To Good Timing

A couple of days ago, we got the plumber in to fix a hot tap that had recently gotten very stiff. So he pulled it open, fiddled with the spring, and all that which returned it to regular operation and all that, but it's important that it was the hot tap, because it meant that he had a look in the hot water cupboard.

"Did you know your hot water cylinder is leaking? A couple more weeks and it could burst and flood the flat downstairs..."

Meep.

So he had a word with the landlords and was around again today with a brand new water cylinder. Some things I found out:
- we have a neighbour who will take the time to check if she sees something strange like a flood of water coming out of the drain pipe
- my cat was seriously unimpressed by the proceedings (still hiding under the bed when Repton got home)
- the plug that connected our cylinder to the mains electricity was Very Hot. (I think it was maybe replaced in the process, as it feels a good temperature now.)

Double meep.

To good timing! Huzzah!

Super Sparkle Action Writing

I've spent the last two weeks on a major larp writing jag, in conjunction with my Evil Co-writer (TM), Cat. No seriously, on Monday night of Queen's Birthday Weekend she was sending begging emails saying "Please make it stop! I can't sleep becaue it's all going round and round in my head!"

Things have been going pretty well, and fortunately we've worked most of the way through that horrid dry patch where it's no longer easy but it's also not yet done - still a couple of characters who don't have quite the zing I want, but on the other hand six are at proofreading stage, and there are another nine in pretty good shape. Also, we've had some pretty fun moments in there, as well as this wonderful bit where we realised that fixing a problem with one character could at the same time act as the key to making another character really interesting and also make some of the stuff we put into that person pretty much at random look like we'd planned it all along. I love it when that happens. :-)

Should really finish the player pack background stuff and send out the casting emails...

(Tomorrow, my regular group gets together again. We're going to play a horsepunk game.)

I think my cat is pretty smart

So the background is this:

In the middle of the night, Macca can get very enthusiastic and bouncy, like really bouncy, and it's a pain in the neck. As a method of last resort, I can spray her with a water mister, which judging from her appalled body language she hates and despises with every fibre of her being.

The thing is, setting up negative associations with pets doesn't always work the way you expect (a friend told me a story about someone who tried to train his cat not to jump on the bench, but instead trained his cat to jump on the bench and cringe), and she hasn't really made the connection that certain behaviour will get her misted, and that it would be a good idea not to do the behaviour. But she has worked out that if the water mister is pointing at her, it's a good idea to find something else to do, so I've only actually had to spray her a couple of times.

That's not the smart thing. The smart thing is that in every day life she doesn't give a toss about the Water Mister of Doom, and will happily sleep next to it, and happily watch me pick it up and move it around. It's only when she sees me move my hand to the trigger that she feels at risk and hightails it. Pretty neat, huh?

(Yep, I know that talking about cats is horribly cliched and I've reached my quota for the year. As you were, etc.)