Why renters are happier than home owners

The large black cat who lives in the basement whom I never see, got an injury on his foreleg which turned into an absess. Gary showed it to me when he first got it and I remarked that it wasn't infected. However, it got pretty bad. So he went to the vet on Friday, had icky things done, and now has a bandage which he is not supposed to get wet. Um...yeah. It's winter. This cat has a cat door and hasn't used a litterbox for years. Roland blocked the litter box with his toolbox, but our very large cat (16 pounds of bone and muscle) pushed that thing out of the way. So now there is a board nailed over the window. (The cat door replaced one pane of glass in an old basement window in the laundry room.)

This also means the dog door is shut. Fortunately it came with a cover. Anyway, we now have to remember to let the dogs out regularly. We have had fewer accidents than I would have predicted, given that the Shih Tzu was never trained to ask to go out.

Our washing machine died. We bought it and the accompanying dryer when I was expecting Andrew, so almost 20 years ago. We bought a new one which will be delivered on Friday. It was a Consumer Reports Best Buy. Roland is the laundry guy and says that he can manage with the old dryer even though its capacity is much less than the new washer.

AND we are having eletricity problems. Joy. Two ceiling lights now blow out blubs as soon as you put new ones in and we are getting more sparking at plugs than we once did. We called Roland's dad who is a retired electrical engineer. We asked him if he thought it would be a good idea to have our 80 year-old electrical wiring inspected. He agreed. The thing is, this is an old house -- 80 years to be approximate. The basement has been renovated in a way that cut off access to the crawl space. Totally not code, but there it is. When the bathroom and kitchen were renovated by the previous owner they re-wired those rooms, which involved removing the internal plaster walls to get to the wiring and putting up sheet rock. I'm not prepared financially to have all my walls dismantled and replaced, so that probably means having wiring molding all over the house. We already have it in much of the basement, but it is more appropriate to a basement than a late-1920's living room.

Anyway, I seem to have to choose between dying in an electrical fire, going deeply in debt to rennovate my house, or live with wire molding running around.

We are supposed to be getting an estimate today. I am hoping that the ceiling lamps can be re-wired from the attic crawl space. If they can't then I might just have the charming ceiling fixture in the living room disconnected and light the room with lamps. In the dining room though I think we will have to do it one way or another. We really can't light it with lamps.

Anyway, I'm sighing here.

I keep thinking how pretty my ceiling light and wall sconces are -- and reminding myself that they are not worth dying for.

The electrician is supposed to be calling to make an appointment to give us an estimate.