Heavy Doors and Rosie

Saturday lunchtime I met up with Huggy and we both went down to DC for our first shift at Artomatic as volunteer helpers. We have 3 shifts to complete as part of our contract and today we were seeing the building for the first time which would house and display our art work. It used to be a government defense building and is slated for demolition after the show. The following photos are all from my phone and I'm afraid have had no editing because I'm absolutely exhausted, the reason for that shall be revealed a little later.
So our task for Saturday was door duty. Most of the doors had been taken off their frames and were leaning against walls or lying on floors. Our job was to move them all to a central point and then remove the hardware. Not too hard, I thought. Except the doors were heavy duty safety doors and weighed a ton and the the locks on them were mainly security locks, which I have to admit, we did manage to remove a few with the tools we'd brought in and one guy commented that we may be detained for security reasons since we were now technically able to get through locked doors. Hmmm.

 The bare doors are being recycled and used throughout the show. They'll be chopped, modified, stacked, nailed together to form plinths for artwork, bars, stages, partitions, anything that would benefit the show.

We also had to clear out the rooms and found this interesting form which would be completed by telephone operators.

 There was an old poster from the last show in 2009, not really sure why it was there...

Murals of military staff covered the walls by the banks of elevators. I wondered if they'd remain for the show. Hope so. I liked the effect of a neighboring office block through a shattered window.

Huggy with her tools and a stack of doors which we hauled from various corners of the floor. We were pretty tired after our shift and glad to leave but we had met some great people and shared some laughs so although the afternoon had been hard work it had flown by and we'd enjoyed it. Two more shifts to go.
On Sunday Rob and I went out to explore an antique shop at Flint Hill I'd found on line. It was highly recommended and sounded like it had some wonderful stuff. Unfortunately we found it closed for business, the store was no more and the buildings were empty. I was very disappointed but Rob spotted a 'Moving Sale' sign by the side of the road so we went down a country lane to check out that instead. We came across a large wooden house where the owners greeted us warmly and invited inside. They were relocating to San Francisco and were wanting to get rid of as much stuff as possible before the move. They also had a wonderful family of cats and then we were told of a little pussy cat who they thought had been dumped in their garden a few days previously and was now living on the floor over the garage. We went to look at her. She was young and very affectionate, wanting lots of fuss and offering lots of licks in return. Debbie, the wife, said they hadn't found her owner despite putting up notices and the local vet had checked her out. Because they were moving to San Fran though, another cat wasn't an option for them and so she'd have to go to the shelter. We cooed over her then went down to see what furniture was on offer. A little later Debbie  offered smoothies while Rob and her husband Dwayne chatted about New York and boats. While Debbie was preparing the drinks I went back upstairs in the garage to see if the cat would come to me. she did and I thought what a wonderful companion she would be to Kota. I'm out at work all day and often at the weekends and always feel guilty about Kota not having any company.
So now the reason why I'm exhausted, drained and shattered. I took her home on a trial basis and Rob came up with the name Rosie. She was timid in the house and Kota wasn't even slightly impressed but she stood her ground and they both decided the best form of communication was growling.

There hasn't been any fighting and Kota has still been getting his freedom outside as I knew he'd want to get away for a bit each day but Rosie has been kept indoors which hasn't bothered her at all. But she has no concept of night and day and every night I've been awakened 5-7 times with my head being used as a trampoline or a kneading cushion. I've had very little sleep and really wish we could get into some kind of routine.
I have no idea what happens while I'm out but each day I've returned expecting either a totally demolished house or injured cats or both, but nothing like that has happened. I get home and they're in different rooms but content. Yesterday evening they actually both sat in the same room with no growling so maybe things are improving. but we still need to get bed time resolved...