I'll call you "Cat"

I mentioned yesterday that I went on a little shopping trip with my friend, Kathryn. On that trip, I bought the 3rd Stieg Larsson book The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest, a birthday/father's day gift, a cat toy and (drumroll please).....

TA-DA! A vacuum cleaner!

It may not sound that exciting, but I have been trying to get one for a couple of months now. It is a long story involving Target not carrying the one I thought I wanted and me not wanting to have one delivered to my apartment because of address issues and delivery time etc.

I have been living in my apartment for about a year and a half and cleaning the floors consisted of sweeping, dust mopping, then swiffer wet-jetting. This was all well and good for my kitchen, but it left something to be desired for my living room.

It is the place where my cats, Turtle and Owl, and I spend most of our waking time and I have a terrific gold and red shag rug in there. Don't judge.

Needless to say, that rug was in desperate need of a vacuuming. To the left is the result. (In my defense, this is my living room and bedroom and it primarily consists of cat hair which is notoriously difficult to clean up.) You may not be able to clearly see it, but that white line is next to the word MAX. If I'm not mistaken, I think I went over the Max on my first go-round. Gross. Don't judge.

I feel that I have been properly punished. I got the vacuum cleaner (I'm calling it "Cat") at the Best Buy on North Avenue. I had to deal with a crazy anti-sales girl and make the choice between the Dirt Devil and a Eureka. Both were compact, the Eureka was the first one I saw but the anti-sales girl told me that the canister was difficult to remove. I tried it and it worked fine. The Eureka was also purple and sparkly and had a picture of a cat and puppy. In the end, it was $10 more than the Dirt Devil and the only advantage was being 2 lbs lighter. I steeled my heart against the puppy and kitten and chose the Dirt Devil. I then hauled it more than 2 blocks to the Red Line station, down the stairs, onto a train, off the train, down some more stairs, another block to my apartment, up the stairs and into the living room. It was probably a good 3/4 of a mile. My biceps are still aching.