chance that he will be a sweet boy.
For me, it's about 50%... could go either way. ;-)
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A "spa day" for Murphy...
Murphy got brushed, got his nails clipped, got his teeth brushed, and ate some "tasty" (I haven't tried it, so I can only assume) hairball paste. He tolerates all this better than Izzy or Rufus ever did.
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With today scheduled to be a non-riding day (except for a planned trip to the grocery store and perhaps a late lunch), Joan was busy - she made the sugar-free chocolate muffins that get my day started. We haven't found a source that sells these already made.
Then, she stripped the bed and put on fresh sheets. She does not require my help, but she's OK with Murphy "helping." Now, she is off to the laundromat here at the campground. 3 washers and 2 dryers, and 2 of the 3 washers were occupied, so this is going to take a while. She works hard to keep this rolling household going.
In between putting the first load in and waiting for the other 2 washers to free up, she came back to the motorhome to help me dump our holding tanks. If you saw the really long sewer hose I had to hook up to reach the sewer connection in an earlier post, you might have some idea of what I was up against. To put it delicately: shit does not flow uphill... and the sewer connection sits about 6" up off the ground. That means I have to pull the dump valve while Joan puts a foot on the sewer connection to hold our hose in place (the threads are stripped off the campground's part. All the sewage settles into the low part of the sewer hose, between our coach and the campground's sewer connection. While Joan puts a foot on the part of our hose that fits in the campground's connection, I get to lift the hose in the middle and "try to work" the sewage, hopefully now flowing downhill towards the connection. If we all remember our weight and balance training, water weighs approximately 8 pounds per gallon... I am having to lift approximately 70 gallons of gray and black water in the sewer hose to get it to flow towards the connection. That is about 560 pounds of slithering sewer hose full of our waste that I have to "walk" towards the connection... and when you lift any section of that sewer hose, some of the weight flows towards the sewer connection and some flows back towards the motorhome... which means you get to lift the stuff that flowed back once again to try to get it to flow forward.
Joan thoughtfully pointed out to me that "no one else is having this problem"... which is very helpful. "That's because most of the sites around us are empty and the two that we can see aren't as far away from the sewer connection as we are, and there's no one dumping their tanks at this moment, but us." I could have gone into how gravity works, but I was trying to bite my tongue; it is hot and humid out - I just wanted to get the job done. We managed to knock out this 3 to 5 minute one-person job in only a half hour or so.
2 comments:
Nice portraits. What a fine handsome lad! The RV thing is still pretty new to Murphy. He gets settled for a while, then the whole rig moves to another spot. Then it settles again. It's all challenging for a kitty, as most kitties like routine.
Hope the weather allows for some riding and for Murphy to take you for some walks. I remember growing up in Michigan when summer days meant 96° and 337% RH. We are expected to get near triple digits today after a few days of low 90's. We'll see.
Still mulling over the lawnmower situation. I have a neighbor kid lined up to mow this week and possibly for the rest of the summer. That takes any time pressure off the decision-making.
Murphy says, "Thanks!" We have thrown plenty of new stuff at Murphy during his first 9 months with us; he's a pretty adaptable boy.
Hope the heat and humidity cut you some slack. I thought we knew humid, but this Arkansas "h & h" is on a whole 'nother scale.
Here's hoping that your neighbor kid is reliable.
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