Wild Kingdom

I am finally between books again, after a final run through the Christmas book, which is now titled “The Mistletoe Wager”. This book will be out in both the UK and the US in December, if anyone is interested.

But I am back to having the strange, unbalanced feeling I get sometimes, when I am just coming out from under a deadline. The feeling that I should be working much harder

on something

but I’m not quite sure what it is.

And I wander around, trying to convince myself that it has nothing to do with housework or minor home repairs. This is difficult, since the bathtub is currently caulked with duct tape. I’d make my husband fix it. But since the duct tape was necessary because of the failure of my last caulking job, I feel, in someway responsible. I am obligated to take another crack at it.

But the closer I look at the bathroom, the more I realize that what I really need to do is gut the entire room, and start from scratch. And perhaps also move the window to the south wall, replumb the toilet, replace the floor, and take care of the leaky pipes which we fixed with plumbers putty a few years ago, and never got back to…

And then, the duct tape doesn’t really look so bad. Pretty sturdy, compared to the rest of the room. And it’s not like I have to see it all the time. We keep the bathroom door shut, even when the room is not in use. This is because Kaiju, the golden retriever who hates baths, likes to lay in the tub and eat rolls of toilet paper.

We could probably get used to the hair in the drain, but you can go through a lot of toilet paper, when the dog is in a mood. So we keep the door shut.

We don’t get that many visitors around here. Usually, just teenagers hanging out with my kids, or working on school projects. And after meeting Kaiju, who is known to hump legs instead of shake hands, pass gas strong enough to peel paint, and steal and swallow anything (food or not) that he can reach, they usually remember to follow any house rules that will keep him away. But sometimes, they forget.

On one visit a very nice girl came out of the bathroom, with a strange look on her face. It seems, after she shut the door and sat down, she heard a funny noise. And then, Kaiju stuck his head out from behind the shower curtain, and watched her pee.

I’m sure he was just as shocked as she was.