Old is Better
I went to an antique store today. Mostly because my sister is out of town and I promised to look after my mom while she was gone. Wandering through an antique store seemed like a safe option for doing something she'd find interesting while doing the best to preserve my sanity.
Antique stores are my favorite stores of all. Even more than bookstores and music emporiums, I love exploring a good store full of treasures. I love things with a history and given a choice between brand-new or one-of-a-kind I will always go for the story. So for me antique stores are like heaven. A cross between a museum and a candy store. I can get lost for hours turning the pages of yellowed books, looking at cast-off photos of other people's long-dead ancestors.
This one particular store was full of wonderful items albeit a bit pricey, though I did buy a vintage bow tie for Husband. But it confirmed for me that when it comes to shopping I either want nothing or I covet the most expensive item in the store. There was not an item there under $300 that I wanted for myself. I saw some vintage postcards a friend would probably love, and a poster for the 1898 Cal vs. Stanford big game that my pal, the Lurker, would no doubt squeal over. But for me? Everything I wanted was way out of my range. The gorgeous restored 1930s radio microphone ($800). The beautiful roll top desk ($1200). The completely impractical French vase, gilded in silver (a mere $8000). I fell in love with a Navajo bracelet of silver and turquoise ($295) and an Art Deco chandelier ($1200).
I tend not to spend a lot of money on myself, at least I hope I don't. Especially now when I'm not working. My only extravagance these days is on toys and other tools for cat duty (catnip, treats, balls). And that is, very much, for me. But my expensive tastes means that when I get to shop for myself, I either want absolutely nothing or I want a pony.
Saturday, August 01, 2009
Friday, July 31, 2009
I Love My "Job"
No pay. No benefits. But I love it.
OK, that's wrong. I get paid in purrs and head butts and the benefits bring more pleasure and satisfaction than I can express. I don't know why people don't have to pay to do what I do.
There are days when I miss money. And I do worry about the future. But on days like today, when a big orange tabby falls asleep in my lap; when a little grey kitten covers my face in kitten licks; when I give a cat who hasn't been out of his cage in days 30 minutes of freedom and love, it's the most wonderful gig in the world.
Every day when I go to the shelter I smile as I walk in. And by the time I walk out, I have a bigger smile. Oh, and in between coming and going, I'm smiling.
I feel guilty sometimes for not working. For making poor Husband earn all the money. For not pulling my share of the work in keeping us in rent and groceries. I feel like volunteering with the cats and kittens is the most selfish thing I've ever done. But right now, I'm also the happiest I can remember.
Sorry for gloating. But I love my "job."
No pay. No benefits. But I love it.
OK, that's wrong. I get paid in purrs and head butts and the benefits bring more pleasure and satisfaction than I can express. I don't know why people don't have to pay to do what I do.
There are days when I miss money. And I do worry about the future. But on days like today, when a big orange tabby falls asleep in my lap; when a little grey kitten covers my face in kitten licks; when I give a cat who hasn't been out of his cage in days 30 minutes of freedom and love, it's the most wonderful gig in the world.
Every day when I go to the shelter I smile as I walk in. And by the time I walk out, I have a bigger smile. Oh, and in between coming and going, I'm smiling.
I feel guilty sometimes for not working. For making poor Husband earn all the money. For not pulling my share of the work in keeping us in rent and groceries. I feel like volunteering with the cats and kittens is the most selfish thing I've ever done. But right now, I'm also the happiest I can remember.
Sorry for gloating. But I love my "job."
Thursday, July 30, 2009
Scenes from Silver Creek: Mrs. Murchison
Mrs. Murchison lived down the street from us in the only house I’ve ever known that was painted black. Contrary to this dismal impression, she was a sweet and friendly woman who knew, and actually liked, all the kids on the block. Hers was always the first house you went to on Halloween because she had full-sized Hershey bars for the kids on the block, not those little mini-bars everyone else gave out.
She lived alone and, to my knowledge, nobody had ever met Mr. Murchison. Her only companion was a fat orange tabby named Red. It wasn’t until I was in my late 20s that I realized what I thought was the longest-lived cat in history was, in fact, a series of look-alikes that she gave the same name. What can I say? I’m a little slow.
Mrs. Murchison had a showplace of a garden and could usually be found in her yard, in a faded white Gilligan hat and wearing purple gardening gloves. None of us could ever figure out where she got purple gloves, but she always had them. I remember as a child that she came to our Brownie meeting and taught us how to make “sit-upons.” This was something you sit upon while gardening. It was a stack of old newspaper tied with string and covered with a water-resistant fabric. All of us brainwashed Brownies dutifully made sit-upons for our poor mothers. I know for a fact that mine was never used as my mother’s idea of gardening was making sure the Christmas tree was taken down before New Year’s Eve.
But Mrs. Murchison, on her sit-upon, would spend hours in the garden, singing Beatles songs off-key to her Camilla bushes and calling her shrubs by name. She would often let us kids name her bushes and trees for her and I christened her dwarf lemon tree “Jerry.” “Jerry’s looking happy today,” she’d observe as she fastidiously checked for any harmful, wayward insect unlucky enough to cross her property line.
Mrs. Murchison would travel often, to far off places like Salt Lake City and Houston. She knew I loved postcards so she would frequently send me mail from her trips, always signed “Mrs. Murchison.”
Sadly, she died when I was in high school. Her house went to a distant nephew; it was sold and painted robin’s egg blue. And I heard the new people only gave out mini-sized candy at Halloween.
The odd thing about Mrs. Murchison is that nobody ever knew her first name.
Mrs. Murchison lived down the street from us in the only house I’ve ever known that was painted black. Contrary to this dismal impression, she was a sweet and friendly woman who knew, and actually liked, all the kids on the block. Hers was always the first house you went to on Halloween because she had full-sized Hershey bars for the kids on the block, not those little mini-bars everyone else gave out.
She lived alone and, to my knowledge, nobody had ever met Mr. Murchison. Her only companion was a fat orange tabby named Red. It wasn’t until I was in my late 20s that I realized what I thought was the longest-lived cat in history was, in fact, a series of look-alikes that she gave the same name. What can I say? I’m a little slow.
Mrs. Murchison had a showplace of a garden and could usually be found in her yard, in a faded white Gilligan hat and wearing purple gardening gloves. None of us could ever figure out where she got purple gloves, but she always had them. I remember as a child that she came to our Brownie meeting and taught us how to make “sit-upons.” This was something you sit upon while gardening. It was a stack of old newspaper tied with string and covered with a water-resistant fabric. All of us brainwashed Brownies dutifully made sit-upons for our poor mothers. I know for a fact that mine was never used as my mother’s idea of gardening was making sure the Christmas tree was taken down before New Year’s Eve.
But Mrs. Murchison, on her sit-upon, would spend hours in the garden, singing Beatles songs off-key to her Camilla bushes and calling her shrubs by name. She would often let us kids name her bushes and trees for her and I christened her dwarf lemon tree “Jerry.” “Jerry’s looking happy today,” she’d observe as she fastidiously checked for any harmful, wayward insect unlucky enough to cross her property line.
Mrs. Murchison would travel often, to far off places like Salt Lake City and Houston. She knew I loved postcards so she would frequently send me mail from her trips, always signed “Mrs. Murchison.”
Sadly, she died when I was in high school. Her house went to a distant nephew; it was sold and painted robin’s egg blue. And I heard the new people only gave out mini-sized candy at Halloween.
The odd thing about Mrs. Murchison is that nobody ever knew her first name.
Wednesday, July 29, 2009
Scenes from Silver Creek: The Pool
There was no public pool in Silver Creek and I never know anybody who had one well enough to get invited to their house. We also lacked the old swimming hole, a nearby lake, or anyplace else to take a dip. Silver Creek had stopped being much of a creek long before there was any real town. But Tiny Muddy Gulch Out By the Burger King is a bad name for a town.
But there was a pool at the high school, just down the block from where we lived. We lived so close that I could be scrambling into clothes in my room, hear the 10 minute warning bell for first period, and still make it class on time. And on hot summer nights, when I slept with my window open, I could hear the boing-clunk of the high dive as someone braver than I climbed the fence and went for a swim.
There was a 15-high foot wall around the pool, topped with about another 6 feet of chain link fence. But the design of the wall had this diagonal pillars that were perfect for scrambling up, like walking up a tilted palm tree for the cocoanuts above. So you scrambled up on the side where the chain link met the side of the boy’s gym, crawled under the bit someone had cut out years ago, and hopped down onto to bleachers.
When I was a kid I would dream about that pool. Apparently I had very dull dreams as a child. But I invested it with all the glories of every poolside oasis you can imagine. Why I thought a high school pool had lounge chairs beach balls, I have no clue. But it my small-town mind it seemed so enticing. And so daring to sneak in.
Imagine my disappointment freshman year when I saw it was just an ugly L-shaped pool surrounded by cracked concrete and smelling highly of chlorine that always needed to be changed. The high dive, however, was infinitely higher in person. Terrifyingly high. Empire State Building High. It would be impossible for anyone to go off that thing and live. You’d have to be Evel Kinevel.
For four years of high school I endured freezing first period swims when the pool hadn’t been heated all weekend. I shivered in the lukewarm showers after. I ran to second period with wet hair, smelling all bleachy from the pool. And I never went off the high dive. Me? No way. In spite of rampaging hormones and my perpetual lack of a boyfriend, I didn’t have a death wish. Oh sure I’d seen people dive and live. But they were miraculous people. Cheerleaders. Football players. Girls with breasts. Boys without acne. The kind of kids who always run out of pages in their yearbooks for people to sign. The indestructibles.
But I was a fringe kid, and fringe kids are always delicate. We do not survive jumps off the high dive. I know, because my mother, the Queen of Doom, told me. “Don’t jump off the high dive, it’ll kill you.” Gee, thanks mom. Way to boost the confidence there.
Of course in my senior year, emboldened by a stole bottle of Boone’s Farm Apple Wine and egged on by my best friends, I clambered up the slanted pillars, climbed under the fence, jumped onto the bleachers, walked with trembling legs to the high dive and started up the ladder. I climbed for a month and a half. And then I stood there for another month and a half. Babies were conceived in the time I stood there. We got a new mayor. I grew my hair out a full 2 inches. My friends went away to college and got majors.
You could see my house from up there, which made it worse. I knew it was too far to my mom to see any features on the fool kid about to drown herself. But with mom radar, I couldn’t be entire sure that she was’t aware. Stupidly, I waved. Like what? I thought th chimney might bow down and bless my last stupid act on the planet. I a\imagined the police and maybe a clergyperson or two coming to break the news. Mom clutching her apron and weeping into the Kleenex she always had up her sleeve; her paroxysms of grief lessened by her ability to add “I told her if she went off the high dive she’d die and I was right! Wasn’t I right? I’m right and she’s dead.” Great fun for her, no so much for everyone listening to. Meanwhile my dad would wander vaguely around the house, looking at family photos in the hopes of putting a face to this supposedly thoughtless dead daughter that he cannot quite, at this minute, picture.
But, alas, the joyous speculation about how my funreal goal (I really wanted a horse and carriage) I knew I had to do something and do it soon. Why? Because I really needed to pee and I was determined NOT to climb down that ladder,. That struck me as the nadir of loserville, climbing up Everest and then come slinking down the ladder of shame while your friends laugh and snap Polaroids that prove you wussied out.
So I stood for a couple of minutes more. Our country invaded some other country. My friends in college had already graduation and had two kids I’d hope one was name after me so that at least my would be remembered,
I took a my last huge lunful of sweet, well chlorieney, air walked with as much bravado as 17 year old can muster, and jumped.
And, what do you know? Mom was wrong.
There was no public pool in Silver Creek and I never know anybody who had one well enough to get invited to their house. We also lacked the old swimming hole, a nearby lake, or anyplace else to take a dip. Silver Creek had stopped being much of a creek long before there was any real town. But Tiny Muddy Gulch Out By the Burger King is a bad name for a town.
But there was a pool at the high school, just down the block from where we lived. We lived so close that I could be scrambling into clothes in my room, hear the 10 minute warning bell for first period, and still make it class on time. And on hot summer nights, when I slept with my window open, I could hear the boing-clunk of the high dive as someone braver than I climbed the fence and went for a swim.
There was a 15-high foot wall around the pool, topped with about another 6 feet of chain link fence. But the design of the wall had this diagonal pillars that were perfect for scrambling up, like walking up a tilted palm tree for the cocoanuts above. So you scrambled up on the side where the chain link met the side of the boy’s gym, crawled under the bit someone had cut out years ago, and hopped down onto to bleachers.
When I was a kid I would dream about that pool. Apparently I had very dull dreams as a child. But I invested it with all the glories of every poolside oasis you can imagine. Why I thought a high school pool had lounge chairs beach balls, I have no clue. But it my small-town mind it seemed so enticing. And so daring to sneak in.
Imagine my disappointment freshman year when I saw it was just an ugly L-shaped pool surrounded by cracked concrete and smelling highly of chlorine that always needed to be changed. The high dive, however, was infinitely higher in person. Terrifyingly high. Empire State Building High. It would be impossible for anyone to go off that thing and live. You’d have to be Evel Kinevel.
For four years of high school I endured freezing first period swims when the pool hadn’t been heated all weekend. I shivered in the lukewarm showers after. I ran to second period with wet hair, smelling all bleachy from the pool. And I never went off the high dive. Me? No way. In spite of rampaging hormones and my perpetual lack of a boyfriend, I didn’t have a death wish. Oh sure I’d seen people dive and live. But they were miraculous people. Cheerleaders. Football players. Girls with breasts. Boys without acne. The kind of kids who always run out of pages in their yearbooks for people to sign. The indestructibles.
But I was a fringe kid, and fringe kids are always delicate. We do not survive jumps off the high dive. I know, because my mother, the Queen of Doom, told me. “Don’t jump off the high dive, it’ll kill you.” Gee, thanks mom. Way to boost the confidence there.
Of course in my senior year, emboldened by a stole bottle of Boone’s Farm Apple Wine and egged on by my best friends, I clambered up the slanted pillars, climbed under the fence, jumped onto the bleachers, walked with trembling legs to the high dive and started up the ladder. I climbed for a month and a half. And then I stood there for another month and a half. Babies were conceived in the time I stood there. We got a new mayor. I grew my hair out a full 2 inches. My friends went away to college and got majors.
You could see my house from up there, which made it worse. I knew it was too far to my mom to see any features on the fool kid about to drown herself. But with mom radar, I couldn’t be entire sure that she was’t aware. Stupidly, I waved. Like what? I thought th chimney might bow down and bless my last stupid act on the planet. I a\imagined the police and maybe a clergyperson or two coming to break the news. Mom clutching her apron and weeping into the Kleenex she always had up her sleeve; her paroxysms of grief lessened by her ability to add “I told her if she went off the high dive she’d die and I was right! Wasn’t I right? I’m right and she’s dead.” Great fun for her, no so much for everyone listening to. Meanwhile my dad would wander vaguely around the house, looking at family photos in the hopes of putting a face to this supposedly thoughtless dead daughter that he cannot quite, at this minute, picture.
But, alas, the joyous speculation about how my funreal goal (I really wanted a horse and carriage) I knew I had to do something and do it soon. Why? Because I really needed to pee and I was determined NOT to climb down that ladder,. That struck me as the nadir of loserville, climbing up Everest and then come slinking down the ladder of shame while your friends laugh and snap Polaroids that prove you wussied out.
So I stood for a couple of minutes more. Our country invaded some other country. My friends in college had already graduation and had two kids I’d hope one was name after me so that at least my would be remembered,
I took a my last huge lunful of sweet, well chlorieney, air walked with as much bravado as 17 year old can muster, and jumped.
And, what do you know? Mom was wrong.
Random Catchin Up Bits
--Harry Potter vs. Voldemort rap:
--American Cancer Society Cake
-- My new favorite time waster Totally Looks Like
--Harry Potter vs. Voldemort rap:
--American Cancer Society Cake
-- My new favorite time waster Totally Looks Like
Tuesday, July 28, 2009
Monday, July 27, 2009
Sunday, July 26, 2009
Saturday, July 25, 2009
Eavesdropping
Overheard at the shelter
Woman one (who was adopting two kittens): I'm going to name them Diego and Freda.
Woman two: You can't name them after lovers, they're brother and sister!
......
Not really eavesdropping as this woman at the shelter was talking to me
"I want to adopt a another cat because my kitty, Princess Maxine Pussyboots is lonely."
(Princess Maxine Pussyboots???!!!)
.....
Overheard at the grocery store
Man (on cell phone) in the wine aisle: I prefer red, she prefers white. So I think I'll get red. Besides, I think I'm going to break up with her anyway.
Overheard at the shelter
Woman one (who was adopting two kittens): I'm going to name them Diego and Freda.
Woman two: You can't name them after lovers, they're brother and sister!
......
Not really eavesdropping as this woman at the shelter was talking to me
"I want to adopt a another cat because my kitty, Princess Maxine Pussyboots is lonely."
(Princess Maxine Pussyboots???!!!)
.....
Overheard at the grocery store
Man (on cell phone) in the wine aisle: I prefer red, she prefers white. So I think I'll get red. Besides, I think I'm going to break up with her anyway.
Scenes from Silver Creek: Keeper of the Keys
Back in the dim mists of time, some enterprising student at Silver Creek High found, stole, or otherwise acquired a set of master keys to the school. For many years most students thought this was just a legend designed to intrigue gullible freshmen. But these keys were not a legend they were real. And they were handed down from generation to generation (OK, from one outgoing senior to a suitable junior) throughout most of my memory.
The keys were never used maliciously, which was always amazing. No theft. No graffiti or vandalizing. Just practical jokes of varying degrees of imagination and daring. There was the year all the jars of pickled dead critters from the biology lab ended up in the girl’s locker room. The time all the chairs in the library were stacked on the tables in a series of impressively unstable pyramids. And the time when the floor of the cafeteria was covered with a giant Twister board.
In my freshman year, the pool was turned into a giant luau complete with tiki torches and a grass shack hut. A surfboard and a large inflatable shark bobbed around the deep end and there was an endless loop of Beach Boys and Sam and Dave music playing. In my sophomore year I was let in on the secret when a friend’s older brother was keeper of the keys and he needed help switching all the desks, bookcases, and posters from the English classroom with the furniture in the chemistry lab. It took a lot of stealth and two weekend days, but we did it. Shakespeare now presided over the rows of gas jets and steel sinks. And the walls were lined with Dickens, Hemingway, and Austen. While in the other classroom Madame Curie looked down with French inscrutability upon Bunsen burners, microscopes, and test tubes place on desks, rather than long tables, and presided over by a large Oscar Wilde quotation painted on the ceiling.
Oddly enough, the administration never did much. They’d give the usual serious announcement over the loudspeaker system and talk in stern tones about suspension and detention. But, in actual fact, they seemed as amused by the whole thing as the rest of us. All year long people would wait for the joke and speculate on who would be behind it and what it would be. I remember hearing several teachers laughing at the ingenuity of the joker who took everything out of the principal’s office and set it up in the main hallway.
The last week of my junior year I was stunned when Malcolm Headley told me I’d been chosen to be keeper of the keys. I couldn’t understand why, but I wasn’t about to refuse. All summer long I plotted who I would let in on the secret and what my contribution to local lore would be. Eventually I swore my two best friends, Carmen Martinez and Sean Logan, to secrecy and the three of us began to set into motion our version of the grand plan. It involved a lot of babysitting and minimum wage jobs to pay for all the needed props. Then it just required the right time. The week before the drama club produced “West Side Story” was our cue.
We went in after their last dress rehearsal and made the balcony look more Romeo than rumble. Then we hit the biology lab for Heckle and Jeckle, the two plastic skeletons that stood like naked sentries on either side of the blackboard. These we moved to the theatre and dressed them the closest we could find to Renaissance wear from the costume shop. Heckle, as Juliet, completely with long blond wig, we placed on the balcony, turning her, well, it really into a sort of “come hither my long-lost skeleton lover” stance.
Jeckle we got down on one knee, with the aid of some legos and rubber bands. He wore black tights we bought for a buck at the thrift store and some sort of brocade cloak thing and a big flowered hat. That hat we also got from the thrift store and it would cause some amusement as it had often been seen on the mousy head of Mrs. Caspitor, the choir mistress at St. Edith’s.
We then filled every seat in theatre with stuffed animals, potted plants, bits of sporting equipment, even a life size cardboard cutout of David Hasselhoff (in the front row, of course.) We put more animals on the stage and gave them violins and flutes to set the music. We tried for a tuba but discovered your average teddy bear is incapable of supporting a tuba.
And the final step was to sneak into the library for the classic recordings section for the recording of Orson Welles and Romeo with miss forgettable (and I’m sure she was famous, but it was a long time ago) doing the balcony scene. Sean figured out a way to using fishing line and some small electric gears to move the arms of the “actors”. So when everything, lights, the recording, the movements came together it was the freakiest thing I’d ever seen.
The reactions upon the next school day were universal. I actually heard about it before I left home, someone called to tell me the keeper of the keys had acted and I had to get my ass down to the theatre. The place was packed, four deep trying to get in, even the faculty had to push through. And it didn’t disappoint. It was surreal and imaginative, and quirky and kind of cute. I was damned proud of myself all day.
The only thing left to do was to pass of the keys to the next keeper…
Back in the dim mists of time, some enterprising student at Silver Creek High found, stole, or otherwise acquired a set of master keys to the school. For many years most students thought this was just a legend designed to intrigue gullible freshmen. But these keys were not a legend they were real. And they were handed down from generation to generation (OK, from one outgoing senior to a suitable junior) throughout most of my memory.
The keys were never used maliciously, which was always amazing. No theft. No graffiti or vandalizing. Just practical jokes of varying degrees of imagination and daring. There was the year all the jars of pickled dead critters from the biology lab ended up in the girl’s locker room. The time all the chairs in the library were stacked on the tables in a series of impressively unstable pyramids. And the time when the floor of the cafeteria was covered with a giant Twister board.
In my freshman year, the pool was turned into a giant luau complete with tiki torches and a grass shack hut. A surfboard and a large inflatable shark bobbed around the deep end and there was an endless loop of Beach Boys and Sam and Dave music playing. In my sophomore year I was let in on the secret when a friend’s older brother was keeper of the keys and he needed help switching all the desks, bookcases, and posters from the English classroom with the furniture in the chemistry lab. It took a lot of stealth and two weekend days, but we did it. Shakespeare now presided over the rows of gas jets and steel sinks. And the walls were lined with Dickens, Hemingway, and Austen. While in the other classroom Madame Curie looked down with French inscrutability upon Bunsen burners, microscopes, and test tubes place on desks, rather than long tables, and presided over by a large Oscar Wilde quotation painted on the ceiling.
Oddly enough, the administration never did much. They’d give the usual serious announcement over the loudspeaker system and talk in stern tones about suspension and detention. But, in actual fact, they seemed as amused by the whole thing as the rest of us. All year long people would wait for the joke and speculate on who would be behind it and what it would be. I remember hearing several teachers laughing at the ingenuity of the joker who took everything out of the principal’s office and set it up in the main hallway.
The last week of my junior year I was stunned when Malcolm Headley told me I’d been chosen to be keeper of the keys. I couldn’t understand why, but I wasn’t about to refuse. All summer long I plotted who I would let in on the secret and what my contribution to local lore would be. Eventually I swore my two best friends, Carmen Martinez and Sean Logan, to secrecy and the three of us began to set into motion our version of the grand plan. It involved a lot of babysitting and minimum wage jobs to pay for all the needed props. Then it just required the right time. The week before the drama club produced “West Side Story” was our cue.
We went in after their last dress rehearsal and made the balcony look more Romeo than rumble. Then we hit the biology lab for Heckle and Jeckle, the two plastic skeletons that stood like naked sentries on either side of the blackboard. These we moved to the theatre and dressed them the closest we could find to Renaissance wear from the costume shop. Heckle, as Juliet, completely with long blond wig, we placed on the balcony, turning her, well, it really into a sort of “come hither my long-lost skeleton lover” stance.
Jeckle we got down on one knee, with the aid of some legos and rubber bands. He wore black tights we bought for a buck at the thrift store and some sort of brocade cloak thing and a big flowered hat. That hat we also got from the thrift store and it would cause some amusement as it had often been seen on the mousy head of Mrs. Caspitor, the choir mistress at St. Edith’s.
We then filled every seat in theatre with stuffed animals, potted plants, bits of sporting equipment, even a life size cardboard cutout of David Hasselhoff (in the front row, of course.) We put more animals on the stage and gave them violins and flutes to set the music. We tried for a tuba but discovered your average teddy bear is incapable of supporting a tuba.
And the final step was to sneak into the library for the classic recordings section for the recording of Orson Welles and Romeo with miss forgettable (and I’m sure she was famous, but it was a long time ago) doing the balcony scene. Sean figured out a way to using fishing line and some small electric gears to move the arms of the “actors”. So when everything, lights, the recording, the movements came together it was the freakiest thing I’d ever seen.
The reactions upon the next school day were universal. I actually heard about it before I left home, someone called to tell me the keeper of the keys had acted and I had to get my ass down to the theatre. The place was packed, four deep trying to get in, even the faculty had to push through. And it didn’t disappoint. It was surreal and imaginative, and quirky and kind of cute. I was damned proud of myself all day.
The only thing left to do was to pass of the keys to the next keeper…
Photo of the day: The Angel Does Not Approve
Is it just me or is this one disapproving cherubim? Did she not like the guy and is, therefore, unhappy that he's up there playing in the eternal floating crap game in the sky? She doesn't look sad, more disappointed. Maybe she wanted a better gig, standing over someone famous instead of some random dead Californian.
Is it just me or is this one disapproving cherubim? Did she not like the guy and is, therefore, unhappy that he's up there playing in the eternal floating crap game in the sky? She doesn't look sad, more disappointed. Maybe she wanted a better gig, standing over someone famous instead of some random dead Californian.
Friday, July 24, 2009
Cooper Goes Home
The only bad thing about volunteering at the shelter is that sometimes you become very attached to certain animals and you miss them when they're adopted.
Cooper was very special to me. I loved that cat and always made her my first visit of the day. I would look forward to her crawling into my lap, giving out with her rusty purr, and enjoy the cuddling. Well today she went to an off-site adoption event and found a home.
Of course I am thrilled. I am so happy to know she no longer has to live in a cage and that she can have a lap whenever she wants. Somebody got very lucky today and found that once-in-a-lifetime pet that will brighten their days and make their nights warmer.
But personally, I am sad. I shall lose all my cold, heartless bitch street cred when I admit that when I found out she'd been adopted, I cried. How much of a softie am I?
It's purely selfish, of course. I am going to miss her very much. I wanted to much to adopt her, but I know from sad experience that Cipher doesn't like to share. But I think she's one of those special cats I'll always remember.
I envy whoever got to take her home, and I hope everyone has a long and happy life together. But for me, it's a bittersweet celebration. She has finally found the forever home and the love she deserves, but it's going to be hard going into the shelter next week and know she won't come to the front of her cage to greet me as soon as she hears my voice.
Bye Cooper. Be happy, you deserve it. And thanks for all the lap time, I'll never forget you.
The only bad thing about volunteering at the shelter is that sometimes you become very attached to certain animals and you miss them when they're adopted.
Cooper was very special to me. I loved that cat and always made her my first visit of the day. I would look forward to her crawling into my lap, giving out with her rusty purr, and enjoy the cuddling. Well today she went to an off-site adoption event and found a home.
Of course I am thrilled. I am so happy to know she no longer has to live in a cage and that she can have a lap whenever she wants. Somebody got very lucky today and found that once-in-a-lifetime pet that will brighten their days and make their nights warmer.
But personally, I am sad. I shall lose all my cold, heartless bitch street cred when I admit that when I found out she'd been adopted, I cried. How much of a softie am I?
It's purely selfish, of course. I am going to miss her very much. I wanted to much to adopt her, but I know from sad experience that Cipher doesn't like to share. But I think she's one of those special cats I'll always remember.
I envy whoever got to take her home, and I hope everyone has a long and happy life together. But for me, it's a bittersweet celebration. She has finally found the forever home and the love she deserves, but it's going to be hard going into the shelter next week and know she won't come to the front of her cage to greet me as soon as she hears my voice.
Bye Cooper. Be happy, you deserve it. And thanks for all the lap time, I'll never forget you.
The Case of the Traveling Luggage Tag
Cipher (The World's Most Amazing Cat, Screw You if You Don't Agree tm) is a bit of a sneak thief. She's "a picker-up of unconsidered trifles." If it's in reach (and sometimes even if it's out of reach) and can fit in her mouth, she'll nab it. Pens. Power cords. Pieces of mail. Sometimes she just pulls them off a table, and then leaps back in surprise when they actually fall. Often she'll strut into the room with something in her mouth as if to say "look what I just stole because you were stupid enough to leave it where I could get to it."
We have a leather luggage tag that is currently making the rounds. It was on the floor of the closet in the music room. Then it was in the middle of the music room. Since then it's been circumnavigating the house, going on it's own world tour. A luggage tag traveling light, without luggage. It was by the bed yesterday. In the kitchen last night. And now it's sitting by my feed in the middle of the living room.
Unlike her other crimes, I've not actually seen the tag in her mouth. So perhaps I am maligning her unfairly. Maybe she is innocent and the tag is moving itself around the house, playing its own little game of freeze tag. But I have a feeling Cipher is behind it.
Right now she's sitting in her favorite perch, in the front window. Her back to me and the room; purposely ignoring the moveable tag. But I have a feeling when I come home from cat duty later today, the tag will have once again migrated to another room. And there Cipher will sit, all innocence, pretending she knows nothing about the case of the traveling luggage tag.
Cipher (The World's Most Amazing Cat, Screw You if You Don't Agree tm) is a bit of a sneak thief. She's "a picker-up of unconsidered trifles." If it's in reach (and sometimes even if it's out of reach) and can fit in her mouth, she'll nab it. Pens. Power cords. Pieces of mail. Sometimes she just pulls them off a table, and then leaps back in surprise when they actually fall. Often she'll strut into the room with something in her mouth as if to say "look what I just stole because you were stupid enough to leave it where I could get to it."
We have a leather luggage tag that is currently making the rounds. It was on the floor of the closet in the music room. Then it was in the middle of the music room. Since then it's been circumnavigating the house, going on it's own world tour. A luggage tag traveling light, without luggage. It was by the bed yesterday. In the kitchen last night. And now it's sitting by my feed in the middle of the living room.
Unlike her other crimes, I've not actually seen the tag in her mouth. So perhaps I am maligning her unfairly. Maybe she is innocent and the tag is moving itself around the house, playing its own little game of freeze tag. But I have a feeling Cipher is behind it.
Right now she's sitting in her favorite perch, in the front window. Her back to me and the room; purposely ignoring the moveable tag. But I have a feeling when I come home from cat duty later today, the tag will have once again migrated to another room. And there Cipher will sit, all innocence, pretending she knows nothing about the case of the traveling luggage tag.
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