Okay. If you don’t live, work, or talk with me on a regular basis (you’re probably better off, but…) I’ll bet your curiosity was somewhat piqued by the upcoming topics which ended my previous blog update. Let’s start with the sack of dead kittens, shall we?
If you’re a regular reader of this periodic bullshit, you’ll know that I live with a distant relative of Doctor Doolittle… third cousin, twice removed, or some such nonsense. Tina is like an animal magnet; if it’s got fur or feathers, it’ll be at my back door looking for attention or food. There’s almost a goddamn zoo in my back yard at any given time — neighbors’ dogs, rabbits, deer, birds, and stray cats. Across the road, there’s a rooster that cock-a-doodle-doos all goddamn night at a mercury-vapor yard light. Poor bird is more confused than a blind lesbian lost in a fish market. I should set up turnstiles and collect admission… sell popcorn, hot dogs, and soda. There’s been stray cats coming to the back door for years. I’d like to say there’s been a fucking parade of pussy at my house but someone would throw the bullshit flag, I’m sure.
One of the descendants of these mangy feline bitches had her own litter of kittens. This latest batch of felidae happiness is like the third or fourth generation. I thought we may have escaped the cavalcade of cat fucking this year, but I should be so lucky. Tina and I were barbecuing one evening, and we thought we saw little paws and a little tail under the crawlspace cover. Sure enough, the next day, there were three kittens frolicking on the patio. A closer count revealed there were four. Sonofabitch. It wasn’t long before they were getting attention from Tina, who was already leaving water for the heard of creatures that adopted my back yard as their wildlife preserve. I swear I’m going to change my last name to Perkins.
Long story quasi-short, we weren’t feeding the cats. Mama cat was hunting and bringing food “home” for her babies. For as many animals that enter my back yard, there were twice as many dead gophers, dead baby bunnies, dead mice, dead snakes, dead moles — all without heads — that were left on my patio. Why the fuck do cats eat the head first? Like foods high in omega-3 fatty acids, maybe it’s “brain” food. Ha! I crack myself up.
Then we saw the kittens acting lethargic. One Sunday afternoon it started to rain. Before the rain, one of the kittens was sleeping in the yard, enjoying the sunshine. Once the rain started, I notice the kitten still in the yard getting wet. I thought that was odd for a cat, but, the next time I looked outside the kitten was on the patio. By the evening, one kitten was in the water dish, up to it’s chest in water, and another had its paws on the rim. They weren’t responding to noises or “hissing” sounds to scare them out of the water. I did some Googling, and we believe they had feline distemper. Hell, they could have eaten a poisoned mouse or rat and fell victim to the poison. It could even have been antifreeze poisoning. We don’t really know.
By Monday morning, there were three dead kittens on the patio. The fourth looked stronger and might live through the ordeal. When I got home Monday evening, I went outside with a shovel and a garbage bag to dispose of the kittens. It was like The Kitty Killing Fields out there; the patio was littered with the carcasses of tiny little cats. What are you supposed to do with a trio of dead cats? There’s all kinds of jokes about swinging dead cats, but they’re somehow not as funny when you’re staring into a plastic bag o’ feline death. “You can’t swing a sack of dead kittens in Portland without hitting a drunk, pill-popping, no balls pillow biter.” Well, maybe those jokes are still funny. Oh, relax! It’s not like I said, “You can’t swing a sack of dead Jews in New York City without hitting a Arab taxi driver.”
Anyway, back to the heart-warming story of what to do with a bag of lifeless baby cats. Tina said I should bury them. Yeah, let me dig a deep hole in the back yard and create a kitten mass grave. Who am I, Hitler? Screw that. It’s too much work. They ended up in the trash dumpster. Island Disposal trucks its garbage to Seattle, where it’s put on a train heading to the Beaver State. That means there’s a sack of dead kittens decomposing in a landfill in Arlington, Oregon. Rest in peace, little ones, with the used condoms, banana peels, bloody Band-Aids, shitty diapers, coffee grounds, empty beer cans, and used tampons of Washington State.
To make this story even sadder than it already is, the fourth kitten died on Tuesday night and followed its siblings on the next train to Oregon. Mama cat continues to meow and call to her dead babies. Yep. Life is fun at my house.
I’ll follow that uplifting story with a hilarious story of cock waving. As you should all know by now I commute to Seattle on a daily basis. One day in August, we’re heading back to Oak Harbor, sitting in downtown Seattle traffic. We’re behind a bus waiting for the traffic light at Howell and Boren when we see what appears to be a local whack job on the sidewalk making lurid gestures at the passengers of the bus. This was highly amusing to watch. He was pointing at the bus, grabbing his crotch, and muttering something in “whack jobese,” which is a relatively new language based on the highly complicated mutterings of the North America Retard.
He grew tired of the bus and continued on his happy way, and we knew we were next. He saw LDriver watching him and started hollering, “What? What?!” LDriver decided to fuck with the guy and blow him a kiss. I don’t know what went through this nutter’s brain, but he proceeded to unzip his pants, drop trou, and wave his scrote and shlong at us. Jesus Christ! Everyone in the car broke out in uproarious laughter! People in other cars were laughing! Wotta riot!
LDriver thinks the guy’s perfectly sane. Why? Because his response to people watching him is to demonstrate the mechanics of a mushroom tattoo? I personally think the dude’s as unbalanced as FOX News at a Democratic National Convention. Here you have some weirdo, obviously a few McNuggets shy of a Happy Meal, shaking his grapes at us like there’s not a bus load of people watching him! What the fuck? How can he not be crazy?
When the light changed green and we started moving, Mr. Dick Flapper was still standing there with his hand full of frank and beans. LDriver yelled out, “It’s got to be bigger. Much bigger!” It was hysterical, and I was too shocked to snap a picture with my phone! Shit! We still laugh at that today, more than a month and a half after it happened. Good times!
Thinking about the other topics I have left to write about, I think I’ll skip one. I have a tale of Tina’s sister Michelle, who ended up in the hospital with life-threatening injuries. However, I don’t feel comfortable writing about her dire condition, so I think I’ll let Tina do the talking. When she writes about it, I’ll link to her blog entry… or you could just subscribe to her blog to keep up. No one’s really sure how she ended up in the condition she’s in, but the police are finally involved. Certain members of her immediate family are fucking inconsiderate, selfish, “what’s-in-it-for-me” asstards who should be ashamed, absolutely ashamed of themselves for attempting to use the situation for financial gain! They know who they are, and I don’t give a tiny peanut-shaped shitlet if they read this. Let them come up to Seattle and confront me face-to-face. C’mon, motherfuckers, I goddamn dare you!
Let’s move on. I don’t need to stroke out over all that drama.
If you haven’t figured it out, I obfuscate the name of the company I work for, and only mention them as “The Company.” I pretend I work for some covert Government-funded project called “The Company,” or some such shit, just to keep a modicum of anonymity. In reality, I work a humdrum job for an ISP‘s Hosting/Domain Registry department in a Seattle skyscraper. I make sure people’s web sites are on the, uh, Internets.
Late last month, we had our company picnic. The Company catered the affair with pulled pork, beef, and baked chicken, with baked beans, corn bread, lots of beer, and other picnic type foods. Why we don’t just cook hamburgers and hot dogs on the grill at a BARBECUE, is beyond me. I guess pulled pork is an American barbecue food. Hey, free food is free food, and who am I to complain?
Before the picnic, one of my co-workers and I were jabbering about cheesecake. She read my Rocket Science blog update about cheesecake and cheesesteaks, and we decided to bake cheesecakes for the picnic. We didn’t tell anyone, we just agreed to make cheesecakes. Of course, it turned into a friendly competition between us. We talked smack about each others cheesecakes before they were even baked. When we showed up at the picnic, we had our cheesecakes ready. Here’s a picture of mine, and here’s a picture of hers. Mine had real Ghirardelli chocolate on it, and was made with 6 bricks of authentic Philadelphia cream cheese. Her’s had hand-picked blackberries from Issaquah. BlackBerrys are for email, not cheesecake. Mine was thick and hearty, sure to give you a heart attack like a good New York-style cheesecake should. Her’s was thin and creamy, like it came from a box. I’m sure to catch shit for poking fun of her cheesecake… but it’s just that, poking fun. Her cheesecake really was very tasty.
Once The Company found out we were having this little bake-off going on, they turned it into a full-blown competition, with voting and a prize. Most everyone got a tiny sliver of each cake, and they had to vote by placing a raffle ticket in a cup representing my cake or hers. When the votes were cast and tallied, she won by a vote of 13 to 12. I demanded a recount, as I’m sure there were hanging chads somewhere, goddammit! Her prize, get this, was a gift card to The Cheesecake Factory. How ironic. We both agreed the contest was a tie, since both cakes were very good, and the voting was so Floridaesque.
And I know I mentioned an upcoming move… but I think I’ll take a pass on that, too. When I know more and can safely talk about it… you’ll be the last to know, I promise. Besides, I’m tired of typing. You got two blog updates in one week. Go get drunk, smoke weed, rejoice, wave a flag, hump redheads on your lunch break… something… just leave me alone for a bit. I gots a life!