Things are taking shape

So the good news is that we can actually see the floor in the new store now. Not all of it, of course, but more of it than we saw earlier in the week. We've gotten a good deal of merchandise onto shelves or on hanging thingies (technical term), so we can at least see stuff. Not everything is up yet but hey, it's been less than a week since we've been there, so all in all we're doing OK.

Topo Giogio, our store cat, has adapted more quickly than we thought he would. He hid for only about a day and now is roaming the store like crazy, checking out people and visiting pups. He lit up Buddy the poodle on Thursday of this week as she was trying to purchase a new winter coat. What a diplomat that cat.
He has also set off the security system at least six times this week. It's been great getting those 1 AM and 3 AM phone calls...needless to say, we're working on tweeking the motion detectors.

Mary, our dog, is a little out of sorts but seems to be doing well in general. She has a nice big bed in back of the counter and has lots of room to whip around Mr. Monkey, her abused toy friend.

We are definitely OPEN so feel free to come by and bask in the "Building 19 like" atmosphere while it is still around.

This is also a good time for people to come in and talk about things that they'd like us to carry. We'll now be able to expand our offerings a bit and want to carry the things that you kids want and the poochies, kitties, birds, reptiles, and small animals of the area need. We can't promise that we'll get everything, but we'll try to make sure that we have in most things.

So we're off to work now and we'll see you soon.

We've Moved!!!

So thanks to the grand efforts of some of our friends and customers we were able to move today in record time. It certainly wasn't easy (who knew we crammed so much stuff into our other teeny tiny location??) but we did it.

We want to thank Jill, Maura, Fred, Milton, Heidi, Erik, Carl, Joe, Anthony, Maureen, Kristen, Chris, Kathy, Jim, Mary, Trisha, and Susi for all their excellent help and promise we'll make it up to you somehow. You all are so very cool.

Thanks again to everyone who's been helping us and look for us to be open sometime this week.
We're thinking Wednesday, January 254th, we'll be at least partially open. We may not be fully operational, but soon, soon, soon.....

Recommendation of the day

If you can manage it, we would recommend never moving anywhere. Stay where you are. Trust us on this.

And just so you know, the word of the day on dictionary.com is "yeasty". I am not sure why I am telling you this...it just seems to appeal to me right now. Let me know what you do with this knowledge now that you have it.

Things are getting better

Yesterday and today were very good days at the new location. We got a great deal done and it's taking some pressure off our heads. So we've realized that not everything is going to be 100% ready off the bat when we re-open but in time, it'll all come together. That's OK....right?

All you kids just be patient and we'll soon have a spanking new place to do all sorts of fun doggie-kitty-hamster-fish-reptile-birdie things.

We'll see some of you on Sunday for the move.

Weeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

So it goes

Today we got a good deal done at the new location but we did have one set back. As we went to put the tubs into their respective "stalls", they didn't quite fit. Just a touch shy...someone obviously had some measuring problems.
Soooooooo....tomorrow the SawzAll (another tool of champions, much like our beloved hammers) will come out and we will make a little room for the tubs. You know, I do love a SawzAll and usually embrace any opportunity to use one, but this would not be one of my chosen times to whip one out...if I had a choice. But I don't. That's why they make SawzAlls and sledgehammers.

Anyhoo, would you like to see some pictures of some of our progress so far?










Neat and tidy worksite.



Soon to be washroom.










The lonely life of a guard penguin on duty.

Flatlining

Painted the floor yesterday...oil paint in a closed room...opened the doors but it didn't seem to help...more suffering little brain cells lying dead on the floor...had to put them out of their misery. It was the kindest thing to do. Second coat tomorrow. More dead brain cells.

Moving day draws near

Hi kids,

So moving day is drawing close. We are working like maniacs on the new place trying to get it into some sort of reasonable shape to open up. It's exciting and nerve wracking all at the same time. You all know how moving is.

As of today we are planning to move on Sunday, January 21st. That means that we will be closed at our 4278 Washington Street store on Sunday, January 21st, Monday, January 22nd, and Tuesday, January 23rd. Possibly longer, we will let you kids know about that.

Anyway, so here's the thing...a good many of of you, our dear customers, have been offering to help us out with the move. If any of you are still interested and willing to help for a few hours please give us a call at the store (617.323.7387) and let us know. We definitely do not want to take advantage of anyone, so we'd be asking only for a couple-few hours of your time. No need to beat anyone into the ground.

Thanks much for all your offers of help and all of your support. We look forward to having more fun merchandise to show to all of you and we're really excited about sparking up the doggie wash. Woof!

Update of sorts

So we continue to work on our new location like mad. We're building and painting and sweeping and cleaning and even swearing a bit just to make sure that the process continues to move smoothly. (We find, that, like chocolate, this activity helps many things.)

We've introduced a new color into our famously "subtle" color scheme. It's called "Pumpkin Cream". We have kind of a "food based thing" going with our colors...we have "Dill Pickle" and "American Cheese" too. The purple is called "Gentle Violet", I don't know how that one crept in there... because we do like the food theme thing. Wouldn't you love to name colors for a living?

Anyway, the color combo will either horrify you or thrill you depending what you're feeling like that day. I am sure we'll hear plently of comments on our "taste" or lack thereof.

Let's see, what else to tell you kids....we are looking at moving up to the new place, tenatively around the third week of this month. Please realize that these plans are NOT YET FIRM because there is a myriad of things left to do yet.

We will likely be taking you all up on your very kind offers of moving help so we will keep you updated on exact dates as we have them.

Chocolate therapy

We made a discovery this week that has helped us a great deal. We've noticed that if we eat enough chocolate, many other things don't seem to matter as much.

We still know that we are building out a new space, we still know that Bush is president, we still know that we are not skinny trust fund blonds, but none of this seems to matter.

Chocolate calls to us and makes us happy.

Is that so wrong?

Getting there

Well, we are getting there with the new place. The wash room has been framed out, (once again, our friend, the hammer, has been instrumental in this, as have the people wielding them).
The plumbing and electrical are mostly in and we'll be doing some more painting next week as well.
We're shooting for mid January or early February to open up and it looks as though we'll make it.
Famous last words.

Happy Happy Merry Merry to you all.

Last minute madness

To accommodate those last minute pooch and kitty gifts we'll be extending our hours this week.

Our holiday hours schedule will be as follows:

Tuesday 12/19 - 10 am - 7 pm
Wednesday 12/20 - 10 am - 7 pm
Thursday 12/21 - 10 am - 8 pm
Friday 12/22 - 10 am - 8 pm
Saturday 12/23 - 10 am - 7 pm
Sunday 12/24 - 10 am - 4 pm

Monday 12 /25 - Closed
Tuesday 12/26 - 10 am - 2 pm

Wednesday 12/27 - 10 am - 7 pm
Thursday 12/28 - 10 am - 7 pm
Friday 12/29 - 10 am - 7 pm
Saturday 12/30 - 10 am - 6 pm

Sunday 12/31 - Closed
Monday 1/1/07 - Closed

Tuesday 1/02/07 - Closed

We have some wonderful items still available for that special pet (or pet owner) in your life including lovely, quality beds for dogs and cats by Bowsers, holiday stockings and ornaments (at 40% off!), scrumpticious treats from Polka Dog Bakery and Roll Over Red Rover, and as always, plenty of cool toys and chewies to keep your pets busy during the holiday season.

A note of thanks

We wanted to take the time to thank you all for your continued patronage and support. We truly do appreciate it and so enjoy seeing you and your pets. We are grateful that you allow us to help you out when can and we'll continue to search for new ways to help get and keep your pets healthy.

We're excited about having the opportunity to offer you our self-serve dog washing services ("All Washed Up") as well as expanded product offerings at our new location at 4404 Washington Street in Roslindale. We'll also be having photographer, Chris McLay, (who did such a great job at our Howl-O-Ween event!) in regularly, as well as lecturers on various topics. In fact, if you have an interest in a certain topic, feel free to run it by us and maybe we can arrange a seminar on it.

Once again, thanks so much for coming to The Pet Cabaret and thanks so much for being our friends.

Please enjoy our wonderful designer, Bob Quinn's, winter drawing for our store.

All right then, OK...

Hi kids,

Just to catch you up on things. We are making progress on our build out at the new location. It's going more slowly than we'd like, but it's going. The orchestration of projects like this is a bit overwhelming and sometimes we get a little crazy behind stuff or at least mildly confused. OK, so totally confused.

We do have some people looking out for us and helping us out so we are lucky in that regard, but ultimately all the details are our responsibility and we have to make sure that everything is right. It's just kind of crazy trying to keep track of it all.

A holding pattern

Right now it seems that we are flying a bit of a holding pattern on the new space. The landlord of the space is working like crazy to get things built and torn down. He is being very nice and responsible about everything.

We are still in the planning stages of many things, still working on paper and in our heads to try and figure out the best way to do things. Better to make the mistakes on paper right?

It feels a little frustrating at this moment, like nothing's getting done and time is ticking away but I think that all build out projects feel like this at some point.

We should be doing some exterior painting tomorrow if the weather holds...(is global warming our friend?) so maybe that will make us feel as though we have accomplished something.

Hammers are our friends....

So back we went to the new space today to rip up more carpet. I was so sad and feeling sore and not really looking forward to the job at hand. Leslie calls and says she is going to be late. So as not to feel useless I went after the remaining rug on my own. I started on it with the tools that we nicknamed the "Rage Machines" -- basically, big razors on handles. No real progress.

I decide to tilt the odds in my favor tonight by taking out my hammer. I pound on the handle of the Rage Machine with my hammer. I succeed only in busting up Rage Machine's handle. Finally frustrated by the whole process, I take the hammer to the rug itself. Miracle of miracles it pulls it right up. I move on, elated by my progress and new found power. I am a rug removing machine.

Leslie shows up, we find another hammer and become two rug removing machines. Unbelievably, we remove the remaining rug in about an hour and a half. The super nice Joe at Roslindale Hardware allows us some room in his dumpster and the stuff is gone, gone, gone....

This only goes to show us that hammers are one of the world's most perfect tools.

Brain damage

I am beginning to suspect that we have damaged out brains just a little in our zeal to remove the dreaded RUG from our new space. We have employed our pal "Torchy" in a few spots to help melt/loosen/destroy the 75 layers of glue that they applied to the floor to stick the rug down.

Probably not good.

What's a few more lost brain cells?

The work begins

So we have started to do some work on the new space we will be inhabiting early in 2007. Naturally, we thought we'd rip up the carpeting first since a carpet covered store and visiting pups don't mix all that well. We also thought it'd be a "realtively easy" and satisfying job; you know, one of those jobs in which you can actually SEE progress being made. Funny just how wrong we were.

You cannot believe how difficult it has been to rip up this carpet. There is SO much glue down that we are actually ripping the carpet off of its backing. It's truly incredible how hard a job this has been. Our friends Leslie and Erik have been valiantly helping us out but I feel total guilt at subjecting them to such crazy work.

We have been having a good time doing it though, what a great way to release rage.

A Marley Tattoo

Our incredibly talented designer buddy, Bob Quinn, did this wonderful drawing of Marley. I am thinking of having it tatooted on by one of the artists at Fat Ram's Pumpkin Tattoo .

Some news for youse...

So first of all, we do want to tell you all that we will be moving to a new location around the beginning of 2007. It is just up a few blocks from our current location at 4278 Washington Street. We'll be moving up to 4404 Washington Street, formerly Hellas Video.

This new location will afford us a good deal more space and also allow us to offer some services to pet owners. Our first service will be a self-serve dog wash, "All Washed Up". Now you'll be able to bring in your pals into The Pet Cabaret after a tough, dirty day of play and leave with sparkling clean little angels.

Stay tuned for more information and details as we make them up. In the meantime, it's business as usual at our present location so come in and see what's new for the holdiays.

Oh also, you should drop by and say hello to our new pal "Carl" who is currently visiting with us and very possibly may be staying on permanently. Carl has a lot to learn but we have great hopes for him and will be working hard with the little fella to help him out.

A Very Fun Day

So despite the weather yesterday, complete with howling winds and whipping rains, we had a really fun day at our 3rd Annual Howl-O-Ween Bash.
We had planned on doing our doggie photographs outdoors under a canopy, but when the weather made this impossible, we were rescued by our kind landlord, Bob Trethewey, Trethewey Bros Plumbing in Roslindale, MA . Bob allowed us to use some indoor space for our set up and we were able to get some wonderful shots.
Once again, photographer Chris McLay, and her infinitely patient assistant, Jaimie McLay, posed and carjoled pooches into looking their best on camera.

Many, many thanks to all who helped us make the day a success.
Take a look a some of the results.