Cat Poo in the Bed

Saturday, July 7, 2012--Denver

I've living in a loft apartment on the edge of downtown that I rented through Airbnb.com.  Apparently the two cats living here do not care for their owner being gone and/or my being here.  It was not a restful night last night.  Sometime in the night, I heard a huge crash.  I went looking to see what the problem was.  I even glanced out the window to make sure that no one had backed into my car in the parking lot.  This morning I discovered that the metal tray that is the top to a coffee table had been knocked off its pedestal and was on the floor.  I also found a blob of regurgitated food on top of a bar counter top where the cat food rests in a bowl.

Worse, however, is the fact that during the night I sensed one of the cats in the bed near me.  It's paws were "kneading" the bed.  I returned to sleep.  A little while later, I turned over, and I could smell shit.  I turned on the light, and there were about 6 small cat turds on top of the comforter beside me.  Fortunately, they were hard and mostly dry.  I got a paper towel and picked them up to drop them in the toilet.  A couple of them had stuck to the comforter leaving tiny bits of residue.  I just flipped the comforter over.  There is a cover sheet, so that part of the comforter is now in a position where I won't touch it.

Fortunately, the apartment owner came to get her cats today to take them on vacation with her.  She also took their litter box which had a horrible smell of ammonia from being used too long.  The apartment is beginning to smell better, and I won't have to deal with the cats again.

Denver is making me appreciate San Antonio more.  The traffic here is horrible on the expressways even in non-rush hours.  Also, routes for access to expressways are not clear.  Driving on regular streets seems to work about as well as going on expressways, but distances can be quite long.  The parks have not been impressive, and essentially the shopping is about the same as available in San Antonio.  And, as I said yesterday, their theaters showing foreign and independent films cannot compare with the Bijou and the Fiesta.

I went to the Denver Museum of Contemporary Art in the afternoon to pass time until the opening concert of the choir convention.  Admission was free for me because of the reciprocal agreement between this museum and one at home.  I'm glad.  Only two small exhibit halls were open.  Over 50% of the museum was closed for a new installation.  I would have been upset if I had paid the $10 admission price and not been able to see more.

That incident got me to the performing arts center early.  But I was lucky.  I arrived just as rain was beginning.  For the second day in a row, there has been rain at 16:30 to ruin the outdoor party that has been planned as a part of the festival.  Today, it was blowing so hard that even much of the covered outdoor area could not be used for shelter.  I sat on steps in the garage with a group from Ottawa and visited with them until it slowed down.  Then I moved to a bench built around a sculpture.

The opening concert was not scheduled until 19:30, so I had a long wait.  Fortunately, I had taken a new book to start reading.  Occasionally I would stop reading to watch people.  I wandered through the store selling t-shirts, CDs, etc.   Eventually, I was in the concert hall for the opening concert by a group of Colorado choruses and performers.

It was a very interesting opening concert.  Here are the highlights:

1.  A spiritual piece entitled I Don' Feel No Ways Tired and performed by Sankofa, The Spirituals Project.
2.  An extemporaneously composed and sung performance by Beth Quist that eventually involved different sections of the choir and the audience as she introduced each to a tune pattern to keep repeating.
3.  Pieces by a women's marimba group from Boulder called The Low Flying Knobs.

Only sprinkles were still falling at 8:30 when the concert ended, so I rushed back to the apartment making it in only 20 minutes!  I heated up some meatloaf and mashed potatoes for dinner and enjoyed climbing into the bed without having to worry about a potential cat problem!

I finally finished reading Freedom: A Novel by Jonathan Franzen today.  I started it on the trip to Ireland.  TIME gave it a great review referring to it as one of the best American novels ever.  I enjoyed it, but I cannot agree with that assessment.  The characters all tended to make me dislike them often.  My thoughts on rating the book kept switching from below average to below average as it got tedious at times and then became quite interesting.  I eventually gave it a rating of 3 out of 4 deciding that it is a good book but not a great one.