Tag: home

The Door

~ Laura ~ 29 Comments

So this is it, I thought. This is how I’m going to die.

A few years ago, I was working on a project that involved visits to several earthquake engineering labs across the country. Earthquake engineering labs are dangerous places – huge, cavernous rooms with specially-reinforced floors and walls, where tremendously strong, often violent forces are applied to specimens constructed from thousands of pounds of concrete and steel. But I wasn’t facing near-certain death because I was trapped beneath a pile of rubble in an engineering lab; in fact, I wasn’t in a lab at all. I was at home.
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Dear Future Houseguest

~ Laura ~ 30 Comments
Welcome mat courtesy of mcclouds flickr stream

I’m so glad you’re coming to visit. For your convenience, I’ve compiled this list of things you should probably know to make your stay more comfortable:

1. The wiring in the guest room has one tiny quirk: you’ll get an electric shock whenever you touch the light switch. Also, when you turn the lights on, you might notice a faint burnt-toast smell that gets stronger over time. But the lights themselves work just fine.

2. An occasional indoor termite swarm is perfectly natural and not a cause for alarm.

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Twelve Things I Wish I’d Known About Insects

Moebius Strip II by M.C. Escher
~ Laura ~ 26 Comments
Moebius Strip II by M.C. Escher
Moebius Strip II by M.C. Escher
  1. Termites are endemic in California. Houses that are sold here are typically tented for termites during the period after the seller moves out and before the buyer moves in.
  2. Ants are endemic in California.
  3. Termites and ants are natural enemies that fight over territory. Ants living outside a house that has recently been tented for termites will move into the walls and feast on termite corpses, while you, the new homeowner, remain blissfully ignorant because none of the approximately three hundred people involved in the real estate transaction will have bothered to mention this simple fact to you.
  4. The gas used to kill termites has no effect on the ants that will later eat them.
  5. Eventually, the ants that move into your walls will either run out of termite meat or grow bored of their all-termite diet. At that point, they will begin to leave the walls to look for food sources inside the house.

    6. Continue reading “Twelve Things I Wish I’d Known About Insects” →

Too Much of a Good Thing

~ Laura ~ 27 Comments
Free to good home.

They say the housefly is nature’s cat toy, and it’s true: an occasional fly can provide a cat with food and entertainment for minutes on end. But a dozen flies inside the house, all at the same time, is just too much of a good thing — I know, because that’s what I woke up to last Sunday morning. It was just like Lord of the Flies, or what Lord of the Flies would have been like if it had been about actual flies instead of schoolboys and had taken place in a house instead of on an island, and if the characters, instead of turning feral, had basically just hung out in windows all day. Or maybe it was more like what Lord of the Rings would have been like if the Hobbits had been flies who, lacking fingers, were unfamiliar with the concept of wearing a ring and had spent the entire time hanging around in the Shire, which is well known in some academic circles to be an allegory for my house.
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Common Misconceptions Regarding My Cat

~ Laura ~ 12 Comments


My cat is not a Twilight vampire.
The fangs are simply his canine teeth,
which, despite the name,
are part of standard feline anatomy.
And any sparkling you may have noticed
is just the sunlight
reflected off his fur
as he occupies the only sunny spot
on the dark wood floor,
with eyes narrowed into slits
like a cat’s eyes
which,
if you think about it,
is perfectly normal for a cat.

My cat is not drunk
or high on catnip
or under the influence
of any controlled substance
or mood-altering drug.
He has not been diagnosed
with any mental illness
or neurological condition.
He’s simply washing his face
and blinking
at the same time.

My cat is not struggling with depression
or with some crisis of conscience
that leaves him half in the dark
and half in the light.
In fact, the darkness is mostly an illusion,
an artifact of the camera –
he’s really half in moderate light,
half in very bright light.
And the hunched-over posture
is a reflection, not of his emotional state,
but of the fact that he’s just noticed
one of his toy mice
a few feet away on the floor.

My cat is not biting my other cat’s ear off
in a savage act of aggression
reminiscent of an incident
involving Mike Tyson.
It’s actually just a love bite,
which resulted in, at worst,
some momentary annoyance.
No cats were harmed
in the making of this picture.

On a related note, I have a list of overly wordy lolcat captions on McSweeney’s.

Frequently Asked Questions About My Coffee Plant

coffee plant
~ Laura ~ 8 Comments

coffee plant
Q: What kind of plant is that?
A: It’s a coffee plant.

Q: Are the leaves supposed to be half-brown like that?
A: I don’t know. I’ve been meaning to look that up.

Q: How often do you water it?
A: Sometimes.

Q: Can you be more specific?
A: Oh, sorry. I thought that was one of those “always / sometimes / never” questions.

Q: Seriously, how many days a week do you water your coffee plant?
A: Stop nagging! I’ll get to it!

Q: Why did you choose to plant it in that particular spot?
A: I took a scientific approach. First, I narrowed it down to an outdoor location based on the fact that I have indoor cats, and coffee plants are toxic to cats. Then I decided to plant it in the ground rather than, say, the roof, because I read somewhere once that plants grow better in dirt.
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I Am So Incredibly Good At This

Graph showing mood and real and perceived competence
~ Laura ~ 11 Comments

One thing (well, really the only thing) I love about being truly incompetent at home repairs is that when I do manage to complete a DIY project, no matter how small, I get a huge feeling of accomplishment completely out of proportion to my actual achievement. I still remember how giddy I was the first time I replaced a washer in a kitchen faucet (with only three trips to Home Depot!) and the heady feeling of euphoria I got when I assembled my Ikea chair.
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Better Living Through Candy: Creative and Practical Uses For Halloween Leftovers

~ Laura ~ 4 Comments

It’s the day after Halloween, and chances are you either have more leftover candy than you know what to do with or know someone who does. Traditionally, people in this position are advised to either eat the candy (but not all at once, and possibly chopped up and baked into another dessert or sprinkled over ice cream) or give it away (to coworkers or to charity). This year, why not try something different?
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Sofa, Cat Toy, or Work of Art? The CatSofa is All Three

~ Laura ~ 12 Comments

Thank you for your interest in CatSofa, the world’s only claw-friendly living room furniture.

How It Works


The CatSofa is an upholstered sofa with a twist — instead of a single layer of upholstery, the CatSofa features twelve layers of fabric in different, coordinating colors. When your cat scratches the sofa, she exposes hidden layers of upholstery, creating a stunning work of art. The more your cat scratches, the more attractive your sofa becomes!
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Vampire Bee Update

~ Laura ~ 2 Comments

This probably won’t make much sense if you haven’t read my earlier post about vampire bees.

A yellow jacketI’ve never understood why, in most vampire fiction, everyone conspires to keep the existence of vampires secret. It makes sense for the vampires to do this, of course, but why would the human vampire hunters go along with it? Wouldn’t it make more sense to educate the public about the existence of vampires and the steps we can take to protect ourselves?
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