Crazy Day

8:22 a.m. I've just mixed up a batch of grout that is targeted for the shower ceiling tiles. The grout needs to sit in the bucket for about 5 minutes before I use it, giving me some additional time to consider what a mess I'm likely to make.

I remember back to the day we visited the tile store in Phoenix, standing in their demo tiled bathroom, and I told the sales guy that I was considering whether to tile the shower ceiling and he laughed. "If you do," he said, "be sure to wear a raincoat. And goggles."

The five minutes is up. I don't have a raincoat but I am wearing my work glasses and some big rubber gloves...

9:30 a.m. The grouting went pretty well. I just did half the ceiling--good thing, because it was pretty tricky. At one point a chuck of the stuff flew off in a perfect arc so that it went over my glasses and into my left eye, which is something that needed quick attention, otherwise my eye could be stuck forever. I had enough grout left over to do the section of wall under the sink--not bad.

12:36 p.m. After the grout was finished I went outside to mow the yard. About halfway through Cheryl comes screaming over to me. Our Jam got into something strange, something that turned out to be rat poison. He's fine, We got him to throw up and there were only a few tiny pieces of the blue stuff. But we were very upset. I found some additional packets of the stuff near a big plant in the back yard, and I'm guessing that some squirrels carried them here from somewhere else and stowed them away for safe keeping. I can't imagine any of our neighbors would do such a thing on purpose. I went and talked to some of them today, but the person who owns the house behind us wasn't home. More later...