Seven Years!

 

The train video will have to wait for tomorrow, because tonight I am posting pictures of our anniversary presents to each other. I was thinking of wearing my wedding dress, but I spent an hour at the garden plot weeding (which barely made a dent), so I am disgusting and sweaty. Then Travalon came home, and we exchanged gifts. I gave him what he requested: a stuffed Stanley Panther from the Florida Panthers hockey team. (True story: I've ordered so much Florida Panthers stuff for him that I now get email updates like, "Panthers win!" And I can barely think of anything I care less about than hockey.) So here's Stanley:

Since Travalon named the little stuffed polar bear I gave him this past Christmas Stanley after the Florida Panther mascot, but now he has the actual mascot, he may rename the polar bear. Feel free to leave suggestions in the comments. 

Travalon gave me a book called What It's Like to Be a Bird, and he gave me a reproduction of a Led Zeppelin blacklight poster, but alas, it doesn't look nearly as interesting under blacklight as the ones I remember people having back in college.

He also gave me a dozen little glass hummingbird pendants.

They glow in the dark! Check it out.

I will try to make these into a mobile at some point. Travalon says they are jewelry, so I guess they are to wear as necklaces, but you wouldn't wear all twelve at once. 

After that we watched the video of our wedding, and then we were a little late logging into Night Prayer, but everyone heartily wished us a Happy Anniversary. What we missed from logging in late was that one of the Dairyman's Daughter's cats, Claude (Clawed?), caught a mouse and brought it to her as she was singing the hymn, so she was caught off-guard and the leader had to sing the last verse. Ah, the joy of pets! Just yesterday I was telling Travalon that there's one thing I don't miss about pet ownership, and that's trimming claws. I've done it for rabbits, guinea pigs, and parakeets, and they all hate it. Sometimes I think it would be lovely to have a little creature around the house again, but there are advantages to only having plants. 

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Mysterious Yellow Submarine

I hope my readers had a good weekend. Tiffy came up Friday evening, and she, Travalon, and I were going to try a new place for fish fry, but they were booked until 8:30 so we got ice cream drinks at Mariner’s, since we can easily walk there. We headed to the new place and got there just before 8:30, only to be told the kitchen had a backlog, so we could drink all we wanted, but we couldn’t order food for another half hour. I thought that was kind of nuts, but once we did get our food, it was delicious.

Saturday Tiffy, the Rosary Ladies, Richard Bonomo, and I met for brunch at Crema Café, then the other ladies went to pray the rosary while Tiffy, Rich, and I checked out the pottery/fused glass workshop in the same mall. We all have to try this sometime – it looks like so much fun! Across the street was a boat-sized papier mache yellow submarine, and we wondered what it was doing there. It had been there for months. The three of us went to Olbrich Gardens, and in the Thai Pavilion there was a tribute set up to the king of Thailand, who had died just a couple of days before. In the evening Tiffy, Rich, and I met some other people for dinner at Pig in a Fur Coat, a real “foodie” restaurant, and everything was delicious. Between all of us, we ordered just about everything on the menu and shared it all. Then Tiffy and I went to a wonderful Baroque music concert. Travalon, meanwhile, had to work all day and then went to the exciting Badger game in the evening. They barely lost to Ohio State, a very good team, in overtime.

Sunday after Mass and brunch, Travalon and I got Rodney and brought him to Blessed Sacrament for a Blessing of the Pets (as in a bunch of dogs and one presumably terrified cat). Unlike the one at St. Dunstan’s, this was outside. Then as we drove home along John Nolan Drive, we saw a sailboat towing the funny yellow submarine that had been residing across from Crema Café! We parked and took pictures, then when the guy in the boat anchored the submarine and docked his boat near us, we went over and talked to him. The submarine was a group art project at a community center to commemorate the 50^th anniversary of the Beatles song, and then it was used as a float in a community festival parade. He said this was the last thing he was doing with it – floating it on the water for everyone passing by to see. Such a Madison story! Travalon and I were in a good mood after that, and we went for a short hike at Cherokee March to enjoy the lovely weather… but then we watched the Packer game. Ugh! The only thing that could rouse me out of my funk after that was a lively political discussion with Rich and Kathbert, so now I am ready for further punishment on Thursday when the Pack hopefully don’t lose to the Bears.

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Rainy Saturday in Milwaukee

Remember when I said Travalon and I would be back to the wine bar Brix 340 in Waunakee? That turned out to be true just a week later when we went there this past Friday, this time a little more dressed up. We had chocolate and wine pairings again. This time we did get a table – last time we had to sit at the bar – but we may never be lucky enough to get to sit by the fireplace. That space is always taken.

Saturday was a rainy, dreary day. I had plans with Light Bright, but as new moms so often have to do, she canceled, so Travalon and I had breakfast at La Baguette and then drove to Milwaukee to see the Domes. He figured if we couldn’t hike outside, maybe we could at least get some exercise walking around looking at plants inside. However, the desert and tropical domes were closed for repairs, so we only got to go into the show dome. They were having a listening session on the future of the Domes, so I filled out a survey. How exciting to be in the right place at the right time, to get to have input like that! We had tacos for lunch at Conejitos, a very reasonably priced Mexican restaurant that he loves, then we went to the Milwaukee Art Museum and looked at art for hours. That got me almost all the steps I needed for the day, the place is so big. We drove to a bar from the book in Cudahy, stopping at the St. Francis Brewery, where we got a sampler of their sodas because they sounded so fascinating. And they were really good! The bar from the book is under new ownership now, and sadly they had removed some of the beautiful woodwork, but the leaded glass windows and brickwork are still intact. Now it’s called Orson’s. We went to a second bar from the book, in West Allis – I can’t remember the name, but it was beautiful inside, very German-looking with murals and stained glass windows. We had duck for dinner there, because it is a German restaurant as well as a bar. We are now down to fifteen bars left from the book – we should be able to finish it this summer! Very exciting.

Travalon has a bad cold, so we did not have an exciting Sunday but a relaxed one. He is still sick today and stayed home from work, which undoubtedly made Rodney happy. He hates these long Mondays and Fridays when we are both at work all day long, and he sits at home alone except for Cashmere. She is not very exciting company.

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My Work Pet "Boxy"

Sorry for the lack of posts the last couple of days. Wednesday we had Irish class because our teacher was busy on Tuesday, and after that I had choir practice, so there wasn’t time for blogging. Yesterday after work I took a walk on the boardwalk behind Edgewood College, on the shores of Lake Wingra, and then I went to a presentation Antoshka gave on the situation in Ukraine. It was very enlightening, although the main video did not have subtitles, so it was more of a visual and then Antoshka gave us the background on what was going on. Travalon met me there, and plenty of other people were there too, including Jilly Moose, Cecil Markovitch, Mr. N’Awlins, the Dairyman’s Daughter, and of course Rich, since it was at his house. That ran so long that Travalon and I had to leave long before it was over, so of course I never got a chance to blog.

And what would I have blogged about if I’d had the chance? I am going to put pictures of our road trips up at some point, but the big “news” in my life is I have a sort of work pet. OK, not really, but there is a bug that has been hanging around my office all week. It is a big, friendly, pretty, harmless-looking bug and seemed very familiar, so I googled “black and red bug” and found it is a box elder bug. It was crawling across my computer screen as I found an image of it, and it saw the image and stopped and kind of reared up a little, as if it were thinking, “That’s the biggest bug I’ve ever seen!” The image was twice the size of “Boxy.” So Boxy seemed really tense until I left that screen and went back to data entry, and then it relaxed and walked the rest of the way across my screen and along the top of my monitor. I feel like I should be a good hostess and offer it something to eat, but according to Wikipedia they eat the seeds of maple trees, and I am fresh out of those. We’ll see how long Boxy hangs around my maple seed-free office…

The other big news is that Prince died at the relatively young age of 57 yesterday. It was all anyone could talk about. He was such a big deal when I was growing up in Minnesota, where people I knew had actually met him. It seemed so cool to have a rock star just an hour away, and not way off in California or New York. And I loved his music. He was wild in his younger days but had long since become a Jehovah’s Witness and lived a quiet life, so he was the last celebrity anyone expected to die young. However, it sounds as if he were sick, but like David Bowie he didn’t tell anyone. Goodbye, sweet Prince. I hope you’re partying up in heaven like it’s 1999! There is a photo online of a rainbow over his complex, Paisley Park, so maybe he is smiling down on us stuck in 2016.

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Dinner on Lake Okauchee

Yesterday I took the day off of work, and in the morning Travalon and I took “the kids” into the vet for checkups. Rodney the Poodle had had an abscess, but it seemed to have drained, and he has an infection in his eye. Cashmere the Rabbit has a runny nose and an infection in her eye too, so they are both on antibiotic eye drops. That’s life with a geriatric pet.

In the early afternoon we were supposed to meet Travalon’s friend for coffee, since she is moving out of state soon. She is the one who watched our pets while we were in Hawaii. However, she had to cancel, so we took a long walk along the river in Waukesha, and then we drove to Oconomowoc and did a Holy Hour at the adoration chapel at St. Jerome’s. It is a lovely chapel, but the one at our church is even prettier. To my surprise, lots of people were there for the middle of the day on a workday.  We hoped to get in and see the church itself, since it is where Travalon went to Mass before we were married, but it was locked, alas.

In the evening we took Travalon’s mother to dinner at the Golden Mast, a German restaurant on Lake Okauchee. It was so beautiful! It was too cold and wet to eat outside, but our table had an amazing view out over the lake. Travalon was adventurous and tried the elk, while his mother and I had the German sampler. It was very tasty. Afterwards his mother was saying she got lilacs, daffodils, and daisies for Mother’s Day, but no roses, which is her favorite flower. So when we stopped by the grocery store to restock her pantry, she bought herself some red roses. Travalon got me a beautiful orange rose. Aww!

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Old Hat Family Photo

Ma and Pa Hat sent me this old family photo, which hopefully they don't mind me posting on this blog. I'm not sure of the date of this, but it would be from the late 70's or the very early 80's. Can you believe two such blond kids could be of partially West African descent? I love the outfits Ma and Pa Hat are wearing, especially their pants. And notice our guinea pig Jennapig featured prominently on my lap. She was the first creature I ever saw go from young and vigorous to old and frail.

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The Canoe as Metaphor for Marriage

A soprano in my choir said that she thought the canoe was an apt metaphor for marriage, so it was appropriate that Travalon and I got one so early in ours. When we thought about it, Travalon and I had to agree. The canoe takes teamwork, and so does marriage. The canoe needs to be balanced, and so does a marriage. The canoe takes communication, and so does marriage. Perhaps the couple that canoes together, stays together. Now that we can bring Rodney along, it’s almost like a family activity, though I’m sure there’s no way Cashmere would want to be in the canoe. Maybe she would jump out and swim like the crazy rabbit that attacked President Carter, if anyone remembers that. (It made quite an impression on me because I was a small child at the time.) Now Travalon and I are sharing a cold, so we probably won’t go out in the canoe in the next few days, but it’s nice to know it is always there for us to use for hours of fun.

There was something else Travalon said I should blog about, but my virus-laden brain cannot think of it right now. If I think of it tomorrow, that’s what I’ll blog about. Maybe Travalon will remind me in the comments.

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Futbol Weekend

Cashmere the Rabbit is really feeling at home in the new condo now, because she is back to being her weird bunny self. We have a glass coffee table in the living room, and she likes to run laps around it and lick it. Maybe it tastes really good…? Rodney the Poodle did chase her for maybe a foot, so she got a little scared, but not enough to stay out on the screened-in porch. He soon lost interest, and anyway she has only herself to blame, since she was approaching him as he was trying to sleep.

Saturday I thought it would be a good idea to move my small washer/dryer combo from my old condo to the new one, not realizing how heavy it was. Travalon and Richard Bonomo ended up doing most of the heavy lifting, with quite a bit of help from Kathbert and some from me as well. Travalon, Kathbert, and I all ended up with very minor injuries, and the washer dumped water on the carpet in my old condo, but we did succeed in moving the unit… just to discover the outlet in the new condo is the wrong kind. Fortunately Rich is an electrical engineer, so he can help us with this issue. Whether the washer/dryer still works after that beating is another matter, but I’d be too embarrassed to sell it with my old condo, since I’d have to explain how partway through the spin cycle the agitator always comes off so you have to stop the washer and replace it, only you can’t just pick up the lid to stop it because of a previous repair Rich did. I may just buy a new set for my old condo, or sell it without them and let the buyer take care of it.

In the evening my band had a gig at Make Music Madison, only Hardingfele wasn’t there because she had an actual paying gig. They did let us busk, and we made $4, or $1 apiece. I just donated my buck to the next act, a group doing capoeira, which is a very cool Brazilian martial art with its own music. The music is simple and rhythmic, but I was still impressed how two of them would do the dance part and then trade with two musicians without missing a beat. There were five people in that group, and they made a whopping $17.50 in tips since they were so good. They were really fun to watch, doing cartwheels and kicking at each other – very athletic. I thought about doing capoeira ages ago but was discouraged to find out they practice three times a week, so that would have been the end of all my bands and choirs. Besides, I really am not coordinated enough, but imagine how fit I would have been! Travalon, Luxuli, Prairie Man, and OK Cap came to hear my band, and they stayed to watch the capoeira too. The act before us was also really good, a drum line from Chicago who did choreographed moves along with their drumming.

Yesterday was a really beautiful day in Madison, and also in Oconomowoc when we went to visit Travalon’s mom, so we were able to take her out for some fresh air. However, when Travalon and I went into Milwaukee, the temperature was much lower, but we still went canoeing and enjoyed it a great deal. By the time we went to the Three Lions Pub in Shorewood to try to watch the World Cup, the temperature had dropped to the mid 50’s, so we were too cold to watch the game outside and the pub was too full for us to get into it. We returned to Oconomowoc and ate at Burke’s Landing, a restaurant on the lake, and there it was in the mid 70’s and very pleasant. Then we came back to Madtown and watched the World Cup highlights on ESPN2. I was in love with this four-second snippet of a song they play whenever they return from ads, and today I found the whole song on YouTube, but it isn’t an actual Brazilian song, it’s by Pitbull. So sort of hiphop with a little Latin flavor courtesy of J-Lo. Kind of a letdown, but I do really like the song. It’s called “Ole Ola.” Travalon and I have been watching the highlights every evening, and sometimes we root for opposing teams, like I was rooting for Nigeria since I know many Nigerians while he was rooting for Bosnia since it’s near where his family came from. Today he is watching the Croatia game because that is exactly where his mother’s family came from. Hm, I wonder if Cecil Markovitch is going to watch it too? Something tells me he doesn’t care at all about “futbol.” (I feel weird to call it soccer when it is actually played with the feet and a ball, as opposed to what we call football, which is a throwing and catching game played with an egg-shaped missile.) 

Bad news - my Famous Hat has developed a hole. It is very small now, but the hat's days may be numbered. Will I have to change the name of this blog if it totally dies?

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Storm Destruction

Last night there was something like a tornado that touched down in town, and it knocked a tree over on top of Light Bright’s house so she now has a big hole in her attic. She said she was luckier than the neighbors on the next street, who had their roofs blown off. The local hip hop station sent people out to take pictures, and I shamelessly stole this one off of their website, of a stop sign just stuck in the middle of a field:

If all this wasn’t scary enough, we are supposed to get more of the same tonight. Yikes! Travalon said he heard the sirens in the distance last night, but since they weren’t close, he wasn’t sure if he should wake me up. I, of course, slept right through the storm. I was afraid Cashmere the Rabbit might die of fright, being out on the screened-in porch, but this morning she was bouncing around and demanding her banana like nothing had happened.

Cashmere has really adjusted well to the new condo; last night she came out from the porch on her own and explored the living room. She cautiously approached Callie the Cat but didn’t get too close. Rodney the Poodle has no interest in her, so she seems pretty safe among these supposed enemies of hers. She is perkier than I have seen in her in a long time, since Charlie died. Maybe she likes having nonhuman friends around, even if they aren’t rabbits.

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Baseball Weekend

First, to my fellow UGGHers, I apologize: it has been so wonderful getting up at a reasonable hour and then having a leisurely breakfast with my new husband and Callie the Cat. I will try to make it to UGGH Club sometime this week…

Secondly, I seem to have gained a follower during my sojourn in Ireland and Scotland, so welcome! I will warn you, this blog is now going to be about my day-to-day life and random musings.

The weather was beautiful on Friday, so Travalon, OK Cap, and I went to our first Mallards game this season. The Mallards came through, beating the Rafters (their logo is a rat on a raft) 4-2. I had a vegan burger with cheese curds, so half healthy, and of course a giant pretzel. Never go to the ballpark if you are on a diet, which I currently am not, I’m just trying to eat sensibly. Of course, Friday night took care of all that…

Saturday the weather was again beautiful, so after getting some coffee at the Prairie Café, Travalon and I went for a hike with Richard Bonomo and Catzookz at Indian Lake Park. We all hiked up to the shrine on top of the hill, then Rich and Catzookz went off to hike the harder trails while Travalon and I took a leisurely stroll around the lake with Rodney the Poodle. And what better way to spend a lovely evening than at another Mallards game? They were having “St. Patty’s Day in Summer” with the band The Kissers playing traditional Irish music between innings and then fireworks after the game. I saw people with green beer, but we didn’t get any. Travalon got a really good beer from Hawaii – who knew that was a hotbed of beer brewing? I believe it was called Kona, like the coffee. Again the Mallards came through, beating the Woodchucks 5-2.

Yesterday after brunch, Travalon headed out to watch more minor league baseball while I picked up Hardingfele for our wedding gig. We drove with most of the rest of the band to Lake Mills and played a wedding reception at Korth Park, on the shores of Rock Lake. It was a lovely venue, but we were a little concerned that it might rain. The weather was iffy, but we never did get the promised (threatened?) rain. We played for the wedding reception dance, and the attendees were really getting into it but lost interest after a few dances and drifted off for the most part, so we didn’t end up playing nearly as long as we’d expected. Then I headed home and hung out with Miss Callie, who has really bonded with me, until Travalon returned from fishing. He and I went to the Nau-Ti-Gal for our healthiest meal of the weekend: broiled fish and vegetables! We love going there, sitting out on their patio overlooking the water. But tonight I’ll have to pick up my cooking implements from the old condo so we can start eating at home. 

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The Step-Pets

Last night I went to Light Bright’s house for dinner, although we are not doing any more wedding planning. I had to give her a gift from Scotland, “Crazy Ness,” because her workplace is so crazy with all the Sock Puppets. (Sorry, I don’t have any good Sock Puppet League stories for you.) Crazy Ness is a hot pink plushie that looks vaguely like a stoned dragon. Then Light Bright showed me her garden and said since she doesn’t have a pet, she uses all her nurturing on the garden. It did look great, much better than Richard Bonomo’s garden when I tried to take care of it.

Speaking of pets, when I got home last night, Travalon had brought Rodney the Poodle and Callie the Cat to the condo, where they were wandering around in either puzzlement or curiosity, it was hard to tell which. Callie immediately decided I am her new human, and she wanted to snuggle. And snuggle. And snuggle. Did I mention I’m allergic to cats? Though, to be fair, I don’t react much to Callie. I was feeling all warm and fuzzy about her, and then this morning she woke me up at who knows what hour (we don’t have a clock in the condo yet) by poking me with one paw, then the other, over and over. Plus she pooped on the floor. I probably should have gotten up and gone to UGGH Club, but I just rolled over and went back to sleep, dreaming about Callie bounding all over the condo. (In reality she is 16 and is well past her bounding years.) Meanwhile, Rodney slept soundly at the foot of the bed. So that is my life with step-pets so far. Soon I will be bringing Cashmere over from Rich’s house, and then we’ll see how well our little blended family gets along.

I promise to post more photos of Ireland soon. Really, I will do it.

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A Rabbit's Life

Sometimes I think the life of a pet must be an ideal one: you don’t have to work, you don’t have to search for your next meal, and you don’t have to worry about predators. Then I wonder: is it boring to sit around all day with nothing to do? And think of the things you never get to try! For example, the three beverages I drink most are water, coffee, and beer. Guess which one of those my rabbits get to drink? They are missing out on all the fun of a caffeine jolt or a beer buzz. They never get to go outside, which doesn’t seem to bother Charlie at all, but Cashmere often gazes wistfully out the window. And if I give them a yummy treat (like chocolate – shh! I am such a bad bunny mama!), they have no way to request it again if they like it, though usually I can tell which things they really like. They can’t tell me to turn off my salsa music when I am working out, but for all I know, they hate salsa. I guess being a pet is a little like being a kid, when you aren’t in control of your own life. I sure don’t miss those days! And you know who else has a life like that, no work and no meal preparation and no freedom? Old people! Maybe I should rethink my goal of living to be over 100. Watching my rabbits get old has been enlightening. Charlie has gotten to the point where he just walks in circles most of the time, and he can’t clean himself very well anymore. Still, he seems very happy, but then he always was a happy rabbit. Now he’s just an old happy rabbit.

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Poodle Birthday Party

Last night Travalon, Hardingfele, and Rodney the poodle stopped by my office to meet some of my coworkers, and Rodney was a big hit. No surprise, Hardingfele tried to get people to adopt cats that need homes. Then Rodney, Travalon, and I went downtown to hear Jazz at 5 at the top of State Street. We had dinner outside at the Fountain so we could hear the music – it was so wonderful! Richard Bonomo hosted Rodney’s birthday party (he is 14 today), but Wednesday is a bad night for most of my crowd, so only Cecil Markovitch made it. We humans had tea and TWO desserts (baklava and peanut butter chocolate bars), and we sang “Happy Birthday” to Rodney, who was most excited about the bowl of water that Rich gave him. Then we had some sangria to toast Rodney’s good health, only Rich didn’t want any actual alcohol so he had the sangria-flavored soda I got for the vegetarian feast. Here’s hoping there are plenty more birthday parties in Rodney’s future!

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Senile Rabbit

Charlie is really getting to be an old rabbit. I’m convinced that he is totally deaf: during that crazy storm last night with all the thunder and lightning, Cashmere was huddled in terror but Charlie was completely indifferent. He is so old that he can’t tell the difference between a treat and my foot anymore – I am expecting him to bite off my toe any day now. He no longer knows or cares about the difference between the carpet and the litter box. Sometimes he gets so confused that he just turns in circles. If Charlie could talk, I’ll bet he would be telling the same story over and over, and he’d probably call me by the wrong name all the time. He always seems happy to see me, but I’m not completely sure that he knows who I am (the big creature who gives out treats). I am just… someone, and that’s good enough for Charlie the Senile Bunny.

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Memorial Day on Willy Street

I hope everyone had a great Memorial Day weekend. Saturday Travalon and I had lunch at Pasqual’s and then went to Macha Tea House, then he went fishing while my band played at a wedding. It was surprisingly cold out, and we had to play outside, so by the end our fingers were nearly frozen. Still, it was fun to play out, and of course we got paid too. Then Travalon and I had dinner at Captain Bill’s and took a long walk along the street that goes along the lake. I always love passing the little boating cottages right by Captain Bill’s, but I was disappointed to learn they are only open from May to November, so if I ever could afford to buy one, I could not live there permanently.

Sunday Travalon brought his dog Rodney to town with him, and we went to the Capital Brewery beer garden, but it was still cold out and somewhat rainy. We took Rodney for a long walk in Richard Bonomo’s neighborhood, then we gathered for dinner with Rich, Kathbert, Catzookz, Luxuli, and her husband, and Catzookz’s guy joined us later. Rodney was very well-behaved and everyone thought he was delightful. Travalon said Rodney slept well that night!

Yesterday I was supposed to donate platelets for the first time ever, but I had recently donated blood and my iron levels were still too low, so I went to Brat Fest instead. Then Rich, Catzookz, her guy, their friend, and I went to the new Star Trek movie in 3D. Travalon and I met up on Willy Street and went to Jamerica for dinner, then we walked to the start of Willy Street to go to the Up North Bar, where a drunk guy was randomly calling people. We went to the Essen Haus, where the owner was in the process of throwing out a drunk guy who kept insisting all his worldly possessions were still in the bar, and we enjoyed a band that played Grateful Dead covers. While walking back down Willy Street, we saw the really drunk guy, now shirtless, telling a cop that the only thing he had on him was a key chain. We stopped into a Greek restaurant for some caramel tres leche cake, and Travalon said I would have to blog about all the crazy people we had seen that evening. I also took a picture of the neon sign outside of the Essen Haus that says: “Immediate Seatnig” and Jamerica where they had a sign that said “Open” and another that said “Closed” and will hopefully post them soon.

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Crazy Banjo Players

According to sometime reader Hardingfele, banjo players can be very dangerous, especially when denied a drink. She found an article about an underage banjo player who attacked the bouncer asking for his ID with a banjo and a hatchet, and Banjo Player says she thinks her Vega banjo could do more damage than a hatchet. She says she could break someone’s knees with it. The tragic part of this story is that the crazy banjo guy’s dog was taken to the Humane Society. Hopefully some loving family can give it a good home! My office mate Light Bright is also a banjo player, and while she denies ever attacking anyone with a banjo, she does enjoy firing shotguns, so I wouldn’t mess with her.

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Ferret Treats

As my readers probably know, I cannot waste anything. The other day I went to the pet store and bought some rabbit stuff, but the container of what I thought were rabbit treats turned out to actually be ferret treats. I didn’t discover this until opening it, so there was no returning it. The treats were just peanut butter-flavored yogurt, so I thought what the heck, I’ll just eat them myself. The only scary thing in the list of ingredients was “artificial flavor,” but since they were peanut butter flavor, I did not think it would be my nemesis, vanillin. So yes, I ate the ferret treats. They were really, really tasty and I ate a bunch of them, then I got cranky and unreasonable, couldn’t sleep last night, and couldn’t concentrate at work today. That is what happens to me when I eat fake vanilla flavor, and it had that addictive quality fake vanilla always has for me. If I were a superhero, vanillin would be my green kryptonite. But I never imagined I would get vanillin poisoning from pet treats! So as if you needed another reason not to eat things intended for other creatures, remember they might have ARTIFICIAL FLAVOR in them.

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How the Cat Made Hardingfele Catholic (And What She Sold About It)

Today I got the following email from Hardingfele:

So the cat outwitted us again and we last saw him on the neighbor’s roof.  We literally spent 3 hrs looking for him. I then took a walk around the neighborhood and in my Jewish Unitarian brain prayed to St. Tony.  I made a promise to go to Mass if that buff bastard was found. When I came back, there he was in the back yard. So I have to hold up my end of the bargain! 

And that is why Hardingfele is going to Mass with me on Sunday. This is such spamtacular news that South Korean spammers named TERRY (all caps) are contacting her to buy unspecified products:

Hello Sales, I will like to order some of your products and I will want it shipped to our place as follows : Shipping Address: #104 young, Ga-Dong Sewoon Shopping Center Jongro-Gu, Seoul South Korea So i hope to hear from you soon regarding my inquiry and to know where i can view your products you have presently in stock and if there is any special pricing i need to know about. Lastly regarding payment i will be sending you my USA Valid credit card to charge for my order to avoid delays but can you let me know the type of credit cards you accept?Can you work hand in hand with my client freight personal agent? so they can Pickup the products directly from your location down to my client address in SOUTH KOREA I hope to hear from you as soon as possible.

Regards.
TERRY

 Maybe Hardingfele can sell little St. Anthony medals.  Just sayin.'

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Meeting the Parrot

Last night I finally got to meet the parrot. Kathbert and A-Joz came too, since they were also possibly interested in owning the parrot, and Richard Bonomo came along out of curiosity. Toque McToque took us over to Mom McToque’s house to meet Sunny, a small yellow parrot with an orange head and green wings. She was very pretty and quite friendly, but her current owner reminded us that she does have a loud squawk, so in the end none of us went home with Sunshine. However, Kathbert really wants the parrot, so I’m sure it won’t be long before she caves.

In the afternoon, before meeting the parrot, I went to a local ethnic festival (what ethnicity? all of them) with Jilly Moose, Luxuli, and her husband. Luxuli and I wore the same skirt, the same color blouse, and black hats with wide brims. I don’t have a picture, but Jilly Moose took one. Anyway, we looked like twins, if Luxuli were my much thinner and more Korean twin. We watched one of my former bands play, and there have been quite a few personnel changes so now there is only one woman in the band. Knowing this woman, I’m sure she likes it that way. Imagine a woman in her 60’s who dresses like she is in her early 20’s and looks like she hasn’t eaten since her teens. She must have heard thin was in and figured in that case, the starvation look is what gets looks. The band is still really good, and it was fun to hear those songs I used to play all the time. Still, I did not get nostalgic for being in the band. Some things are better enjoyed from a safe distance.

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Reasonable Rabbit Requests

Did you ever have a neighbor you had never met personally, and yet you felt as if you knew everything about them? There is a crazy old lady in my neighborhood who has an adult male cat she always talks to very loudly as if he were a naughty five-year-old boy. This cat has a distinctly unmanly name (let’s say Yancy), and I couldn’t help thinking that if I were that cat and had to listen to the old lady constantly carping at me, “Yancy, sit down! Yancy, stay put!” then I would go totally cat-insane, whatever that looks like. It would seem Yancy did have similar feelings, because a few days ago he ran away. Then I felt bad about my nasty thoughts, because how would I feel if my rabbits ran away from home? As if he were reading my mind, Charlie ran over and started snuggling me while outside we could hear the crazy old lady hollering, “Yancy! Yaaaaancy!”

So maybe my bunnies would not abandon me even if they could, but that got me to thinking about their list of demands, if they should ever learn to write. I mean, these are some tough rabbits – Charlie has a tattoo and Cashmere has tried to kill several of us – so I don’t want to get on their bad side!

To: The Human

From: The Rabbits

Re: Reasonable Requests

1. Daily bananas. This shouldn’t be that hard. They sell them at any grocery store. It’s not like we’re asking for starfruit here, but hey, as long as you’re at the grocery store, check and see if they have any.

2. Charlie requests no less than one hour of snuggling per day.

3. Cashmere requests that you no longer try to pass off vegetables as “food.” They are not edible, like say electrical cords and yoga mats, even if Charlie insists on eating them.

4. Would you CLEAN THE LITTERBOX already!

5. Stop doing secret stuff like solving word game puzzles, praying the rosary, reading murder mysteries, etc. You know how it drives us NUTS when you are really interested in something and we can’t tell why!

6. Phone conversations shall be limited to ten minutes. Any longer than that and we will resort to our usual protest method of sitting on your feet.

7. You must stay home at least three evenings a week. This is not too much to ask. After all, you have to get that hour of snuggling in with Charlie, and Cashmere likes being able to stare at you, even if she doesn’t particularly want to have anything to do with you. Come on, she lets you hold her for two minutes at least once a month.

8. Sylvia says stop using the kitchen. OK, we think maybe that’s a little drastic, but she’s a hedgehog. Drastic is all she knows.

9. Quit going out on the balcony to take care of the plants. If you needed to take care of them, you should have kept them inside. And why do you care if Cashmere likes to munch on them, anyway? You’re always getting on her case about not eating fresh food, and what could be fresher than your asparagus fern?

10. We don’t actually have ten demands. We’re reasonable rabbits.

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