Friday, June 30, 2006

A Week Ago Today

A week ago today, I was in Charleston. Kyle and I foolishly assumed that leaving town - and leaving our children behind in said town - would result in a long-overdue sleep-in the next morning. But at 7:00am sharp, my cell phone rang. It was Sean, chirpy as could be, calling to tell me that he had just leveled up his starting Pokemon (named Alex) to the point where it evolved to its highest form: a Charizard. Pretty big news, but it didn't really qualify as 7:00am-type news. I congratulated him, asked after his sister, and told him to call me later. "But not immediately-later, more like later-later, okay?" (You have to be specific.)



So, later-later, Kyle and I went downstairs to the hotel breakfast nook (I can't really think of anything else to call that little lounge off to the side of the lobby) and partook of their not-free buffet. And then went off to town to see what we could see.

The first stop for me was to find some sunglasses, as I had foolishly neglected to pack any. I thought, Hey I'm on vacation, I'll just get some of those gigantic Nicole Richie sunglasses that are the size of dinner plates.



Image courtesy of the highly recommended Gallery of the Absurd.

But it was not to be. Those things are only sold at Target (in the price range I could afford) and there was not a Target to be found. As I mentioned, this is not a bad thing in the historic city of Charleston, but in the sprawling and rapidly developing suburbs just north of the city, I expected to find a damn Target!!! Instead, I settled for the grossly overpriced CVS. I got a pair of biggish but not really stylish sunglasses which, as I discovered upon walking outside, had some cheap Taiwanese plastic lenses that were really fucking with my vision - almost as though they had the faintest of prescription to them, making everything look a hair blurry and giving me an instant headache.

So I went back inside to return them and get my money back. Kyle opted to wait outside in the car. And he waited and he waited and he waited...

When I finally got back in the car, triumphantly clutching my refund, he said, "So, what's Tuesday's blog going to be about?" Ha! Try Friday, Mr. Know-it-All. ;-)

As you know, buyer's remorse is never really about an internal sense of doubt that the correct decision has been made. It's more about having to stand there in the one open line, waiting to get your money back, tapping your foot as the cashier lethargically runs your credit card through the reader 16 or 17 times without success before finally calling the manager - who takes his sweet, handicapped time peg-legging over to the register and also trying your card 16 or 17 times before reaching into his shirt pocket for a fresh plug of tobacco, then slipping the keys out of his pocket and turning them in the register to simply force it to do his will... meanwhile you have aged about 900 years waiting for this all to take place and the customers behind you are breathing bad karma all over you...

So that's what Tuesday's blog would have been about, had I not still been recovering from the trauma.

But then we went on to the beach and a grand time was had simply sitting there in the sun, reading, sipping surreptitiously at a beer (just like everyone else, despite the postings that no alcohol was allowed on the beach), and just generally not being at work - and really, what more could anyone ask for, being on vacation?

And here, I thought I'd end with that classic shot of two people's feet and a Corona bottle on the beach or whatever, but when I did a Google search of Corona images, I got this. Enjoy, boys!




Last year's post: Summertime Blues (on unexpectedly buying a new air conditioning unit)

Thursday, May 4, 2006

Cat Fighting

Our outdoor kitty (Sophie) snuck into the house last night. She does this on the rare occasion that a door is open for longer than ten seconds at a time. And once inside, she freely roams about, investigating every nook and cranny, without discovery. Well, not by the Oblivious Humans, anyway.

How does she manage this? Are we so blind? Is she that good?

She's a master of camouflage, as it happens. No, she doesn't have the unusual-in-a-mammal ability to change her coat at will, blending into the floral wallpaper pattern or turning some obscene-for-a-mammal shade of burgundy to match the dining room walls. She simply looks exactly like one of our indoor cats. So, to four Oblivious Humans who have better things to do than pay attention to an all-too-familiar feline shape under our feet, she is that other indoor cat.

But then the rightful indoor denizens get all bent out of shape over this impostor's presence in their territory. The elder cat, Jezebel, will stalk Sophie, sniffing her with gynecological interest, growling at her and generally menacing her with her amazing bulk. You know how cats arch their backs and spit in order to appear larger than they are? Jezebel simply is larger.

Anyway, last night it happened again. Kyle and I were in the living room, watching Sean and Bethany as they free-style danced/moshed about to music, when we heard a series of unusual thumps from the kitchen. Assuming it was just Jezebel being a bit graceless, or possibly wrestling with Junior, we did nothing. But then the growls and eerie shrieking began. Have you ever been awakened in the wee small hours of the morning to cats screaming outside your window? It was that kind of sound.

While Bethany freaked out and ran to Daddy, I went into the kitchen to see what was amiss. Jezebel and Junior can really mix it up sometimes, but I'd never heard them sound so pissed off. Well, there was Jezebel, her hair standing on end all over her body, right down to her tail (which looked like a bottlebrush), towering over Junior (?), who appeared less aggressive than he usually does in such confrontations. Junior will often take advantage of his slinky speed to jump on top of Jezebel, pinning her down and riding her like a bucking bronco. (Though with no penetration, I should add. Because you've come to expect that sort of detail from me.)

But no, he (?) was cowering down, in full defensive mode. And then Kyle noticed Junior (the real McCoy) observing events from the corner of the dining room. Aaaaaah, mystery solved. This was Sophie full-on getting her ass kicked by Jezebel. I watched as Sophie scurried into what she assumed was a safe haven: the cat box, which is something like a big, deep Rubbermaid tub with a lid on it. It has a hole for the cats to jump down inside.

This was an unwise move, as the cat box is of course the holiest consecrated ground on which a cat can stomp (and crap). Now she had crossed the line. Jezebel got nastier than before, ready to tear and chew through the heavy-duty plastic box to get at that uppity bitch. Time for intervention. I merely opened the kitchen door, suggested that Sophie remove herself from the premises, and she did. Drama over.

Jezebel strutted around the house for a bit, looking smug. I patted her on the head, thanking her for defending her territory, even though Sophie lives there too. It's a weird thing with cats.

As cool as Jezebel is, though, she has never brought down a squirrel on her own. Observe Sophie, settling in to enjoy her recent kill.




You can see that even though each cat believes that life is grander on the other side of the windowpanes, each cat is right where she belongs. Jezebel would never tolerate the extreme elements outdoors ("Me? Outside? In this 75-degree furnace?? I think not!"), and Sophie would soon tire of getting only the occasional spider inside the house, instead of her accustomed backyard banquets of moles, voles, mice, birds and squirrels.