funday

My starter is still broken - to be fixed this week - and I haven't got so much as a spare dollar, so today is sort of odd, quiet, and boring. Happens sometimes, I guess.

All my hangout friends are night time people.
I'd go for a walk, but it's 98 degrees outside and I would die. Possibly literally.
I have data entry I need to do for the upcoming festival, but really?
There's trivia to be written for tomorrow, but I'm not feeling inspired.
Had I a car, I could maybe get laid, but that will have to wait.
I could clean, but fuck it.

Hmm. Fuck it. I think that may be the phrase I'm looking for here.

Upsides:
Not at the local Mexican restaurant drinking two for one margaritas and eating tacos, thereby upsetting my plans for healthier eating.
Eventually I will get bored enough to get some work done.
This isn't my general situation or attitude, so I don't feel guilty about wallowing in cabin fever a little.
My cat is really cute. Here is a picture of Johnny trying to help distract me.

No, I don't wear a shirt when working on the computer. This is Florida.

a moment

Johnny Karate, lolling in the tub. He did not expect to be suddenly covered in catnip! Oh, the meeping and writhing. Oh, the licking and rolling. Now he's looking off into space, occasionally twitching, cleaning his paws without a care. High cat, living the kitty dream.

thank you, Joanna, for this cat

Johnny Karate is a scroungy little bastard, but I love him. He started out among the horde in a hoarder's house and wound up looking at me through the bars of a cage, ready for rescue. I'd just lost my evil familiar Bagheera, the most amazingly violent cat ever hatched, an elegant villain in a black and white tux. I missed her and wanted an orange male or something equally unlike her.

Instead I picked up this scrawny baby, curled him into a ball on his back, and tucked him into the crook of my arm. He accepted it, calmly meeping, and so it was done. He had hernia surgery - he's not a healthy boy - and came home to papa. Look how pitiful, poor little guy.

Took me about two weeks to figure out that my cat was broken. Sweet as sugar, friendly as you could hope for, and so sick that I first named him Humbert Humbert. This is gross, but he pooped constantly. All the time. On everything. Runny, horrible poop. For a while, I just gave up having anyone over. We suffered through six months before I figured out, through trial and error, that if I fed him gluten-free food he'd be okay. You have no idea, the sheer relief when he started to get better and I realized I wouldn't have to put him down. I replaced all my cloth-covered furniture, ruined and stained. I moved into a new apartment. I invited friends to hang out.

During those six dark months of poop, my little guy also survived a fever that scrambled his brain. He's not bright, but who cares? He's a cat, he was never going to write a best seller. He's still tiny, at almost three, and probably always will be. He doesn't meow - doesn't seem to know how - still only emits tiny meeps when he wants to make a point. He still prefers to sleep on his back in my arms like a baby. His fangs hang out of his lips, his claws never quite retreat into his paws and he sometimes gets hung up and limps for a few days. Every so often he forgets how to eat and I have to syringe feed him for a day or two before he remembers. His favorite game is kick-it-off. His breath is just foul. The boy ain't right.

But he's at my hip or in my arms all day. He'll walk on a leash and you can't freak him out. He's not smart, but he's good company. I'm glad of him.

after work, meandering

Johnny's hurt his leg somehow. This happens every so often. He's not an adept climber, and his nails never quite retract - he snags on things. I just fed him a sympathy sardine.

A Monday night, home from work and talking to the cat. "What did you do, boy?" He doesn't meow like a cat, just meeps quietly. A friend once said he sounded like Mike Tyson, so there you go.

I should work on tomorrow's trivia. I have a few ideas, but I'm not sure. I hate slogging through a mediocre round that no one enjoys. I write five rounds a day, four or five days per week. Me, the guy who never did a homework assignment in his life. Now I give daily pop quizzes for fun and profit. Strange ol' world.