The Amazing Spike and Some Other Stuff

Look what arrived today! My new kitchen rug!

This is one of the Thimbleberries rugs in the "Summer" colorway and it was my birthday gift to myself. (But then isn't just about everything I buy during the summer months?!) I had ordered my last kitchen rug online and wasn't quite as thrilled with it when it arrived, but it was okay until the binding started separating from the rest of the rug. Last week it was relegated to the garage for use by Hubby, and--on my birthday--I ordered this one online from JC Penney's. I need to get a non-slip pad to go under it though--something that can be trimmed to size, I think. I have a rubber mesh thingy under it now, but it really doesn't work very well. Does anyone have any recommendations?

Hubby's in the habit of calling my office every day at 5 p.m. when he gets home from work, so I can give him a long list of things to do before I get home to let me know he's gotten home safe and sound, and we chat for a minute or two about his day. Today when he called, I was at the front desk, covering the phones--we're all taking turns while the receptionist is on vacation for a few days. He always calls in on the back line directly to my extension, so the call didn't come through me; when I saw my phone extension flash, though, I knew it was Hubby. About five minutes later, I had a chance to call him back. The phone rang a couple times and just as voicemail picked up, I heard a clatter and then silence. Thinking that maybe Hubby had hurried to the phone and slipped on the new rug, I called his name a couple times and listened for any moans and groans. Nothing. Eventually I had to hang up, but I can tell you I was worried until I finally got off the phones, got back to my desk, and called home again. This time Hubby answered and sounded just fine.

I asked him then what had happened when I called earlier. There was a longish pause, and I heard him kind of chuckle. It turned out he had been in the bathroom (yep, another part of his home-from-work routine) and never even heard the phone ring. When he came back out to the kitchen, he found the wall phone off the hook, laying on the floor. Apparently Spike--our younger cat--tried to answer it! She's always been kind of funny about the phone--oftentimes when it rings, she'll run out to the kitchen to see who'll answer it--but she's never tried to answer it herself until now. Crazy, huh?! Now if I can just teach her to clean her own litter box and get dinner started, I'll be one happy camper, I can tell you!

Of course, I went back to work today. Girl boss is in Reno, Nevada, getting ready to take the bar examination that begins tomorrow. Boy boss and his wife are set to have a baby any second now--today was her due date. They went to a doctor's appointment this a.m. and the doctor thought it would come along any time now and definitely by the end of the week. Exciting stuff!

On my way home from work tonight, I stopped at the post office and mailed off the Thimbleberries mini quilt I had been working on for a swap and I also mailed the Hat Trick Schnibbles pattern to Tracey--we had missed connecting up with her address until the other day. While I was at the post office, I picked up a Priority Mail box and came home and stuffed it full of scraps to mail off to Pam, whose name I was given by Nancy for the scrap swap. Yay!

Did you know you have to put those darn Priority Mail boxes together yourself? I mean, yeah, I guess I kind of knew that, but I really didn't think about it until I got home. And I know it probably wouldn't be a huge challenge for most of you. But for me? Well, there are a lot of things I can do and do reasonably well, but managing to apply packing tape to a box is not one of them! At the office, we have Pitney Bowes running our mail room, but when I have something personal to mail, I feel that asking them to do it for me is taking advantage, so I try to do it myself. Still, whenever I'm back in the mail room, the two Pitney Bowes people hover nervously in the background, waiting to rescue me from whatever disaster I manage to get myself into. You know, like accidentally wrapping myself in packing tape, cutting myself with the serrated edge of the tape holder thingy, etc. I'm just a total klutz!

Luckily, I managed to get this box put together without any major incidents or loss of blood, although I did get some of my hair stuck under the tape. Still, I have more where that came from, so I won't miss it much. And I only "lost" the end of the tape three times and had to hunt for it on the roll. I'm kind of thinking, though, that once Spike gets the hang of answering the phone and taking messages, maybe I can get her to work on package taping. Seriously, I'm sure she can't be any worse than I am!