Employment....

So,
it's been a year...almost to the date it's been a year.
I haven't worked.

I haven't been unemployed longer than a week since I was 16.
Do I remember how to work? (lol)

I've been offered a job.
Lower pay than I'd like, and not 100% fulltime yet...but foot in the door and personal schedule management.
Only really lacking medical at this stage...and that will happen.

Have a drug test tomorrow. I know I'll pass that, I'm too paranoid for my own entertainment. (lmao)
Step 1) Pee in a cup
Step 2)...........
Step 3) Profit


Recommended by someone I think is a friend, but definitely strikes me as honorable.
I know part of it is to save his bacon, he's running ragged, but with everyone else out there looking for jobs he didn't have to point at me.

Am I not ambitious enough? I'm taking a fairly basic job, but damnit I like to work. I like being responsible, making money for myself and others, and WORKING.
I don't really care what I'm doing at this stage, but I wonder if I ever really did.
Did it matter before?
Did anything but paying the bills, having my dignity and supporting my family matter?

Am I settling, that I am this happy with just labor?
Or do I simply crave good old fashioned work...

I'm not as excited as I thought I'd be,
but after getting close (seriously close) two other times, I think I'm not going to get all happy until I actually get my first check.
But damn, I'm as close as I've been (but once) in a year.

I want to work,
and it looks like I just might be getting to do so soon!

Now,to make it an even better day,
who wants to take my cat!?

Why women outlast their men....

It's been a while...
I took a break, sue me! ;)

So,
My wife Roxz and I took a drive Friday.
She was in 'contrary mode', so the drive (to get lunch/take pictures of fall leaves at the dam) took 4x as long as it should have...
We passed the dam, twice, from three different directions (don't ask) before settling down to eat...grumpily.
Pizza...after all that running, she wanted pizza.
grrrrrr
We eat, her mood improves....mine just goes from starving to 'not ready to eat your face'.
She decides we still need to go picture taking.

We go to the reserve (damned dam had another dead skunk on the top...you know you can't get that taste out of the back of your throat for at least 5 miles)...
We drive down in, same leaves as last time...same pictures as last time...same flinging of leaves as the last time.
(actually, it's quite lovely this time of year. I wanted to go, but the food pursuits had put me in grumptacular mode...so it took some funsy pictures and giggling to get me outta my 'grrrrr' face).

I cheer up, we drive around a bit more and explore some alternate routes home.
Thank goodness we have a digital camera, we couldn't have carried as much film as she burned! :)

We unload the stuff we picked up at the grocery store (on a Saturday afternoon...the beginning of Mikey 'grumpface' McGee's appearance)...and she swings her purse about bouncing out of my car.

Fast forward 4 hours, darkness has settled.
I go to the Fridge, I want a Coke and Bourbon...I open the door...

I bellow across the house "So, did we forget something at the grocery, Dear?"
"Aw NUTS!" comes the reply from she who must be obeyed...(she thought the empty box in the kitchen wasn't for the recycling, was actually full)

I call my parents, painting a picture of desperate thirst and need...and brave the darkness and cold to walk across the street and claim a few cans of their soda.

I walk out the door, and as I pass my car...in the dark...I see a firefly in my front garden.
In October.
In 30+ degree weather.
A firefly.
It blinks...
I search...
it blinks again,
and I find....a pink Blackberry.

My wife's phone...has been in our wet garden for 4 hours. And she has not noticed it missing once.
In 4 hours. She didn't even notice.

Why was I surprised?
This is the woman who left her purse, with everything important in her life, at a McDonalds in Tallahassee Fla, and didn't notice for over an hour.
This is the woman that has now been told she MUST inform anyone she is with if she is hanging her purse on the back of her chair in a restaurant,
is not allowed possession of the checkbook,
and I SWEAR has managed to misplace her cat.

I, on the other hand, pat my hip to check for my phone...pat my pocket to check for my keys...and pat my butt for my wallet...when I'm leaving my own house, leaving my car or what have you. I have the Checkbook in a hanging bill holder where I can see it every morning and evening.
If I go 30 minutes without checking one (or all) of these things I start to feel lost...as though I have been dropped off in a foreign country and cannot read the road-signs, or am revisiting a bad experiment in high school.

So, I sojourn over to my parents with the phone now safely ensconced in my pocket. I return with beverage and I wait.
An hour passes, dinner is eaten...she doesn't notice her purse is devoid of phone.
Another hour passes, and I wonder at her casual knitting...enjoyment of the TV/cat uninterrupted by the void that would have been clawing at my subconscious after the 1st hour, much less 6.

Another hour, and I casually ask if she got any messages from a friend of ours visiting Disney. She doesn't even look up from her knitting...she just says 'Nope, haven't heard a 'bong' yet tonight!'
and continues to knit.
and knit.

My brain is screaming "all is NOT right with the world woman, your phone is in my pocket...but for all you know it could be in some Columbian drug lord's possession this very moment, found on the trails of the local park and immediately put to use pushing illegal substances...passed up the chain with a speed rivaling new music being violated by Napster...our bill could be 8,000.00 by the end of the month...I may have to start working for these dealers in order to pay the bill, AFTER they use the data to find me and blackmail me so you don't get blamed for the seedy deals they have set in motion. I may have to go out in a blaze of glory, like some moment out of "Matrix"....okay, more like "Pineapple Express", but meh. And you are just sitting there with a grin on your face, Zen-like peace with the click-click of your needles...I could have been headed down a path of DESTRUCTION because of your neglect....grrrrrr"

and all I say is 'Yes dear'.

An hour later, I hand over her phone...with a lecture about cost, about replacement, about other things...
and she smiles up at me,
and says "sorry honey"....
with a smile....
that smile that says 'you worry too much, you're going to have a coronary'...
I smile back and say 'okay'...with a look that says 'I HAVE TO WORRY TOO MUCH, I can't survive being a drug dealer!'

I am,
I'm going to have a coronary...
I just hope I can have a daughter first, so I can do this to some other guy!

Apocalypse Butt...

When they pick the Four Horsemen, my cat will be tapped for Pestilence.
They (it's always the ubiquitous 'THEY', but who really would be hiring?)will be hopeful, thinking this Apocalypse will finally work...the perfect team!

She will decline, citing that the job will not be challenging enough.

I may have hinted before, but I will re-iterate now, the ritual that is my cat's violation of all things natural and good.

Daylight Hours Preamble:
She suddenly gets cute and cuddly. As there are sooo many reasons she may be kissing up (food, fear of retribution, the temperature dropped below 70) we are never prepared for the inevitable attack.
She'll be next to myself or the Wife, on the couch usually, when suddenly her head will pop up like she's heard something. Still, no real warning as this is also normal behavior. It's like she sees a spirit.
(Now I know why Medieval societies thought they could look between the ears of a cat to see the dead walking the earth...well, that and Middle Ages peasants weren't known for their brights.)

Then she's off the couch, with a slight bottle-brush action going on, like something's startled her. Some portent of things to come, though she doesn't quite know it yet. We do now.
We didn't. First couple of times this happened we thought she really was a watch kitty...or retarded. Well, we weren't wrong on one count...but this wasn't the symptom.
She starts to pace, investigating, moving about the living room.

(When we were in Florida, where we finally came to understand the signs of the Apocalypse, it was a small apartment where we could witness this unfold before us in its entirety.)
She then starts to run.
Run likes she's fleeing something...
Run AWAY! (we know now, she was fleeing her butt)

She would get a few laps down around the small living room, thundering back and forth, gaining momentum.
She would go round, up onto the back of the couch, ricochet off the head of the recliner, and barrel under the work table. Lather, Rinse, Repeat...about 4 times.
Then she'd pull a 'Matrix' kitty move, go up a wall, pull a U-Turn in the air, and bolt into the bathroom (wherein was contained the litter box) without touching the ground.

There was fear in her eyes that whole time. Abject terror at first. (After her first six months it became a sense of fearful resignation, of inescapable pain that may, with any one of these 'episodes', end in her demise.)

The first time it happened, we thought it was hilarious...
Then she was gone...
for 5 whole minutes.

I know what the speed of Light means, abstractly and quantitatively.
I know what the speed of Sound means, literally.
I never really grasped what the speed of 'stink' was until I saw it first hand.

The cat moved at something akin to the speed of light, after rebounding off the last wall and heading for the bathroom doing her best 'Neo' impression.

I heard the digging, scraping, desperate attempt at burial...a process the feline attempted for 5 straight minutes, I think to a small degree out of shame but certainly out of self preservation.

Then I saw her slink out of the Bathroom.
This slink was not one of fear,
it was not one of pain nor of violation...
it was one of weight
she was weighted down...

Remember Predator, when the alien moved through the woods and caused a ripple effect...or the mirage on hot pavement in the summer?
I swear, before the smell hit me, that I saw a shimmer/ripple in the air rolling over and past the feline pressing her down...(I have now found the speed of smell is in direct proportion to the comedic effect it will produce)
This, the very first time our cat did this to us, the last (printable/intelligible) words out of my wife's mouth for the next 15 minutes were, "Aw, the poor little thing looks like she's sick...is there something wrong with....What...the...F##....ACK...KAFF...HURK".

That's when the wall of STENCH hit us. When I say wall, I mean wall. It was palpable, it would have been as easy to cut as the tension of a Republican Convention Michael Moore showed up to for the buffet.
It hurt.
My eyes watered.
My brain, desperate to preserve itself, attempted to exit my left ear..and my wife fell over the coffee table trying to get to the spray air freshener.

She sprayed, I opened windows, and we fought our way on to the front porch. (there was a brief traffic jam at the door to get out, she won by elbowing me in the groin...to this day I still don't blame her)

We heard mewling...and we didn't care.
We spent somewhere on the order of 15 minutes cursing, through the gagging.

We went back inside, the cat lay on the floor panting as though she'd given birth.
The stench had begun to subside enough to not prompt nausea...much.
My wife looked at me with a pleading expression, after walking into the kitchen to gather the tools of scoopage...and I merely shook my head.

She walked into that bathroom like a condemned criminal headed to the gallows. I saluted. The cat mewled.

I kicked the cat.....

The speed of Stink is a formula involving the level of noxiousness, athleticism of the victims, degree of surprise and direct value of the comedy...and will always, ALWAYS catch the unaware or observed....
ALWAYS.....

Pedestrian writing

I think I have grown a bit....meh?
in the last few days/weeks on Facebook.
I am divorcing myself from it for 2 days.

Sounds minor, but I find myself reflexively going there every opportunity I get.
Not an addiction, so much, as a filler.
This blog is limited venue, and more for me to put things into print I'm thinking of.
I won't draw attention to it on the 'book' for those days either, and may only occasionally from now on (haven't decided yet).

I think part of it is due to not having my 'home' and time to myself.
I love my Mother in Law, but I am a social creature.
Roxz and I made a new friend,
I reconnected with a number of old ones,
and I have now been without real contact with them for almost 2 weeks.

I am gregarious,
I am social
and I am stifled when this happens.

I have my games, my gaming buddies...but that's on a specific schedule and not really socializing. It's fun, a hobby and an outlet.

If I had a job, it would be one thing...
If we had money, and could afford to go do things every day...
or she really wanted to socialize, but she's the antithesis of me...introverted, shy, quiet and unassuming.

So my outward reaching nature has not been fed, for damn near two weeks.
I am getting crabby, needy and absorbed.
I can handle weather based cabin fever, but this is killing me!

If this seems to be unrelated to Facebook, it's because I have been using FB as an escape when I'm home right now...and a surrogate for human interaction.
I also seem to be commenting on the stupidest things, most innocuous, and losing sight of my writing to just 'fill'.

I don't know that it really matters, but it helps me put it into print...sort out how I feel.

I may have a job, talked to someone today about it.
Mom and Dad bought me a GPS to help with the work, lotta driving...
and I can't shout it from the rooftops, because it is a 'meh' job, and I can't go out and celebrate...how much does that suck?

Griping without humour, I am trying to avoid.
Lackluster I am starting to feel.
Pissy, bitchy or plain unappreciative I am NOT trying to be.
But I am feeling tedium, and tedious...

Muse

My muse has left me...
I just have no 'umph' in my typing.

The cat, damned beast that she is, has abandoned her normal vile behavior and actually been cute and tolerable.
She hasn't bitten my MIL in 2 days,
she hasn't broken anything,
and she hasn't woken me up.

My car is running,
the sun came back out today,
and Roxz and I are just kinda snuggly.

I don't have enough to complain about without delving into politics, and I'd actually become disgusted then!

Hrm...
well,
I'm bored...mostly...but not enough to bitch.

ugh...
I'm.... , perky?

What the hell's wrong with me!

;)

Taste of a Woman

Is a subtle thing.
A flavor oft missed,
misunderstood or unappreciated.

it is her scent
her voice
her very being

is what she does
how she is
and what she softly cries

it is ambrosia
honey and sunlight
all rolled into one

it reaches beyond the now
and grabs you
before and after

is what brings you back
to the font
and flavors of youth

the taste of a woman is
love
life
breath
lust
fire
hope

the taste of a woman
is what makes
all of us
alive forever

No, she's not like....

...her momma!

Some people think that the longer an owner has a pet, the more it will become like them.
My wife is sweet, slightly shy but constantly smiling.
She's warm, intelligent and affectionate to all people she lets into her house.
She loves her own mother.

My Mother in Law has been here for a week + now, visiting northern climes from sunny Flori-duh...(yeah, she's batty like me...she likes it cold).
I think this may have been the collective families way to check the layout, make sure I'm treating their 'baby' right...it's what I'd do if my daughter poofed 1000miles away suddenly. (I'd have been driving with a shotgun, but her Mom's nicer than me)

This woman loves animals, in all their forms. She loves em even more than my wife (who once held a job shoveling pooh at a kennel just to have more exposure to dogs).
She made a pet out of a scorpion she found in her bedroom once (much to the chagrin of her husband).
She has a dog, that she loves, that is a bit psychotic. When I say a bit, I mean insanely so.
I am, as far as I know, the only person that has spent any real time in their house and not been bitten by it.
It bit someone trying to rescue it from Hurricane Charley. It bit Kim (my wife's mum) on the face. It regularly sidles up to people for attention and petting WHILE growling...and then looks at you like you're an idiot after he bites you.
His name's Gizmo.
They fed him after midnight.

So far, my cat has scratched and bitten Kim at least 5 times this trip.
The ONLY time I have seen her bite someone was when my wife or I were bathing her/the first time we collared her.
She normally only scratches when playing rough, and usually bolts once she realizes her mistake. (this may be because if it's me...I'll chase the little git all over the house, but meh).
Kim is sweet, like her daughter.
Loves animals like her daughter.
Moves softly and quietly, like her daughter.

This cat doesn't even leave the room when Kim's around (like she does EVERY OTHER HUMAN she doesn't like)...she actually gets cuter.
Like she's baiting someone.
And like all humans with cute animals, we are still suckers...
pet, stroke...NOM! (bleed bleed...'no it's okay, I just spooked her')...

My cat is possessed, so I thought.
Hell, I even started to think Gizmo's sick with something, and Kim just brought it up with her.

No,
I figured it out.

Roxz's cat is getting to be more like her owner....and apparently that's not Roxz...

She's become a curmudgeon....
Should I be proud,
worried
or insulted?

there are times you should just write...
it's an imperative.

I went to Yellow Springs today, immersed in retro culture...hiked in the woods.
Spent time with the wife, and the Mother in Law.

Saw autumn in nature.
missed new friends, new traditions...
the Pub, possible movie.
missed cruel Tuesday,
new comics.

Got snubbed by old friends and distance, again.

Did I mention hiked, a lot, outdoors...
drank from a natural spring..tasted iron without getting punched in the mouth..haven't had a clean fight in a year...good outright venting of testosterone. Is it a good thing? that we don't feel these things out anymore? just haul off and punch someone...and then share a drink a little later and hash it all out?

Streams...water...leaves...leaf mold. Smelled it all. Thought of beauty, saw it. Saw a waterfall, without another photog focusing on my wife but my attention on it and her/them. really saw it this time.
walking, holding a grandparents walking stick in hand...feeling right.
Why did I leave?
Because I don't like one place for too long? I like travel with an anchor.
My anchor is people.
Don't lose me...I won't like it.
I lose myself easily enough.

Cat, how did I end up with a cat? that made no sense...they annoy me. Yet here she is, nosing for my lap. grrrr ;)

movie, what was it tonight?
Gaming...am I too old? is it an unhealthy escape or 'normal' hobby to keep me grounded?
did I assume too much of old friends? can they help me get a job?
is it really the economy, or did I outlive my usefulness 20 years too early?

Is it too late for us to have a kid?

My sons' going to college next year...full ride for something, either football or academic. Damn his mom done good! the boy's awesome. he's a bundle of smart and athletic. proud. of her too.
(sorry about punctuation, just typing out things right now).

Need to go back to school, or find a teaching venue of some sort. I feel alive when sharing knowledge.
I can, and I want to teach...we who CAN teach..not can't.

I like people, but hate humans...I am a conundrum without a clue...a rebel without a cause...a para without a duck...and an anachronism.
I flew too close to the sun...but my wings didn't work to begin with.

nonsense, but the words sounded good.

Did I screw up the first marriage? Or was it just that first mistake, the one we all seem to make, and I was too stubborn to see it for 11 years.
Seems like everyone else did before me? couldn't warn me, wouldn't have seemed the right place.
Does that make me an asshole for telling other people when it isn't mine?
I got lucky this time...did she?
Maybe I am playing with a bit of fire...burnt offerings?
Golden Apples of the Sun...
are my fingers going to be those offerings?

I didn't make it home in time...she died before I got here.

I loved her. Thank gawd for the pic in the kitchen.

Wanna come over for Tequila and Rock Band? you are always invited...

Jess, sorry I screwed it up...so glad you found the right guy at the right time...

This is me, I like to write...maybe for too long. But it's going to be me for a long time.
Is it already 40 going on 41?
Why do I feel like late 20's going on forever?
I like my quotes, I like my discordia, but do I define myself with them, or did they just contribute to my definition?

Life, I have too much of it to be depressed.
My MIL's sig O thought I was early 30's...
is that a compliment of vitality, or is it a comment on lack of maturity?
Have I been a child too long?

I want my son to be happy...thank gawd I think he is.
Is it wrong that I type gawd like that, and not God...that I don't want to offend...
and sometimes don't know that it really matters, that I think I'm wormfood at the end anyway, and that goodness is defined by what we should want to do, not what some ephemeral entity says we should?
I don't believe, but I do...I see the hand, but I think it's divorced.
Not cynically, or spitefully...not goth or like a revolutionary..or abandoned.
I think he/she/it/they created to further, and we are part of a greater whole...a cog..and that we are in a hands off state after creation, to follow our own path..and die. be done. contributors but not contiguous.
Does it really matter what I think?
I think not... :)
I think what matters is what you think!

But do I think that matters too much to me?
did I let go of the need, finally, to be loved by more than me?
did I recognize that I am not responsible for any single person other than myself, and by only knowing that responsibility and acting on it can I help the others?

I am sorry parents, for not living up to expectations.
I am sorry ex-wife, for the same.
I am sorry son, for not being there when I should have been...thank you for letting me back in.

I am sorry old friends, for leaving...

I can only do so much...and what I do may be flawed.
but I love(d) you all.

Words are tools...
do I use them correctly.
Do I wield them as weapons,
utilize them like scalpels,
or flail them about me randomly and without meaning or impact.

have I failed to learn their importance, while creating the impression of import?

do I know them, or just fake them...
do I know you?
do I fake it? would you know if I did? would you care?

I am 41 this year, and I don't necessarily know if I count,
and I don't necessarily know if I care?
I just want to know if those that I touched were better for it?
If I didn't help, in some small way, I need to figure out why not...so that I may help others later.
I love people,
I hate humanity...
this is NOT contradictory,
it simply is.


Love ya all...remember that!
:)

AAAAARGGGHHHH

Mother in Law now here for a week....
will be for another...
no inappropriate cuddling....for two whole weeks...

spleen rupturing...

arrrrgggggghhhh....(whimper)

(and now back to your regularly scheduled ranting)

Finally

Autumn has arrived...

I've been up since 2:30am...Wind blustered in 'round about 1:30ish, waking me on and off.
At 2:30, I heard what I swore was the sound of a badger trying to dig to china.
It was my cat.
Befouling the bathroom where her litter is contained...
and though it sounds appropriate..it isn't. She's VILE. We cannot compete. She was trying to bury it. She shouldn't have bothered. It was like trying to bury Chernobyl...

I was awake with the blowing wind, the crashing of limbs from trees and the noxious green cloud threatening the entire upstairs. I fled downstairs. I left the women-folk to their fate, seeing them as sacrificial canaries in a mine shaft. I figured if I started to hear muffled screams and then gurgling...I'd just burn the house down and start over.

I came downstairs, and the stinky beast followed (escaping her own atrocity I am sure) and started to putter (I love that word now). She pestered me for about 15 minutes, looking for handouts or a lap to warm up in. I ignored her.

I started to paint, and couldn't get motivated.
I started to write, and was unfocused.
I burned about 15 minutes getting breakfast set up to send my wife off with good school fuel (I was under the hopeful assumption she and her mother would survive the chemical attack).
I thought about starting the pot of coffee a little early. Rox had pre-set it for 8 cups at 6am.
It was 4am. Dammit...

2 hours...no coffee.
Cat had fallen asleep, no one to abuse.
TV too loud, interwebz boring.

And then it dawned on me...I was looking for something. I was fidgeting and unfocused because of something.
What was it?
What had me pacing, bouncing my leg and unable to sit for any leng...

Well hell, I was chilly.
I needed my robe and my slippers.

The cat woke me up with her vile stench,
and I wanted to kiss the little bugger...
I went outside, shivered in the breeze...and Inhaled deeply.

It was crisp...
It was clean...
It was beautiful (even at 0'dark-thirty)..

It is Autumn.

And even my cat's butt couldn't ruin this morning.
:)

Cat Faces VI

Terrified: curiosity with bottle brush tail..
What my wife sees;
Poor wittwe fuzzy-wuffins is scawed of da (dark/thunder/squirrel on the porch that won’t run away/my tromping down the stairs).

What I see;
I am setting up an excuse to claw your face off.
She always gets this bottlebrush ‘jabeebus’ look, and scrambles like the Cubans are invading in ‘Red Dawn’, or runs under ‘mommys’ feet and bristles up. It’s never anything clear, or defined. Half the time, I think she scared herself with something (or is about to get caught doing something).
She bristles, we take pity, somebody scoops her up to console her..and MRRRRROWWRRR…(It’s all fun and games till somebody loses an eye/finger/thumb/nipple).
I think it’s a setup…a ruse…an excuse. I really think she just hates us both.

Bathing in the light..

"Here comes the sun, du dn du du..."

It's rare, that I realize
What a creature of nature I am.
We grow disconnected, as people
with our I-pods and tv and facebook...

and then it rains...for days.
dreary, damp..deadening.
Not cleansing rain, like a storm in the summer
or one that cleanses the smell
of wildfires

cloying
beating
draining

Then it lets up.
the oppression is lifted
the damp starts to recede from your bones...
you might not even notice it at first
just kind of wake up a little

I didn't catch on,
not till I was driving home today...
tap tap tapping on my steering wheel
smiling, thinking of wife, friends, bubbles
and home..

I didn't catch on,
till I caught myself singing
with joy in my heart
I'm such a creature of nature,
thank gawd I remembered!

"Here comes the sun..."

dammit, but George sang it right!
:)

5 days....

of this dreck...

Now I remember why I hated Sitka.
I try to write, the paper's limp.
I try to dry off with a fresh towel after a shower (that leaves me feeling sticky and humid after getting out) and it's humid and limp.
Fresh sheets, tacky and limp.

Even the cat's limp and sticky...

blech.

the world needs;
the rain to stop,
a sauna,
and a viagra....

Cat Faces V

5-Stoopid look: big eyes, but ears back…
What the wife sees…the poor little thing was fooled, misled, or just doesn’t get the whole ‘real world’ thingy because we keeps ‘da precious’ inside all the time.

What I see…a sympathy ploy. Usually she’s done something terribly wrong, but it only involves MY property (ie;my hobby or some such). If it’s household, or the wife’s, she just runs and hides…quickly. If it’s my stuff she’s molested, how she reacts is dependant on who’s home. Just me, and she runs like hell…the wife home, she acts like she ‘scared’ herself with the noise(impact/what have you) and runs to the mommy with ears down and bottle brush tail ‘mrowping’ to beat the band and tucking in behind her mum’s legs.
It’s self defense…she knows what she’s done…but she knows how to play the stoopid look and get sympathy from the ‘sucker’…
It’s kept her alive this long, so it must have SOME merit?

Feline Fail....

So,
I'm sitting here reading a blog...(it's always at the computer, JEEBUS I gotta get a life)
When I hear a galloping of wifely feet.
(or so I hoped, either that or the cat had gained 100+ lbs...NOT an event I wish to consider).

I wonder, as she has gone upstairs exhausted after having class and then entertaining her mother with shopping(an event that always raises my blood pressure)why she has returned to the land of light, and consciousness.

I turn, to see her round the corner, and as I register she holds a bag of biological doom...and a look of terror...then smell hits me.
The cat has perpetrated another atrocity.
This is normal, but not usually so bad that the smell can reach across a room out of a plastic bag and assault my sinuses.
The same sinuses I inherited from my father.
The ones that don't work right.
The ones that can't smell ammonia capsules waved under them.

It is palpable.
It is physical.
It is not merely odor.
I swear I see it reach across the room for me...

I didn't process the smell in the first half second, but my eyes starting to water of their own accord led me to believe what was about to happen was NOT good...by any stretch.

The wife, looking quite cute in her sleep shirt, held it out to me to dispose of...me being the only fully dressed one in the house..as she approached with her own look of anguish.
My body (in that last half second before my brain processed the forceful chemical assault coming from ill-used nerves in my sinus cavity) recoiled in reflex fear.

Behind the wife came the cat, trouncing around the corner with a spring in her step...as though she'd lost weight...
She had...
It was vile.

I grabbed the bag, and nearly threw it AT the cat...
What stopped me???
the wife, gagging through the miasma of 'stink' that followed her down the stairs...
"Don't throw that *kaff..hurk* at my cat..."
(this almost didn't stop me...then she finished)
"the bag might explode!"
Nothing could have arrested my flinging of the litter bag faster...

And the cat just looked up at me with cute 'innocence'...
"mrowr?"


Do domesticated cats have no sense of smell?

Squirrilla Warfare

So,
as per the norm I was sitting in the kitchen working on something.
(It's always something, and never really qualifies as work according to my spouse...just puttering...when is she going to be old enough for me to accuse her of puttering?)

My cat was on the shelf at the window above my chair.
I have yet to figure out why this animal, who hates me enough to torture me day in and day out, thinks it's safe to hover over me while painting...but she does. And amazingly enough, my paint work is the ONLY thing she has never destroyed. She'll mutilate my finished work, but leave it out with the paint pots and tools and she won't touch it (maybe figures it's worse to annihilate finished work, I dunno).
Anywho, she's at the window when the wife asks "look out there and see why she's so absorbed..and twitching her tail".
After the skunk raid on the carport (later story) and the squirrel raids on other parts of the carport (again, more on that later) I assume we have a vagrant animal about to visit an atrocity upon my property...I was right, but not in the way I expected.

I looked over my shoulder, and saw another cat. A big cat. I mean BIG. This chunky, low slung and mean looking black and white looks like it could have taken an enraged walrus home as a meal.
My cat was looking out the window acting like she wanted to play...I wanted to let her out (she'll be skinned alive and served up as a late night snack by this beast) but the wife was present, and I would have had no excuse...cats just have bad timing, I swear.

So this cat was stalking. It was in the grass, doing that impossibly slow paw over paw ninja-commando low crawl. I looked for an intended victim, and sure enough...on the edge of the carport, there was a squirrel.
Now normally these squirrels are quick on the uptake and twitching their tales in warning (before bolting up a tree) long before any neighborhood cat gets within 20 yards...but this one was within 5. It was pawing around in the grass near where I had spilled some bird seed, so I assumed he was absorbed in eeking out the last remnants of seed from the ground.
I watched, as that cat continued to crawl...foot by foot...paw by paw...ever closer.
It got closer, and started doing that little pre-pounce butt wiggle (you know, the tense 'heap big hunter' wiggle your house cat gets right before assassinating a lightning bug) all cat owners adore. My wife had, at this point, joined me at the window after a quiet hand waving over. I'm expecting a sudden burst of speed and a run, one that NEVER results in a caught squirrel but a chagrined cat...my favorite kind (ok, filleted is my favorite, but polite company and all).
She gets closer, and closer...slower and slower. She's within 5 feet now, right next to the front tire of my CRV, and I start to raise my hand to knock on the glass (I like squirrels, even when they are attempting to raid my bird feeders I like em...I grew up with them as part of my nature, playful little spirits. I don't like cats, evil feline mischief causing beasts. Knock on the glass saves a squirrel and pisses off a cat, win win)...
My wife stopped me. 'watch' she says quietly, and pointed.

As I notice that the 'victim' squirrel actually looked over its shoulder at the cat, I also see what my wife sees. To the immediate right of the cat, on the top of my car's front tire, is another squirrel. Two feet from the hunter. As I saw the squirrel, the cat also seemed to detect something, and looked over the other shoulder...to see the OTHER squirrel stalking IT.
My wife, Roxz, giggles and points again...behind the cat. In the grass, about 15 feet away, is another pair of squirrels.
At this stage, the 'victim'(I mean bait) sits up, and looks at the cat.
The one on my tire hops down and sits up, looking at the cat.
The two behind sit up,
and the one we did not even see on the ROOF of the carport scampers down into the grass...and they all sit up and stare.
I swear I heard the sound of a switchblade...
(so help me gawd, if Al Hitchcock had seen this, there would have never been 'the birds'...it would have been the 'squirrels')

The cat's tail twitched...
It looked about.
It's wasn't happy.

And the 'bait' twitched AT her.

I blinked,
the cat was halfway down the driveway still picking up steam on the way out...
The bait's tail is swishing in the sudden breeze.
The cat wasn't touching the ground, but It was still accelerating.
I don't think it made contact with the ground for the length of the driveway.
I haven't seen it since...

I wonder if I fed my cat to the squirrels, the wife would know?

Unemployment

So,
I'm TFG, livin off 'da man!

Honestly relieved, Unemp was extended...
I don't have to eat the cat...yet...

I THINK that's a good thing, though it would solve some problems. ;)

Cat faces... IV (as in an I.V. for my tranquilizers)

or 4, as in the 4th face...not sure at this stage. :)

Denial: I meant to do that.
What the wife sees…embarrassment. Often on the end of a jump gone wrong, an attempt to secure a flying nom or just plain skidding on a floor coming around a corner too fast. Elicits pity from the wife.
What I see…I am going to find a way to pin this on you. Please be smart and check your shoes for the next few days, I have a present for you.
This one is where I equate cats to women. Don’t take this the wrong way ladies, we men are complete dolts when it comes to self inflicted pain, but we just let ourselves look stupid and either think it’s funny, or think no one noticed.
But cats (and women), wow…there is nothing in those feral little eyes that has anything but disdain for you noticing. It’s less a refusal to accept responsibility (which IS there) and more a ‘how DARE you laugh/giggle/even look!’ If you noticed, you are at least partially responsible for her embarrassment, and must suffer. If you laugh, she won’t believe for a minute (no matter evidence to the contrary) that you didn’t set up the series of events to cause her this humiliation…and you shall suffer. If you laughed in front of witnesses, check your shoes for a month.
This look IS very much directed at me. She’ll just walk off if her mommy giggles, but if I do…well, have you ever seen a cat glare? I know I have…it’s a bit frightening.

The Enemy...

...is not my cat.
As much as I may wish it to be the case, it's age.

I am getting greedy. With time.
I don't like to sleep.
It's all the little things that race about in my head as I close my eyes.

The hamster in the wheel is on about 5 pots of coffee, and burning out the axle.
I don't think it's normal, to hate sleep.
I see it as an enemy, consuming 3-5 hours of every precious day that I have. (should be 8, "but I have a cat see...and she's evil see...and she helps my insomnia see"...said in a bad early Chicago mob accent).

I see my life-clock, and I know that carousel is coming...but I don't want to embrace Renewal.
I want to squeeze every drop of potential out of every waking moment, and I want more of the moments to be waking.
I need a job. The longer I am without, the more difficult it is for me to squeeze.
Maybe I should take up criminal activity, to support my nefarious desires to live! :)

I have a wife who actually knows, and loves, ME. (poor girl)
I live in a house that has been in my family for my entire life.
I have a family across the street for moral support.
I have a home, a roof over my head, and am rediscovering lost friends and family.
Why am I fighting something as simple as sleep?

If I had a fellow insomniac to share these late night ramblings with, I could enjoy it more.
All I have is a shat-tastic cat! :P

Kitty Gold

Okay,
the measure of a child is how expensive the gift is vs how much fun they will have punishing their parents by only playing with the box.

The measure of a cat is what she won't eat, but make sport with it's garbage. My cat does not like milk.

My wife, Roxz, had informed me (in the cat's first month in our home) that they sell little plastic rings like those that hold your cap on your milk jug as cat toys. You know, those little flexible plastic rings with the little teeth on them, that keep your milk 'safe' from prying fingers (or at least warn you if some errant 5 year old has drunk from the jug on the store's shelf). I called her a liar. She then took the next little ring off the jug, and tossed it at the cat. It occupied her for an hour, till she lost it under the stove the 4th time and I wouldn't get it out.
KITTY GOLD!

Fast forward to a year later...and about 500 lost little rings of plastic in an old apartment and new home (note:if you leave them under your stove, where the cat deposits them, they WILL breed. neuter your trash).
I am in the dining room, after watching 'Kill Bill part I' with the spouse...debating on watching part II...writing about the 'Mouse Wars', when a whirlwind roars by.

A flurry of fur, fangs and destruction.

A fan is capsized, a note is sucked off the table next to me into the vortex, and I nearly lose a toe.
Imagine, if you will, the Tasmanian devil from Looney Tunes.

The path of destruction moves into the kitchen.
It bounces off the cabinets under the sink, ricochets off the fridge and piles into the secretary. It stops for a moment, image of a cat frozen in mortal combat with something menacing...rises up into the air majestically to pounce once again...and sounds of a tornado start back up.

Under the kitchen table...
around the base, knocking Rox's purse off the chair it hangs on...
back out toward the dining room (I pull my foot under the computer desk quickly)..

She collides with the small rug at the foot of the sink (she managed to miss it when she bounced off the cabinet...I am STILL trying to figure out how).
She tangles. It is an abrupt halt. It is a halt with little dignity, and limbs pointed everywhere. Nothing is more humiliating to a cat than splayed limbs that do NOT involve bathing and exhibitionist impulses. She manages to get her head out of the mess, and glare up and at me.
I get up and start digging, looking for whatever moth may have gotten in, and whether it is mauled or able to be rescued...and I find a small blue plastic ring with many little teeth marks.
I hold this up, shake it at my wife (who is giggling to beat the band) and say, "I blame you...oh I blame you"...

While I am doing this, the cat disentangles herself, and bites my toe...causing me to drop the kitty-gold.

The whirlwind resumes.

I shall not sleep tonight.




(anybody got a good recipe for cat?)