So holiday time is upon us again. Last year (a mere 5 or 6 posts ago, how sad), a peeing cat rescued me from Christmas. This year, I go forward, into the family hearth as it were.
My brother, his wife and 3 little ones are staying in Austin to do the family Christmas rather than engaging in the madness of cramming 13 people clown-car style into a house built for 5. This is a house, I should note, w/ seriously fucked up plumbing. You have to use a bucket to flush the toilet 4 out of 5 times, running the washing machine causes sewage to back up into the bathtub and the cold water taps ricochet from "off" back to "on" requiring attention, concentration, multiple twists back to the off position and serious under-the-breath cursing so as not to scare the children or have them piously imply that you have that certain je ne sais quoi that suggests a sinner racing headlong into the fiery pits of hell.
Luckily, you are staying in "The Freezing Back Bedroom of Death" again, where any extra warmth (save your sister's body sleeping next to you) is welcome. Hellfire can be appealing, little ones. Yes, sometimes it can.
Ah well, at least there will be Christmas morning. Mother's cat will run about the house in a panic, chased by a turd that magically grew around the end of a piece of tinsel that now flies out taut behind him, only half-excreted from his sweet fuzzly-wuzzly little bunghole.
God bless the fuzzly-wuzzly ones. I am, and ever shall be, thankful for the joy and laughter they bring.
Thursday, December 20, 2007
Friday, March 16, 2007
Spring Breaking
The wonderful thing about early spring is that it's the time you can get out on the weekends and really, really work on that garden until your back is ready to snap in half. That's what I've been doing for the past two weekends. Moving dirt from one end of my yard to another to keep my house's foundation from bending slowly in half and adding stone pathways over said dirt and planting tomatoes (please, dear god, let there be tomatoes) and shrubs and such.
In the process, I've verified that my crazy neighbor Brian hates me. I'm not sure why, but then again, he's crazy. I suspected it a few months ago when he decided to stop speaking to me--not returning my neighborly hellos, refusing to look me in the face, etc. Which of course made me all the more determined to figure out what was going on. I have an anti-survival instinct that way.
So the grand confrontation went like this:
Me, happily digging a hole for a pretty, pretty new pineapple guava plant. I hear said neighbor's gate squeak open right beside me. He can't avoid me. He's right there: Hi Brian--hey, just wanted to let you know I'm going to be working on the fence at some point, so if you hear some noise out here, it's me.
Brian, who has been raking leaves or killing cats or something in his back yard: Mmph.
Me, laying on sweet voice. Going to get to the bottom of this: So, how's it going?
Said Neighbor: Terri..mra..blah..rible.
Me: What?
Brian: Terrible.
Me, going into "talking to a crazy person, let's make use of our counseling training, finally" mode: Oh, I'm sorry to hear that. What's wrong?
Brian, in a rather nasty tone: You name it.
Me, trying to assess my part in this: I'm sorry to hear that. Is there anything I can do to help?
Brian, in an increasingly sneering nasty tone: I seriously doubt that.
Me, realizing I ain't getting to the bottom of anything except possibly a shallow hole in the woods if I keep this up: Well, sorry to hear that. (dig, dig, dig)
(Dexter the cat enters stage left and wander into Brian's garage while I continue brandishing my big protective shovel that could put a dent in someone's head if it needed to. I both fear and hope for a nice spray of cat urine.)
Said Neighbor: Mrahrara. (Goes into garage.) Scat, cat. Scat! (Shoots nasty glare out in the world's general direction, closes garage door.)
So I go on with my little life of planting things and laying down stone pathways and making a peaceful little earth-mother oasis of dirt and tranquility, and I try to ignore this. The unfortunate part of being a homeowner is, of course, that one is stuck. I must live beside and have semi-hostile non-interaction with Mr. Crazy Pants for the next several years. And I'm really not good at that. I am highly trained in the art of making peace with crazy people. It's what I do. I either make peace or, in my failure, grow frustrated and escalate into all-out war. And, as peace seems impossible and we're in the height of growing season, this leads to several interesting passive-aggressive possibilities.
It is with some embarrassment that I admit I started into the phylum plantae warfare dork thing by buying a plant that's supposed to ward off evil and planting it on the side of the house. No, I don't believe in this stuff, but, well, every little symbolic middle finger gesture I can direct over there helps me feel better.
Next, I'll consider sewing some rue (pretty, but downright itchy if you're allergic. I appear not to be too terribly.) right outside the fence near his side of the house. Might cause a rash or two and some good gnashing of teeth. I've also considered a nice border of thorny, thorny roses. Not sunny enough, though. I'll have to think on that one.
Finally, I've encouraged the cat to go pee in his yard. I'm not sure this is happening, but I am sure that the cat is enjoying peeing in all the nice, newly loosened and moved, highly diggable dirt in my yard. You'd think I'd have learned from all those you-reap-what-you-sew lessons in cheesy horror movies and Buffy re-runs.
So when you see me walking down the street in the next few weeks itching my rashy arms, my legs covered in small punctures (but what a great skirt!) and you notice that a vague, yet overpowering smell of cat pee seems to be coming from my left shoe, you'll know what I've been up to. Just don't ask me if there's anything you can do to help. Mrah!
In the process, I've verified that my crazy neighbor Brian hates me. I'm not sure why, but then again, he's crazy. I suspected it a few months ago when he decided to stop speaking to me--not returning my neighborly hellos, refusing to look me in the face, etc. Which of course made me all the more determined to figure out what was going on. I have an anti-survival instinct that way.
So the grand confrontation went like this:
Me, happily digging a hole for a pretty, pretty new pineapple guava plant. I hear said neighbor's gate squeak open right beside me. He can't avoid me. He's right there: Hi Brian--hey, just wanted to let you know I'm going to be working on the fence at some point, so if you hear some noise out here, it's me.
Brian, who has been raking leaves or killing cats or something in his back yard: Mmph.
Me, laying on sweet voice. Going to get to the bottom of this: So, how's it going?
Said Neighbor: Terri..mra..blah..rible.
Me: What?
Brian: Terrible.
Me, going into "talking to a crazy person, let's make use of our counseling training, finally" mode: Oh, I'm sorry to hear that. What's wrong?
Brian, in a rather nasty tone: You name it.
Me, trying to assess my part in this: I'm sorry to hear that. Is there anything I can do to help?
Brian, in an increasingly sneering nasty tone: I seriously doubt that.
Me, realizing I ain't getting to the bottom of anything except possibly a shallow hole in the woods if I keep this up: Well, sorry to hear that. (dig, dig, dig)
(Dexter the cat enters stage left and wander into Brian's garage while I continue brandishing my big protective shovel that could put a dent in someone's head if it needed to. I both fear and hope for a nice spray of cat urine.)
Said Neighbor: Mrahrara. (Goes into garage.) Scat, cat. Scat! (Shoots nasty glare out in the world's general direction, closes garage door.)
So I go on with my little life of planting things and laying down stone pathways and making a peaceful little earth-mother oasis of dirt and tranquility, and I try to ignore this. The unfortunate part of being a homeowner is, of course, that one is stuck. I must live beside and have semi-hostile non-interaction with Mr. Crazy Pants for the next several years. And I'm really not good at that. I am highly trained in the art of making peace with crazy people. It's what I do. I either make peace or, in my failure, grow frustrated and escalate into all-out war. And, as peace seems impossible and we're in the height of growing season, this leads to several interesting passive-aggressive possibilities.
It is with some embarrassment that I admit I started into the phylum plantae warfare dork thing by buying a plant that's supposed to ward off evil and planting it on the side of the house. No, I don't believe in this stuff, but, well, every little symbolic middle finger gesture I can direct over there helps me feel better.
Next, I'll consider sewing some rue (pretty, but downright itchy if you're allergic. I appear not to be too terribly.) right outside the fence near his side of the house. Might cause a rash or two and some good gnashing of teeth. I've also considered a nice border of thorny, thorny roses. Not sunny enough, though. I'll have to think on that one.
Finally, I've encouraged the cat to go pee in his yard. I'm not sure this is happening, but I am sure that the cat is enjoying peeing in all the nice, newly loosened and moved, highly diggable dirt in my yard. You'd think I'd have learned from all those you-reap-what-you-sew lessons in cheesy horror movies and Buffy re-runs.
So when you see me walking down the street in the next few weeks itching my rashy arms, my legs covered in small punctures (but what a great skirt!) and you notice that a vague, yet overpowering smell of cat pee seems to be coming from my left shoe, you'll know what I've been up to. Just don't ask me if there's anything you can do to help. Mrah!
Monday, February 26, 2007
Porn-trapreneurs and other hazards of Modern Life
So my co-workers have decided that I'm too nice a girl not to be dating someone...either that or they'd like me to stop whining about not having a date for this or that event.
Whatever the reason, one of my co-workers who is, shall we say, a very modern thinker, thought it might be good to set me up with a friend of hers. Philosophy Ph.D., smart, cute, laid back, just bought his first house in my neighborhood. Great-sounding guy, by all accounts.
There's just one catch.
He doesn't work for a living. He makes a living off of his website. He never even has to do much with this web site. It just earns him money.
Hm. And now I suppose I'm going to see this website?
Yes. And you need to understand--there's no porn on it. He's not in the porn industry.
Okay, well, we'll risk pulling it up on my work computer.
Hm...it appears to be a portal full of well organized and categorized links. A veritable site map...
of porn sites.
No, my friends, he does not create porn; he never has to get his hands dirty. He merely organizes and links to the porn others have created. Gets something like a buck a click when people go through his site. I'd link to it here, except that that might make me what he is:
A porn-trapreneur! A veritable porn-ucopia of porn-formation.
Whatever the reason, one of my co-workers who is, shall we say, a very modern thinker, thought it might be good to set me up with a friend of hers. Philosophy Ph.D., smart, cute, laid back, just bought his first house in my neighborhood. Great-sounding guy, by all accounts.
There's just one catch.
He doesn't work for a living. He makes a living off of his website. He never even has to do much with this web site. It just earns him money.
Hm. And now I suppose I'm going to see this website?
Yes. And you need to understand--there's no porn on it. He's not in the porn industry.
Okay, well, we'll risk pulling it up on my work computer.
Hm...it appears to be a portal full of well organized and categorized links. A veritable site map...
of porn sites.
No, my friends, he does not create porn; he never has to get his hands dirty. He merely organizes and links to the porn others have created. Gets something like a buck a click when people go through his site. I'd link to it here, except that that might make me what he is:
A porn-trapreneur! A veritable porn-ucopia of porn-formation.
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