master of the house, keeper of the zoo...

I was utterly sick of anything that might require wielding a brush yesterday, so I dug through my piles and unearthed a few antique light fixtures to figure out which one to restore for our laundry room. We have accumulated an extraordinary number of these gas and early electric fixtures, ranging in price from free to a few dollars. I had planned on soliciting some advice on which one to use, but that might have undermined the dictatorship I have going on around here. As it turns out, the gas fixture I had hoped to use will need to be professionally rewired (the gas valves need to be drilled out), and honestly, with a hundred fixtures in the basement (oh you think I'm joking?) it's not in the budget to deal with it now.

The budget concern is due in large part to our menagerie, which, epileptic dog aside, has been fairly low maintenance. This month we were hit with a newly diabetic cat with an ulcerated eye and ear infection, and a dog with a broken and infected canine. Everyone's been patched back together, but it'll take our bank account a while to recover.

the creatures in question

Grandma was concerned enough that the cat got a get well soon card - addressed to "Master Crom," I guess we know who the favorite grand-animal is . . . Our mail lady must have loved it, if Crom's not there to greet her she asks where he is, and we've caught her sitting on the porch taking pictures of herself with him!

The fixture we put back together required very little work, it had a fair amount of its original polychome paint and decent wiring, so it was cleaned, polished with 0000 steel wool and waxed. Most of the fixtures we have are basketcases, and are completely taken apart, stripped, painted, and rewired from scratch - which is far more fun than it might sound.

The trained monkey may
require a bit more
training in photography