An eventful weekend

The colour scheme for our new house is going to be white with black, and highlights of a soft pink. There won't be much pink, just the odd candle or vase here and there, but it will lift it from being purely black and white.

Anyway. My current colour scheme is cream and brown with highlights of green, which is obviously not the same thing. All of my furniture is chocolate brown. So I had two choices. Spend around $20,000 buying new black furniture, or try to repaint all my current stuff, and buy a few pieces I can't repaint (like bookshelves - they're just laminated chipboard and the time and effort required to paint them isn't worth their low value). We're getting a new king size bed, which is going to be white quilted leather, but that's really the only major piece we're getting. The lounges we have now are cream leather, and while they won't match exactly, I don't think they will significantly detract from the overall look. We'll keep them for a couple more years and then upgrade them.

So I decided to go with the repaint option. My parents came and picked up my furniture last weekend, and William and I went out this weekend to do all the sanding and prepping so my father could spray everything.

We decided to take the cats with us, because we were staying overnight and didn't want to leave them alone all weekend. One of the cats (Alex) has been out to my parents' place before, but the little one (Fyodor) hasn't ever been anywhere. My parents have two poodles and my old cat George, who I didn't take with me when I moved out because he's used to roaming around the countryside, and he would have hated the city. George is massive. He is the size of an old computer tower when he sits on his back haunches, and his head is the size of a small plate. Huge cat. Alex and George got along well the last time, but I was worried about Fyo.

I should have been more worried about actually getting Fyo out to my parents' place, and not so worried about what he'd do when he got there. We put him in his cage (with some difficulty - he hates going in the cage. Alex, on the other hand, loves his cage and will sit in there whenever we leave the door open), and I had made the decision that I was going to cradle him on my lap if he got too worried about being in there. Whenever I'm sitting anywhere, he will jump up onto my lap and bury his head in the crook of my elbow (faceplant!), so I thought if I let him sit on my lap in the car, he would be less worried.

We got onto the highway and he was crying and crying and crying. So I took him out and he was sitting more or less happily on my lap. He was a bit worried about all the power poles and buildings zooming past the window, so I took his blanket out of his cage and put it over the top of him and just kept patting him underneath it. He sleeps under the blankets of our bed, so I knew he wouldn't freak out about being covered over.

Well, apparently he liked the idea of not being able to see even less than he liked the idea of being in the car. So he decided to pee. On me. I felt a warmth on my leg and told William to pull over when he could. And he kept peeing. And peeing. And peeing. I swear to fsm he was peeing for a good 2 minutes! There was so much pee! And it was all in my lap and all over the front seat! Of the car I am trying to sell! You can never get cat pee smell out! Argh!

We pulled over and put him back in the cage, and I had to get William to hold a blanket around me while I stripped on the side of the highway. My jeans and underwear were saturated, and I was not happy. The seat was saturated too. I managed to sort of clean myself with bottled water and put new pants on, but I was still extremely worried I was going to get some weird disease from having cat pee on my lady bits. My parents' place was still 40 minutes away.

I put a tarp on the seat so I could sit back down without absorbing more cat pee, and we started off again. Fyo was now howling in his cage because he was stressed, and didn't understand why he was back in there after having been comfortable on my lap. We called my parents and told them what had happened, and asked them to have the washing machine ready and a bucket of hot soapy water for the car. And then Fyo decided it was all too much for him and decided to do a shit in his cage. Which he couldn't bury nor get away from. And it smelled nasty! We had to drive for the next half hour with all the windows down, and the sound of the wind was further freaking Fyo out. He was now definitely not a happy camper. I have never heard a cat howl so much.

All the howling and commotion had now upset Alex too, so he started howling as well. He will usually just get in his cage and go to sleep, but he must have thought something awful was happening if Fyo was so upset, so he was getting upset too.

We got to my parents' place and I jumped in the shower. I then had to bathe Fyo, who by this time was covered in his own shit. Lovely. I put all my clothes in the wash and gave the cage to William to clean out. He also had to take the seat completely out of the car in order to try and clean it. Fun fun.

After I bathed Fyo, we let Alex and him loose in the house. One of the poodles, Amy, loves cats. Fyo has never seen a dog before, and Alex has only had experience with the other poodle, Tiffany, who is less crazy. Amy couldn't understand why the cats didn't want to play with her. They were completely freaked out! Poor tiny Fyo. He was traumatised. A scary car ride, then a scary bath, and then scary dogs. He was not a happy camper. We ended up locking both the cats in the spare room with their beds, a litter tray and some food, so they could de-stress for a bit.

As for the furniture, we got most of it ready for painting. We sanded everything, cleaned it all, and then managed to get through most of the undercoating before we ran out. So we have to go back out next weekend to finish the two pieces which missed out, and to top coat everything. I hope it all works out. The furniture should be a nice glossy black by the end of it.

Lesson learned, however. When we drove back home, we kept Fyo in his cage the whole time and ignored his cries. He eventually went to sleep. I'm never letting a cat inside my car ever again - unless it's inside a cage! Only time will tell if the cat pee smell goes away :(