I’ve always had a healthy interest in using my hands – in MAKING stuff – be it cooking, fixing a fence, growing a garden and other such pursuits. I took shop in high school and occasionally help James in his work as a hardwood installer.

But while I have enthusiasm in spades, I have an appalling lack of experience and know-how. My father is reasonably competent at building/making/fixing stuff but he’s not a good teacher, lacking all patience. My uncle is a cross between MacGyver and an artisan, and can build or make anything, including a full blown house, a sauna, a patio, etc. but alas, most of my life we were on separate continents, and I lacked say, a reitred neighbor with a woodshop next door, or something equally convenient.

So a Lee Valley Woodworking For Women course seemed like the answer to my prayers – the course was taught by an experienced carpenter, was geared towards newbies, and promised to teach many handy skills while accomplishing a fully finished product – in this case a lovely bench.  And my intrepid adventurer of a friend Jean and I, promptly signed up.

The course took two evenings and an entire Saturday, which was not nearly long enough for eight teams of women to accomplish such a lofty goal as a full blown bench, I’m sorry to say. Apparently what takes an experienced carpenter about six hours, takes easily three times as long with inexperienced people tripping all over themselves, asking questions and sharing tools.

The course started out peachy – with lovely intros, a crash course on power tool safely, a handing out of supplies, and a tour to the power shop in the back which contained one of them amazing table saws that stop when they hit flesh, you seen those ads on YouTube? Apparently it’s like magic, and they demo them with hot dogs. Luckily we didn’t have to test that feature of the table saw, although we did learn all about kickbacks the hard way.

The first day we mainly chopped up our pieces of wood into some of the required parts, glued the bench legs together, and went home. The time flew by obscenely fast, and it was lots of fun.

The second day we finished chopping up the pieces (just about), and did something else and the day was over. That quickly. Seriously, they could teach the theory of relativity at that workshop. Poof, and it’s over, what three hours?

The final day promised to be busy from the get go – we were to finish cutting ALL the pieces now, plane some of them, give them a three second sanding, glue the frames together (using biscuit joints), jigsaw some decorative arcs, put everything together, build the cushion, and stain the bench. Sounds like much? It was a marathon mixed with a comedy of errors.

First there was the ridiculous instructions of the bench blueprint that had to be ignored, and new ones written on the board. Then there was the wrong cutting of the holes with the biscuit jointer, resulting in some unnecessary wood removal, then there was the not quite precisely cut pieces that had to be held together with hope, prayer, buckets of glue and an obsene amount of clamps.  The list goes on and on. At first we were all precise and such, and as the day went on we threw perfection in the toilet and had fun just clamping and gluing stuff until it held, racing against the clock the entire time.

One of the major challenges was the lack of adequate supplies for all the students, which made getting everyone through all the steps incredibly frustrating. There were only a couple of sanders, two jigsaws, and NOT ENOUGH CLAMPS! Now I know why all those woodworking forums all say ‘buy lots of clamps heh heh’.  Those supplies would have been barely sufficient if there was a master plan that divided the class into two groups, and applied each half to different parts of the project from the get go, with military precision.  But as self-organized as we tried to be, there are major logistical difficulties in getting everyone through the single miter saw, table saw, planer with any degree of speed. Basically the project chosen by the instructor was a bit ambitious given the size of the group and the equipment, and it could have been done better if there was much more organization and pre-design of a game plan.

Overall Jean and I both enjoyed the course, but certainly more in retrospect than at the time. At the time there was only a frenzy of sanding, gluing, clamping, swearing, staining, and stapling.  There is a certain trade off between building something useful, in the amount of time given, and learning new skills. For those of you who speak woodworking, the bench was held together with bisquit joints, which is great, but I’d rather have learned a mortise tenon or a dovetail joint. It’s unlikely that I’d have a bench, but that’s the trade off, I guess.

But at the end of a really long day, the benches were finally finished.  I am quite sure that mine at least, should not support a full sized person, but the cat sure approves. 

Here’s Jean’s masterpiece – her chosen stain was absolutely stunning, giving the wood a weathered, old finish, reminiscent of an ‘old barn by the sea’. And she chose outdoor fabric so that the bench can be outside.

Happy puppy

Tweaks in particular was chillaxin’ on the chair near the patio door when the puppy unfortunately snuck up on her (with all the stealth of a tank on gravel) and she did one of those cartoon bolts that was impressive in execution. Feet scrambling for all they’re worth she flew down the hall and didn’t stop until the crash landed into the trunk in the foyer. We didn’t see her any more that night.

When I wiped the tears from my eyes from laughing so hard, I took survey of the house and saw the sole brave soldier ready to face any danger – Cheney. His particular mix of dumb and brave must be seen to be believed, but he loves people, dogs, cats, velociraptors and there’s no one better suited for shattering stereotypes about cat behavior.

He followed the poor dog around all night long – squawking at the top of his lungs and he sure had a great deal of things to say.

Where you do, I go

He engaged the dog in a fist fight – he lost.

I'll eat you

And when the dog was totally worn out from this insane cat chasing him all night – he passed out too.  It was more excitement than he gets in a month, after all.

Can I sleep now?

Who sleeps like that?

P.S.  Please forgive the crappy photography, but did you know animals move? Non-stop? And it takes way more skill than I have to snap them good photos. This camera hides a lot of sins, but it can only do so much.

Just like people with children soon discover, the best toys in life are free. Little Betty and Johnny soon lose interest in all the expensive, flashy, shiny toys and happily occupy themselves with the box they came in. The bigger the better. When my friend had her firstborn his favorite toy was a penny in a film canister. (Remember those?) It made an awesome rattle apparently.

My cats are no different. They went through and destroyed many poorly built cat toys – from wands that lose feathers in seconds to plush things on a string that they have no interest in, the best toys have typically been either accidental or free. In the accidental category there was a memorable children’s toy that looked like a ring with flashing lights running around the perimeter. The children it was meant for never got to see it cause the cats went wild trying to chase the flashing lights that ran around and around. Their heads would spin in circles as they pondered the mystery of the lights until crazy with frustration they would pounce on the ring and spin in circles in the middle.

A perennial favorite of Cheney’s is the laser pointer. Since he’s deaf toys that make noises have no appeal to him, but the laser pointer brings out all his super-cat hunting instincts.  I mentioned before that he’s not the most graceful of the felines and he romps around with the finesse of a dumptruck running into furniture and crash landing into walls. But he sure loves it.

Alfie has a totally different MO. She doesn’t understand the appeal of the laser pointer one bit, and looks on the whole endeavor with disdain. Being pretty smart she totally understands who’s holding the toy and glances from my hand to Cheney with a puzzled look, thinking  ‘where’s the fun in that?’   Her playing style is pretty distinctive though. She plays soccer. Alone. Her preferred soccer balls are bottle caps from pop and milk that we’ve learned to throw on the floor for her, but the odd hazelnut will do if no caps are available. Accompanied by very high pitched squeals she bats the cap around chasing it all by herself until the cap finds itself under the couch or somewhere else irretrievable.  Every time we move the furniture we retrieve dozens of caps, nuts and any other small objects that she hoops under every possible surface. When we moved from our last house we found a motherlode of bottle caps, nuts, and small objects that she batted deftly under the door to the furnace room.

Tweaks prefers hiding to play. She can easily be tempted into the odd chase of the pointer, and she’s the most responsive to wands, strings and any other objects she can jump to retrieve. But her absolute favorite thing to do is to find some space to squeeze into, the smaller the better, and hide. She tries this with any receptacle no matter how small and seems to think that as long as her head is hidden, her bum can stick out all it wants. Over the years she’s wedged herself into beer cases, cases of bottled water, baskets, bookshelves and many many bags. Paper bags (with snipped handles), plastic bags (same), fabric bags, she does not discriminate but crawls into them with abandon and sometimes even falls asleep inside.  We try not to step on bags in our house for fears of squishing a lounging cat and sometimes the only clue they leave is a paw or a tail sticking out.

Cheap thrills – can’t beat ‘em.

This is Tweak:

She’s pretty and dainty. By far the best jumper in the house, she’s the aerialist of the cupboards and high places. When she jumps she lands softly and gracefully. She has two different colored eyes as white cats are wont to do, and it’s a very striking effect.

This is Cheney:

We named him that because he’s deaf (as white cats often are), and because he can’t hear himself the noises that come out of his mouth resemble Jon Stewart’s parody of his namesake. Typically though we call him Douche. He’s a very special cat, like missed the bus special, and his personality quirks are plentiful and wide-ranging. He’s Tweaks’ brother, and it’s a small miracle that they did not lose each other in the inner city streets where they were found. He must have been very good at following his sister around and she must have helped him eat and keep away from dangers he can’t hear.

He sleeps face planted into the couch:

Or anywhere for that matter:

His most annoying habit which earned him his new name is his yelling. Every morning around four he gets bored and hungry. To solve this problem he walks into the bedroom and starts braying at the top of his lungs, watching for our reaction the whole time. My significant other is a much heavier sleeper (or pretends to be), so it’s usually up to me to deal with the cat. Over the years we tried a great many things recommended by cat psychologists and our vets.  Squirting water turned into a fun game (he hangs out in the shower sometimes). Locking him out of the bedroom turned into hours of pitiful braying at the door (he doesn’t get bored easily). Ignoring him makes sleeping impossible, plus see above. Feeding him is counterproductive and ineffective. So typically I simply hop out of bed grab the cat, toss him into the office and lock both doors – his and ours. Then if I’m lucky I go back to sleep for the last couple of hours. He never gets tired of this routine, it never varies, and even though he will continue yelling at doors and walls in the office, at least we can’t hear him. I checked the internets, and seems like no one else solved this problem either, but that’s okay because there are many ways to make up for his mental deficiencies by laughing at him. 

No matter how gently you announce your arrival, he will startle if you approach him while he’s sleeping. Usually he gets a very stunned look on his face like ‘where? what the hell is this? I didn’t order any’ before he realizes he’s still on planet earth, on the same couch he sleeps on so much he wrecked the stuffing in the cushion. It’s always comical. His favorite toy is a laser pointer, and every time he sees one he gets so excited that a snarl comes out of his mouth, he crouches wiggling his bum, and his legs start doing this cartoon scramble and he never really goes anywhere ‘cause the hardwood is too slippery. 

 He is regal and dumb.

This is Alfie. We named her after Elphaba in Wicked, as it just suited her. She’s a shy cat, meaning she spent her first three months with us deep in the closet. At some point she bravely ventured out skirting the walls of the house, terrified but curious. She’s come a long long ways in the three years that we’ve had her and is starting to hog the bed in her newfound braveness. Alfie is the hardest to photograph as she’s convinced the camera will eat her. She’s a very muscular cat, with short stocky legs and can’t jump to save her life. I’ll never forget the time she really wanted to explore the kitchen counter. She climbed up onto the dining room table, aimed carefully for about ten minutes, carefully calculating the two foot distance she’d have to be in the air and evaluating the pros and cons of this rash decision. Finally she stepped to the edge, took a big leap… and cased the edge of the counter. I don’t think I’ve laughed so hard for a month.

Luckily all our cats have a very low embarrassment quotient. Some animals do something stupid like walk into a wall, and will immediately look around to see if anyone saw, and as you’re doubled over on the couch, begin to vigorously clean themselves. Not these guys. They will not only give you a weird look as you’re gasping for air, but will often repeat the whatever badly-ended attempt they were doing in the first place.

Life with animals – nothing like it.