Saturday morning Sheba and/or Nina picture

I am pleased to report that I have achieved control over the weather. Within 24 hours of my announcement last Wednesday that I would be shunning winter until it stopped being so cold and dry, we had a nice overnight snowfall that left a couple inches of snow on the ground and covered up all that unsightly dead grass. And then it warmed up by like 10-15 degrees (F; this would be 6-8 degrees C) also, so we're now having high temperatures in the 20s (-2 to -7C) instead of single digits (-13 to -18C), which is considerably more comfortable.

Obviously my first project as the controller of the planet's weather will be to fix that whole global warming thing (you're welcome), but Eastern Iowans should be warned that I'm fond of watching tornadoes, and I won't know how good my aim is until I've practiced a bit. Consequently, early in the spring of 2011 might be a really excellent time to get those walls reinforced, fix the weak spots on the roof, and check the fine print of your homeowner's insurance.

Meanwhile.

How does Sheba feel about the snow? It's hard to tell. I know it makes it harder to play fetch-the-tennis-ball. She's not good at finding them when they're under snow, though I think that's partly an issue of not knowing they're there to be looked for unless she actually sees them fall in: I tried rolling one around in her dog food before we went out, to see if the smell would make them easier to find, and although she did eventually find the ball once when it went into a snowdrift, it took her a pretty long time, and was pretty obviously a case of her just plowing through the drift at random until it turned up. Plus she kept stopping and looking back at me, as if to say you really want me to keep looking? Is the ball worth that much to you?

Anyway, it's technically Nina's turn for a photo, but I'm doing a Sheba picture again because I really wanted a good snow/Sheba photo last week but had insufficient snow for what I was imagining. Behold and marvel:


And whatever it looks like, that's not, I repeat not a photo of Sheba getting hit in the face with a miniature soccer ball: it's a toy, and it has a loop of nylon or something that comes out of one side. She's carrying it by the loop.

We were going to enroll her in an after-school soccer program, but we don't have the money to buy a minivan right now, which I understand is required, so we're going to wait and see whether she wants to play, first.

Also, it's time for -- *sigh* -- the weekly update about Nina's new place. It was improving when I soaked the sides in vinegar the first two times, but I did it a third time -- for something like three hours, on the theory that if a little vinegar is good, then a lot must be awesome -- and I swear, if anything, it came out of that round looking worse.

There are two main kinds of crud present here, and because it's very hard to photograph something transparent with an auto-focusing camera, the pictures are not going to be great at revealing what's going on. But this is the best I could do after taking many photos.

First there's the fine-grained, cloudy stuff that looks like hard-water stains but doesn't come off with CLR, razor blades, vinegar, or anything else I've tried. It's most visible as a diagonal line in the lower right-hand corner of this picture:


And then there's the stuff that looks like it used to be some sort of horrible mucusy slime. It's coarser and clearer, and feels rough to the touch, but again, CLR, razor blades, etc., don't touch it.


The husband was supposed to pick up a Mr. Clean Magic Eraser last time he was in town, but he forgot (which is fine), so I'm still going to try that eventually (honestly, it was kind of nice to have a week wherein I didn't have to think about the stupid aquarium so much), but otherwise I'm out of ideas. I haven't tried muriatic (= hydrochloric) acid, per reader recommendation, because we don't already have any and I'm a little skeptical about it. (If vinegar, a mild acid, makes the situation worse, then what's a strong acid going to do? Also: would toilet bowl cleaner be essentially the same thing? 'Cause I'm pretty sure we have that already.) But I'm filing it away for consideration if the Magic Eraser thing doesn't work out.

I am quickly losing hope, though. The aquarium might still be a good thing to have around -- even if I can't use it for Nina, I could move the fish, or use it as a high-humidity plant hospital, or something like that -- but honestly, I fell into despair about moving Nina into it when the acetone failed. Granted, I fall into (and out of) despair pretty easily. But still. I didn't think there was anything acetone couldn't dissolve, or at least loosen. Seeing it fail was like finding out Snuffleupagus isn't real.