Cages and Wages

Good Morning California!!  They say we are going to have an entire THREE days of sunshine.  Woohoo ... maybe I can finally take off two of the three layers of clothes I wear every day!  Unfortunately, the heater for Jonathan will continue to run day and night.  This kid is happiest when he's toasty warm.

I've been feeling bad that he had to spend two months in a tiny travel cage.  If we are going to keep driving around, he needs a better hangout.  After many hours on the internet, I finally found what I thought would be a good fit for him and the RV, keeping in mind it's much easier to heat a small cage than a big airy one.

It came yesterday in a small box, meaning it had 15 pieces to put together.  I'm not so good at that, especially when the instructions give you no help whatsoever.  I don't know why I felt this wasn't going to go so well, so I took a picture of how it was packed.  That way if I have to return it, I could get it back in the box.

After much wrangling, turning stuff around and trying to fit bent pieces into too-small holes, I got it together.  It's the perfect size and will even be easy to clean.  

But wait .... those two black squares on the back side are for the feed cups.  Where do I put the perches?  There needs to be at least two.  One in front of the cups and one crossways.  The only way to put one in front of the cups is to attach it to the door.  Well that won't work.  The cups are far enough apart that you can't use just one perch.  Food and water need to be accessible side by side.  

It took another 30 minutes to get it apart and stuffed back in the box.  This just won't work for Jonathan.  Too bad.  If they had just put the door in the front and not the side.  Stuff ... cram ... I'll return it today -- or at least I thought I would.  Maybe I should rethink this.

I worked on the Elks budget a bit before getting frustrated.  They took the PERFECT accounting spreadsheet we were using, and forced us to switch over to their convoluted massive system where nothing is as it was.  I can't even tell what is in these accounts, let alone figure out exactly how much we spent last year.  I'll bet a dollar to a donut that some accounting firm is making a killing off this.

Mr. Cooper wasn't impressed either.  He slept through most of the melee and my grumblings.

At the appointed hour, I sauntered on down to the Elks Lodge to meet with the man in charge and two more trustees.  After an hour we were done with the Income portion, but had 39 questions about what was actually IN some of the accounts.  That means I have to meet with the bookkeeper ... hopefully today.

The expense portion?  Who in the world can guess what the cost of things will be the way things are going now.

Lucky me, there is yet ANOTHER Elks trustee and board meeting tonight.  If I didn't like these people so much, I think I might resign and just be a plain old volunteer.  You see up until now, I've been smart and stayed out of state this month.  Next year I'll be sure and plan a trip in March!!!

It's 6 AM and I already feel a nap coming on.  I'm sure visions of numbers will be dancing in my head for the next two weeks.  Funny how you usually think of that stuff at about two o'clock in the morning!!!  I hope your day will be as sunny as mine!!