Category: the feline

My week, at a glance.

Husband, on the couch, coughing, coughing, coughing…*sniffle*

Feline, on the couch tossing head ferociously flap, flap, flapping her ears and occasionally digging in there with a back toe.

Me, on the couch, blowing my nose repeatedly, in between coughing and sneezing.

Diagnosis:

Husband: severe bronchitis, bordering on pneumonia
Cat: ear infection
Me: bad cold, trying desperately not to let it become bronchitis

Mood: Crappy

Is this a joke? Am I on candid camera?

Am at work today and my coworkers have unceremoniously shut my office door. They mumbled something like “you are being quarantined”.

Nice.

ah-choo!

That’s improbable!

While getting ready for work this morning, The Feline was busting my chops. She likes to do this, especially when I’m tired and groggy at oh-dark-thirty in the morning.

Sometimes I humor the animal (or, er, myself) and have a “conversation.” It goes something like this:
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Feline: Meow!

Me: What’s that you say?

Feline: Meow!

Me: Constantinople? Really?

Feline: Meeeow!

Me: Met at the bazaar? You know, they don’t even call it Constantinople any more. You’re so old fashioned.

Feline: Meow!
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That is but one example.

So this morning, The Feline and I engaged in another of our lengthy conversations. Here’s the rough transcript:

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Feline: MEOW!

Me: Had a bad dream, huh? Sorry to hear it.

Feline: Meow

Me: Maybe you should try cutting the kibble ration and sleeping less?

Feline: Meow!

Me: That’s interesting. You know they say a dream about eating fish means many conflicting things. Could be attachment issues.

Feline: Meow!
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It was then that I thought to myself, “Hey, I could do that whole Pet Psychic routine. This is easy!”

Why did my brain drift over to “Pet Psychic?”

I’ll tell you why.

Recently, I pitched a literary agent about my latest work. Last week, I got feedback from the agent. He said (in not so many words) that a main plot point of my story wasn’t entirely plausible.

I found that odd, since that plot point was something that had actually happened in my life (“write what you know!”).

But ok, I took his very professional feedback to heart (maybe too much to heart, if you were to ask The Good Man).

With that in mind, I went to the library to check out items in the “new fiction” section to see what IS plausible enough to get published these days.

That’s where I found this gem.

“Pet psychic, radio host, four-time widow, and dedicated rescuer of distressed animals, Mary Catherine rushes in to help a turtle stranded in a house, only to stumble over a body. With the rescued turtle as the only witness, MC works with the initially skeptical police to discover the real murderer.”

Unh huh. So a pet psychic getting the eyewitness account from a turtle IS plausible enough to be published?

Ooookaaay.

And the clincher from the book jacket:

“Includes recipes for pet treats!”

Well there you have it.

The Feline remains non-plussed.

Opening Day

And so, the 2009 baseball season is underway.

The major leaguers started early in the week.

But that’s not where I’m at.

I’m talkin’ about one lowly Single A.

Yeah baby.

The San Jose Giants kicked off their 142 game season in the Pacific Coast League with their home opener last night.

It was, perhaps, one of the strangest baseball encounters I’ve ever experienced.

And I’ve seen some weird sh*t.

To start with, the weather was was, what the indelicate call “pissing rain”. The not quite raining, not quite not. Just…dribbling.

For my home-squirrels in the 505/575 who come from a place where, when it rains, it means it, this phenomenon may not make sense to you.

Imagine those misters they have at Hooters. Only as big as the sky, unrelenting, and without the desert dryness to evaporate that water.

Close enough.

So it was Hooters misting all night long…and cold…and not very baseball-y weather.

Pretty much, the not really capacity crowd thinned out over the course of the game, leaving only the die hards to carry it to the end.

Which would be both me and The Good Man.

We stepped under cover for the third and fourth innings to indulge in bbq-sauce-up-to-your-ears tasty ribs and came out of there recharged and ready.
When you’ve endured several hours of cold soaking rain, it does something to your brain.

So as most people left, and us weirdos starting losing our minds, it got really fun.

Best moment will take some backstory.

Every game, the San Jose announcer designates a player on the opposing team as the “beer batter”. If the San Jose pitcher strikes out that batter, then beer is half price for the next half inning.

Needless to say, people cheer pretty damn hard for a strikeout.

Usually, they end the beer batter promotion in the sixth inning.

So, round about the seventh inning last night…we, the looneys in the crowd decided to dub that same opposing batter the hot chocolate batter (it was freaking cold!). Cheering went up. Someone yelled, “C’mon, daddy needs marshmallows!”

That damn beer hot chocolate batter would NOT just take a swing. Poor sport.

And then, for some reason, in the eighth inning, the announcer played the usual beer batter song and dubbed the guy the ‘apple juice batter of the game, as sponsored by Martinelli’s’. I don’t know if that was a legit promotion, but then all of us started hollering for our apple juice.

As the beer batter stood at the plate, we screamed “aaaaaaaple juuuuuice!” Damnit if that guy just wouldn’t strike out for us! No, he kept foulin’ ’em off! So I yelled “I’ll share mine with you!” No, he wasn’t to be swayed. I even offered to *give* him my apple juice. Considering I was sitting in the third row behind the plate in a nearly empty stadium, I KNOW he heard my offer.

But no, instead of sipping my apple juice, b–tard hit a rope out to center.

A cold soaked to the bone crowd couldn’t even get an apple juice. That ain’t right.

But damn did we have fun!

And yes, the Albuquerque Dukes pennant is still painted on the wall at Muni Stadium and I touched it for luck, like usual! Worked too! We won 7-1!

Tonight, I think I’ll stick to the couch and a blanket and my feline (who I’ve finally forgiven) and baseball on the television.

But I may be prompted to yell “aaaaaaapple juuuuuuuice” at a hitter who needs to strike out. : shrug :

The face of a criminal

Behold the face of the unrepentant criminal!

Last night, after giving kibble to the rabble rouser, I took a glass from the cabinet where we keep dishes, poured some soy milk, and went to the other room to enjoy the cold glass. I suppose I didn’t firmly close the cabinet door…fine.

Several minutes later, I heard some clanking noises from the kitchen and said to The Good Man, “what’s she into now?”

He said, “we didn’t leave any dishes on the counter, so I can’t imagine…”

I got up and went into the kitchen.

The Feline had made her way into the cabinet where the dishes are kept and was prowling around in there. When I barked, “get down!” as I do when she’s somewhere she ought not to be, she wigged out.

And in her haste to comply and quickly extricate her anything-but-lithe form from the shelves, she managed to shove the stack of bowls out of the cabinet and crashing, shattering to the floor.

She then scampered off a good distance, then stopped to lick her paw as though to say, “what?”

I found myself…mad. Really mad. Not kick the cat mad (in no way at all), but mad.

The Good Man rightfully reminded me that she’s a pet, you can’t reason with her like a child, that being mad is fine but really comes to no good end, that this is just what this particular feline does.

Sure. Didn’t help. I was still mad.

Not mad enough I didn’t let her sleep on top of me, like usual, but still, this morning…I’m peeved.

I’m probably more peeved at myself for leaving the door open than anything.

I once had a therapist say that being mad was more about yourself that it is about the person (feline) you are mad at.

So. Breathe in. Breathe out.

*sigh* So I guess this weekend we’ll set out into the world to buy a new set of bowls. Ain’t gonna be no soup in our house for a while!

Check the signs

The government cares. No really, they do. And so with their help, I’ve taken a good look at myself today. I mean, a real good look.

How are YOU feeling? Maybe you could check in too?

Herewith:

Getting Through Tough Economic Times from the Department of Health and Human Services.

“It is important to be aware of signs that financial problems may be adversely affecting your emotional or mental well being –or that of someone you care about.”

In other words….Did Mr. Jones take all your cash? Does that tick you off?

Let’s check in, shall we?

Warning Signs

Persistent Sadness/Crying

Only when I look at my bank account.

Excessive Anxiety

Only when I look at my bank account.

Lack of Sleep/Constant Fatigue

Yes. But I can’t really blame the economy for the fact that we are having cold windy nights, and since my personal internal thermometer tends to run hot, the cat and The Good Man sleep on top of me to stay warm.

Excessive Irritability/Anger

Only at 3:00 in the morning when I’m burning up hot and can’t get fourteen pounds of cat or six feet two inches of husband off of me.

Increased drinking

Yeah, a little. The Good Man, his friend and me did have two bottles of wine on Sunday (at a bar-b-que). Did you know that Lambrusco is really tasty and drinks awfully easily? Did you know that with enough fizzy red wine in your gullet, you kinda feel a lot better about a whole lot of things in your life? Well, that and the red meat. And the smoked fish from Alaska. Damn…that was a fine dinner…..

Illicit drug use, including misuse of medications

Does Claritin count? Because with this wind, my eyes and nose are like faucets. I may be abusing the stuff…not sure.

Difficulty paying attention or staying focused

What’s that over there? I think I’m hungry. What’s the square root of 686?

Apathy – not caring about things that are usually important to you

Whatever.

Not being able to function as well at work, school or home

Let’s see…after a marathon two days of writing a presentation in which I basically justified my job to our new austere European owners, today I’m at work with nothing to do and writing on my blog.

Not sure I could be less value added if I tried. Or should that be value subtracted? Not sure how the absolute values work in relation to lazyosity.

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Hmm. Ok. So I’m not sure I can draw any conclusions from that exercise.

And I think they may have left a few off the list. My additions:

Do you check your online money accounts more than three times a day?

Do you find yourself in the lunchroom with your coworkers discussing tax rates?

Do you cut coupons where you rarely did before?

Do you and your spouse look for “free” events, samples, activities and services?

Do you calculate how much gas it would take to get to a destination as a “go/no go” decision on running an errand?

Do you watch too much CNBC and then find yourself yelling at Jim Cramer and blaming him for a lot of things that aren’t actually his fault? (this one applies to Jon Stewart only)

Do you have fantasies about how good it used to be…in 2006?

If so…seek help.

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Ok, ok, I kid, I kid, but the online resource is actually pretty serious.

Link thanks to Bruce Daniels over at the ABQjournal.

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“I’m certain I have no idea what you are blathering on about, human. Now feed me.