Saturday, November 15, 2008

Days Without A Jail Break: 1

Hammy is still in his cage. I had to jostle his cocohut to make him poke his head out so I knew he was in there.
Have I mentioned the cocohut?
95cents at the thrift store and he seems to love it. it's a coconut with the bottom cut off, a door hole, and a fake thatch roof. This apparently rocks the hamster world. You can stuff all of your bedding in it. Stuff it so tight it makes a floor that stays with the cocohut when lifted. you can climb on the roof, chew the thatch...roll it around the cage. Endless fun.

Anyway, he's home and safe and will not be sitting on my nose in the morning.

Now for the REAL excitement of the day.
El Kid had a debate tournament. He had to be there at some ungodly hour so I said I'd drop him on my way to Plummer to winterize the trailer.

I'm headed down the highway thinking "I wish someone would leave styrofoam panels lying around so I could insulate the back door with something other than that stinky old camp sleeping pad that I stole from Fred and Sher years ago and is still impregnated with Nigel-hair."

About 10 minutes later I see that someone HAS left styrofoam panels lying along the road! Sweet.
I go back and check them out. They are dry, clean, and non-stinky. There is adjacent cardboard indicating that these were furniture packaging. Must have fallen off the truck on the way to the dump. Cool. I load the ones in good shape into the subaru and head out.
The back door of the trailer is metal and poorly sealed. it is a serious heatsink. Now it is not. I not only covered it with 2" thick styrofoam, I put shrink film over the whole unit.

Of course, I forgot that I had both vacuums (shop vac and regular vac) up in Spokane to clean up after the fix-it guy who is accessing the attic through my closet. I forgot this until AFTER I had started cutting styrofoam and spread toxic beads all over the trailer, myself, and everywhere else. Fortunately my friend Wanda had a vacuum available for borrowing.

Now I have to decide what to do with the rest of the styrofoam. I would LIKE to bring it up here and insulate the wall between the unheated stairwell and the heated portion of the house. It's just a storage area so I don't care what it looks like. Well, it's also the main entry way but I still pretty much don't care what it looks like.

I would also like to stick some styrofoam to the inside of the front door of the trailer. I know it's tacky, but that door is SO COLD. I don't think double stick tape will do the job since the door is cold and shiny. Also, if the tape sticks, it will take off more paint than is already gouged and peeled off. I'm not sure the landlords would care, but still, one wants to be polite.

Anyway, first I will shrink film some windows up in the Spokane apartment while I decide what else to do with my styrofoam...I could turn ordinary cardboard boxes into coolers...then if I decopaged them with pictures cut from magazines while I wait at the doctor's office....I could give them away for christmas...or not.

If anyone has brilliant ways to recycle styrofoam, let me know. That crap never goes away and is turning up in the guts of many seabirds.

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