Wildlife and bed update

Living within a kilometer or so from the river it isn't so unlikely that we'd have some wildlife in our neighbourhood. We have lots of birds, of course, including the wild turkeys, as well as skunks, raccoons, black/grey squirrels, little red squirrels, and chipmunks. Oh, and bunnies. Lots and lots of bunnies. Apparently they're very fond of the raspberry canes in the winter; they chewed ours down and left bunny poo through the entire raspberry bush area. There's so much there that Gozer doesn't even try to eat it.

We've also got coyotes. There was an article in the paper recently about a woman in our area whose dog was taken and killed by coyotes. It turns out that the dog in a house behind us and over three houses was also taken (and later released, mostly unharmed) by a coyote.

Our neighbour saw the coyote walking along the fence and the dog owner heard her dog squealing. Gozer isn't really small enough to be thought of as prey but I wouldn't want to see her get into a fight with a coyote. We always take her out on a leash in the dark (the paper said that coyotes won't attack dogs near humans) but she sometimes goes out in the daytime on her own.

Our neighbour also told me that there had been a deer in our yard about three weeks ago! The other neighbour saw it on our street and then saw it jump our side gate. It's only a chain-link fence and it's 3 or 4 feet high but it never occurred to me that deer could or would jump fences like that. I wish we'd seen it.

Oh, and a bed update: we've had the bed now for a few nights and we like it. It is very tall as the platform gives the same height as a boxspring would. Add to that the giant euro pillow top thing that makes it so soft and it's so tall I can't rest my butt on it while also keeping my feet on the floor.

My lower back and hips are very happy sleeping on the bed although my upper back has been a bit stiff as it gets used to the new bed. That's good, because I'd noticed my shoulders stooping forward a bit and I think it was making me look older than I am. I can feel my shoulders straightening up and I expect the stiffness to go away.

What we really love are the sheets. They're rayon from bamboo in a sateen weave and they're super-soft but also have this weight so that they lay closely on us. They're quite wonderful, and I'm really happy we bought them. The only downside is that they wrinkle like crazy, as rayon (especially woven rayon) tends to do, but if I cared about that I wouldn't let them sit in the dryer. Or I'd iron them.

A new bed

I thought about doing a red carpet post but I've been having trouble with my right wrist; the tendonitis I had in 1999 appears to be flaring up again. Typing isn't the easiest thing in the world, unfortunately. If the dresses were especially interesting I might have made more of an effort ... but in a way, as designers have more control over what award show attendees wear and as people are more afraid of what people on the internet might say about them, what people wear on the red carpet is so much less interesting than it used to be.

Anyways. Today - finally! - we went shopping for a new bed. We bought our last mattress over a decade ago and it's been on an ikea queen-size 3-part metal futon frame that whole time. The mattress has sagged and every time Ian rolls over at night (which is often), the whole bed sways from side to side. It's like being at sea (or what I imagine being at sea is like, since I've never actually been) but much less regular.

We went to Sleep Country, where we tried different softnesses. We (meaning I) strongly preferred the softest bed, and we both had a slight preference for pocket coils over memory foam. We also discovered that we wanted the mattress on a platform instead of a boxspring because the platform causes the bed to move so, so, so much less when either person moves around. Oh, and we decided on a king size bed, and it'll be delivered on Wednesday.

Of course size we changed mattress sizes, we needed all new sheets and a new duvet. We ended up buying them there because there won't be time to go and buy all of it at a cheaper price somewhere else before the mattress is delivered. All of that - including pillows and mattress and pillow covers - ended up costing about 40% of the total price. We think they may make a lot of money on all of that.

Above I said we'd finally gone shopping for a bed because we've needed one for a very long time. My back and hips are bad and our bed makes it worse. Add to that the aforementioned swaying and I haven't slept well in our bed in ages. I'm very much looking forward to the new bed, even though there's so much work to do to prepare.