Jul 18th, 2008 • Response
Categories • Life, Travels
Tags • Bill O'Reilly, cat, Destroyer, family, Jacky‚ Bobby & Little, Megatron, Naples, pet, road trip, song lyrics, Telly, web design, WVFS-FM
Dueling cyclones jackknife.
They got eyes for your wife and the blood that lives in her heart.
Cast myself towards infinity.
Trust me, I had my reasons.
Had a dress for every season, it was worth it.
Pulled into town relatively free of hassle.
Secured a room at the castle, it paid for itself.
Checked out my surroundings, headed down to Thornton Park.
Find your way.
Discover that things are dark.
Shadowy figures babbling on about typical rural shit.
I wave bye to them in a modern way and increase my stay
At the dock of the bay.
Today begins my journey southward to visit family for three weeks. It's been a long time and I do miss them, but not enough to leave the computer at home. In fact, I will be bringing two. Plans include a stint at the beach; an afternoon with my father and Bill O'Reilly; and the usual disorienting nausea that accompanies these visits, as the city continues to grow uncontrollably beyond its means, recycling land space, erasing its history and discernible landmarks.
I also intend to put a good-sized dent in some of the planned projects for the official radio station website, as the recent creation of our first Web Department has allowed for such progress to take place. As this is something I have spent the last four years helping to fight for, I am both astounded and overjoyed at these recent developments. Additionally, my sister has broken ground on starting up a small business that she has been ruminating on for the past few years and I have offered to assist her in whatever way I can. This will likely include putting together a simple web presence for her, which also serves to ensure that much of my vacation will be spent in front of a computer screen, doing the same thing I do while I'm at home. To be honest, I have no objections.
More than anything, it will simply be good to be around family again. Mine is short in membership, simple and endearing. I have yet to meet our two newest additions (my mother and sister have each taken a new dog into their homes) and this reminds me that I am also excited to visit the animal shelter to meet all the new regulars and get a good fill of kitten therapy to start the fall semester off in the right frame of mind. As for my little guys, they will be greatly missed but well cared for by my grand army of loving friends (most notably, Telly and Megatron).
…To the roads!
Mar 2nd, 2008 • Response
Categories • Unspecified
Tags • cat, Clipmarks
Six handsome cats.
http://start.uber.com/cats
CATS CATS CATS
CATS CATS CATS
Nov 1st, 2007 • Response
Categories • Life
Tags • cat, Jacky‚ Bobby & Little, pet
My newest adoption and the latest addition to my family.
Jul 8th, 2007 • Response
Categories • Life
Tags • cat, Jacky‚ Bobby & Little, pet, photography
As much as I love my kitty companions, I often find myself annoyed with their stupidity. These feelings quickly subside when I remind myself that they are, after all, cats, and cannot be held to unfair human expectations. Like when I catch Jacky licking the residue from the surface of the bathtub, or when he insists on walking in front of me, then stopping every few feet to lie down, causing me to have to step over him—which really wouldn't be all that big of a deal if he didn't panic as soon as I started to step over him, altering his location while I'm mid-step and forcing ME to panic and quickly change course so that I don't step on him.
It's really not all that bad, in fact most of the time it can be downright entertaining. Like when I feed them both a treat, and Bobby appears absolutely clueless for upwards of thirty seconds unless I place the treat where he can specifically see it. My amusement quickly sours into frustration, however, on the not-so-rare occasions when he ultimately fails to find the treat before his brother has time to (a) finish his own treat, and (b) successfully locate and eat Bobby's treat. This is all typically preceded by a brief episode of me frantically pointing at the treat, sensing the urgency of the matter, while repeatedly saying something to the effect of, "it's right there!" (like that helps at all!), all the while Bobby sits dumbfounded, staring at my finger and not in the location it is pointing toward. The three of us have lived together for close to one year now, so I mustn't overlook the possibility that, having learned by now my principles of fairness, this could all be a ruse to get more treats. After all, if Jacky eats his treat, and then scores a second treat by stealing from his brother, then it's only fair for Bobby to have two treats. Such is how the events usually play out during "treat time."
Furthermore, experience has surely taught them that I am either (a) unwise to their clever conspiracy, or (b) not about to punish them for it. In their world, punishment has thus far amounted to being restricted from gaining access to certain parts of the apartment without supervision. This is the case with the bathroom and the closet, where, in both instances, they have proven themselves to be untrustworthy. Since their bathroom time is limited to my bathroom time, they get absurdly excited whenever they hear the bathroom door open, and come running inside like it were third grade recess or something. They even keep a supply of toys in the bathroom to entertain themselves during my extended "seated" sessions (presumably, one can only lick the bathtub for so long before it becomes tedious), and it is perhaps this behavior which I find to be most intriguing. I must be clear in saying that I did not place these toys in the bathroom myself, rather they were brought there by the cats. Since my actions do not forbid them from removing the toys from the bathroom whenever they please, I must conclude that they are either, (a) just as indifferent as I am, regarding the matter, or (b) leaving the toys there purposefully, establishing and maintaining a sort of enticing exclusivity about them. Their "toys," I might add, are seldom the colorful sort that one would expect to come across in the pet aisle of the supermarket, as they don't really prefer those. Maximum pleasure is found instead, in wadded up paper towels, pieces of paper, and plastic bottle caps.
Since it's just me and them in this little apartment of ours, we spend a great deal of time interacting with one another. We sleep together, converse with each other, and I periodically annoy them with the camera… 
Jun 5th, 2007 • Response
Categories • Life, Unspecified
Tags • cat, Jacky‚ Bobby & Little, photography
 |
Jacky
• polydactyl
• brave, loyal, cute
• BEEF rating: 12
|
 |
Bobby
• talks to walls
• shy, elusive, handsome
• BEEF rating: 16
|
Jun 4th, 2007 • Response
Categories • Travels
Tags • cat, Danville, Indianapolis, Jackie A, Jacky‚ Bobby & Little, road trip
On June 11th I will be departing Tallahassee — before the ass-crack of dawn — with the lovely and incomparable radio.heart.breaker, Jackie A. Together we will embark on a long and frightful journey, deep into the soft, jolly midsection of America known as The Indiana and The Illinois.
While the details of our motives must remain strictly hush-hush, I will try my best to keep my partisans updated as to my well-being during the entire course of my travels. If, however, luck would have it that a hideous fate befalls me, resulting in an abrupt end to all communication or my failure to return to Tallahassee by Sunday, June 17th, it would be good of someone to tend to the little ones.
More to come.
Jun 3rd, 2007 • Response
Categories • Life, Unspecified
Tags • cat, Jacky‚ Bobby & Little, photography
As it turns out, Jacky is considered a 6/5 polydactyl. Typically, cats have five toes on their forepaws, and four toes on their hindpaws - but Jacky has one extra digit on each of his four paws.
Hemmingway is, as I had suspected, a slang term for this condition, and quite possibly a misnomer as well. Polydactyl is the proper term (as in Polydactyl cat), and the condition is polydactyly (alternatively polydactylism or hyperdactyly/hyperdactylism).
May 27th, 2007 • Response
Categories • Life, Unspecified
Tags • cat, Jacky‚ Bobby & Little
Today marked Jacky's first attempt at man-cat play, and I am happy to report that he did a fine job. I've tried in the past to engage him, but these prior attempts always ended in failure as he got terribly confused and didn't seem to know how to react. Today's incident involved Jacky on the carpet while I was lying on my bed dangling a red networking cable over the edge, running it along the perimeter.
In other news, Bobby is still meowing at the walls.
Mar 15th, 2007 • Response
Categories • Life, Photos, Unspecified
Tags • cat, Jacky‚ Bobby & Little, pet, photography
Jacky and Bobby working their stuff.
| VIEW PHOTOS: |
 |
 |
Aug 15th, 2005 • Response
Categories • Unspecified
Tags • 28 Days Later, Abner, bananas, cat, coffee, David Sedaris, dogs, Hansel, humor, Livejournal, pet, Sandra Bullock, sister, spiders
Postscript The title of this post has nothing to do with the content. Not intentionally, at least. It is taken from a passage in the David Sedaris book Me Talk Pretty One Day and refers to the reaction by some of his relatives when his gay uncle asks to borrow a hair dryer. The book is funny as hell, and I highly recommend it, as well as anything else by Sedaris.
How is it that I can be fearful of something because of the way it moves?
Like spiders, for example. …Or those zombie-like creatures (they weren't really "zombies" by definition, right?) in the movie 28 Days Later… (which I always confuse titles with that awful Sandra Bullock flick 28 Days). Very quick, scariest when they are running or scurrying. Same parallels.
* * *
And in other news, I was eating a banana today, and Hansel was immediately interested, like he's been a lot lately any time anyone is eating or drinking anything (or in the case of coffee, preparing to drink something… i'll get to the coffee thing in a minute). But anyways, after making a few insane sounds at him, which is how we communicate, I pinched him off a little piece of banana and dropped it to the floor. He lost sight of it somewhere between my finger and the floor and kinda looked at me like, "What the fuck?" so I went through the motions… put index finger next to object, move it around a little so it looks more interesting until he eventually finds it and eats it. He sniffed it.. and HATED IT! He hated it to the point that he gave it that little face he gives when he smells something that a cat would find deplorable (like rubbing alcohol or something)–! He ran away to the other room, but then came back in when I made more crazy-person noises (the cat and I communicate using an ever-changing combination of about 8 sounds, four of them designated as "core" sounds, and the other four; a revolving cast of additional sounds that come and go… I'll get back to that, too). THEN…. he saw the banana. In my hand. Peel and all… but unpeeled, of course. The look of horror overtook his big-schnozzed face, and he ran away again! It made me question whether or not I should be eating the banana… but I did.
Oh, so the coffee thing…
Well, we've always known that Hansel had a thing for coffee, because if you leave your cup sitting where he can get to it, he'll drink from it. And once I caught him eating used coffee grounds that came from the garbage can. So one day, about a month or so ago, I decided to give him a little pinch of un-used coffee grounds. I put them on the floor and he ate them. This became a morning ritual for us, me and the cat, that went on for about a week. But then, he began meowing …violently… until I would give him his coffee ground fix. I decide this was probably not healthy for either of us, and I stopped giving it to him. The coffee ground treats have been discontinued for over a week now, but he still meows at me (or anyone else) when making coffee.
And the communication thing…
Inspired by my sister I guess, who talks like a retard to her Yorkshire Terrier, Abner, I began talking like a retard to the cat. The four "core" sounds cannot be accurately portrayed using traditional letters of the English alphabet, but I will do my best.
They are:
hahn
kee
myew
murrw
Additionally, other sounds are used off and on. Some of them include:
beef
meat
bahm
bee
geebee
gimm
________________________________________
Update: This morning Hansel reacted the same way to the banana. Peter was there as a witness this time.
