Our Cat

This little guy is quickly unfolding into quite the story.

First off, the poor thing still doesn't have a name, and Tiff has vetoed all my suggestions - even Batman!, so I'm out of ideas. Well, right now, I'm pushing for Ms. Chief... ha ha, get it ... mischief, Ms.Chief... ha ha. The cat does seem to at least acknowledge the familiar call of any cat owner, that tongue sticking to your teeth sound. Maybe on her name tag we should just put '!!,' like the Bushpeople of Namibia. Except that sound is too harsh... maybe it should be '(!!).' That's '!!' said under your breath. To be fair, I'll add that I've done my fair share of name vetoing.

Secondly, it turns out that our loving cat is probably a pregnant cat. That's right, all signs seem to point to kittens around Christmas. Although she was a stray, she is clearly still a kitten, so when we brought her into our home, we didn't really consider the possibility that she may be pregnant. But she's gone from very playful and aggressive - and playing fetch better than any dog - to fat and lazy... along with a nipple thing that Tiff found on the internet, so yeah, she appears pregnant.

Anyways, while it makes some of Tiff's and my decisions more difficult and has the potential to be a pain in the ass, it's still pretty exciting. I hope she's like this cat and mated with a dog, or better yet a pony!

Damn. Or well, surprise, surprise, that story about the cat was debunked by science. Stinkin' science.

Happy Thanksgiving

So here's the story of Thanksgiving. It comes from a coworker who recently visited the new Native American Museum here in DC. While she was familiar, as we all are, with the story of starving Pilgrims and generous Indians and the first Thanksgiving, she learned and shared with me the true story of Thanksgiving, supported by the Smithsonian. So here it is as told by me, who heard it from a coworker.

A long time ago, in the new world, there were tribes of men and women living happily in peace with nature. Things were great... until the white man came. More specifically, until the white man brought forth the evil fury of disease. Disease wiped out entire tribes, killing just about everyone. Some guys didn't die though. They were generally rewarded by being captured and winning an all expenses paid trip throughout Europe, as part of a traveling freak show or something.

Then the Pilgrims came over and set up a village. One of these traveling traveling freak show Indians asked if he could catch a ride home and the Pilgrims were like, 'Sure.' But when he got back, all the tribes, in true Indian form, were like, 'How...' which meant, 'what in tarnation?' You see they didn't want him because all that time he spent traveling around Europe turned him into a freak, so he decided to hang with the Pilgrims in the village.

The Pilgrims in the meantime were struggling to figure out how to plant and fish and hunt effectively in this crazy new world, so they asked the guy to teach them, and he said, 'Sure.' In fact, taught them how to grow all sorts of yummy foods. So the villagers rejoiced.

Come harvest time, they had a bunch of food, enough to last the winter, so the religious Pilgrims gave all the credit to God. They were like, 'God is great!' and God is good!' and they thanked Him for all the food... by shooting guns into the air.

All the gun shooting piqued the interest of not just one local tribal chief, but many chiefs. All the chiefs came to investigate the gun fire saying to each other, 'How...' which meant, 'the who what?' And which eventually meant, 'How... can we get some?' The Pilgrims, being peace loving Christians, with many Horns of Plenty decided to share, inviting the Indians into the village, thus the first Thanksgiving was served.

Soon thereafter, disease spread through the tribes and killed off most of them... and the villagers rejoiced.

Happy Thanksgiving everybody. And remember to give thanks to one Europeanized Indian, who was ostracized into helping us out.

Quality

I read Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance when I was, maybe, 19. I think I was too young then to get it - I probably still am - but there's one part I find myself thinking of from time to time. The guy's a college professor and he writeson the blackboard for the class, 'What is quality?'

I mention that, perhaps just to show that somehow I have quality, but with the intention of talking about Christmas. It's a little early, I'll agree, but this being my first Christmas away from home, Thanksgiving is my time to be home for the holidays.

You see, in my family growing up, come this time of year, the phrase 'quantity over quality' would come visit along with older and wiser siblings. 'Quantity over quality' was the result of a mother working at a thrift shop, which probably could have been dubbed Santa's Workshop with most of our many gifts being found there. And it could have sponsorship, the Duffy's Santa's Workshop brought to you by the Duffy family. That being said, there were many Christmas afternoons spent looking at a pile of opened presents and thinking, 'Ok, so what exactly did I get?'

That wasn't meant to be so harsh. In fact, I could easily take this and run with the quality of those Christmases, family all together for just a few days, but I won't. Instead, I state here my new philosophy. It probably derives from the overall childhood that I gave a glimpse of, but 'Quality is worth it.'

Call me snooty, but quality makes things better; we should celebrate quality. I've been doing it for awhile, a lot of people have, but why go to Subway when Panera is right next door. It may be an extra buck, but it's a well spent extra buck. I've got a pair of pants from Abercrombie and Fitch - which I'm still a little embarrassed to admit - that are 6 years old. The baggy pants with big pockets may not be the height of fashion these days, but the pants are just as good as new - minus the stepped on hem. I ripped a big hole in a pair of jeans from Old Navy after just six months.

Anyways, it may sound redundant but I believe in the value of quality, even if I don't find much quality in motorcycles.

I Bonsai.

A while back, I posted about growing a peach tree, bonsai peach tree, from scratch - I mean, from seed. Like a good blogger should, I promised updates. Well, it's been five months and well, not much has happened... until now. The little ceramic pot is now home to a bunch of green things; it's very exciting. In fact, right now in your head, there should be some "progress/into the future" themed music playing. So with no further ado: (Dah-Dah-Dah-Dah-DUNH! da-da-dun-da-da-dun-da-da-dun...)



Now, I'm no botanist, but I'm pretty sure that that's not a peach tree in the making. I'm not sure what it is, or how it happened, but it's still pretty exciting. Next on the grow-a-tree-from-seed list is... pomegranates!! Dah-Dah-Dah-Dah-DUNH! I hear they make great bonsais..

I'm planting them from seed because bonsais are expensive. $1000 for a tree that's difficult, at best, to maintain. No thank you. But maybe, just maybe, I can grow a bunch from seed and sell them at my own bonsai store... I'll name it, 'I Bonsai.'. I'm going to be rich!!! Rich, I tell you!

Here are my bonsais so far:


Pitiful lot. Especially the newest member of the club:


It's an azalea. Tiff's Aunt dug it out of her yard for me. She's very gracious. It looked pretty good in the ground, but now it's just a twig. I could decorate it and have my own Charlie Brown tree, or bush. We'll see if it survives... I'll keep you updated, like a good blogger.

USA Today

Again, it's been awhile since I've written one of these. I've gained access, most days, to the USA Today recently, so I've been reading that instead of writing. By 'reading' I usually mean skimming over the articles and getting bogged down in the crossword puzzle.

I've had my eye out for interesting stuff though, but it's all been election, campaign, Iraq, campaign, democrats, republicans, Iraq, election... I find it all pretty boring. Repetitively boring. They spent nearly a week analyzing a botched joke of a man who has already proved that he won't be climbing the ladder into the White House.

I even find the Life section dull. The Life section is always a bizarrely fun. A mix of all the entertainment news and ways to have fun. But this newspaper, it seems, thinks the only fun is with what's on TV or at the movie theater. So naturally I hunt for the shows that I watch, or purposefully don't watch, an dI'm always disappointed. And when I'm not disappointed I hold on to the thought of it and become disappointed with the show.

And the Sports section pisses me off. It doesn't follow any one team or one city, so there's no sense of loyalty, no reason to jump to the first pace of Sports. It's kind of like catching the first five minutes of SportsCenter each day; it might be be good, it might be interesting, but you never really know what you'll get.

The editorials are the last thing that I don't like. They just lack of confidence. It always feels like they are saying, "Well, this is what we think, but please feel free to not listen to us and think whatever you want." Grow some balls, USA Today!

So the only story I really remember is an article, I think from California, where they are pushing to outlaw bullets made of a certain type of metal, lead?, because they contaminate the environment and kill wildlife. If you think about it, it does make sense, but... who would of thought that bullets would be killing things. It's an outrage!!

The Cat

So yeah... we got a cat. I'm allergic to cats. Right now my hand is all swollen up from scratches. My hand is all scratched up from playing with the cat... I can't resist. Anyways, I refuse to call it Cleo, Tiffany's pick, so for now I'm still calling it 'cat,' but I'm open to suggestions...

How about 'Batman'?

Brand New Addition

I have fought to adopt a cat for the past three years of living with my boyfriend with the answer always being an unwavering "no". Last Thursday I made a Christmas list. "A gray cat" was at the top of that list. It was on the list mainly just to annoy John. However, on Friday just before midnight, I heard some serious meow-ing coming from outside our apartment (keep in mind we live on the 4th floor). I opened the door to a very skinny, very loud, very cold, gray kitten. If that's not fate, I give up. She slept all weekend while we frantically tried to find a home for her. She looked so sweet and just wanted to sleep on you all the time... we even cancelled our plans to go out of town for this. Around Monday night, we realized we weren't going to find a place for her and decided we would have to keep her b/c there was no way we could take her to the pound.

I think this kitty is a con-artist. As soon as that decision was made, the cat stopped sleeping all of the time and promptly began scratching the furniture, stinking up the place with some major gas, making friends with our toilet water, never letting us leave her sight, and eyeing my hamster whilst licking her lips.

But hey, I like some personality in my animals.

here she is...

I think I'm going to call her Cleo for two reasons. 1) She has white fur eyeliner which makes me think of Cleopatra. 2) Miss Cleo was the name of that conartist Jamaican psychic woman. She was really from L.A. Ha.

Mix it Up

I found a fantastic site today that lets you compile your music & post it online... and I think this blog needs a few tunes for your reading pleasure, so today I made an e-mixed tape.

When I was 14, there was nothing quite as satisfying as trying to construct what would ultimately be the best mixed tape known to man. The sense of accomplishment brought on by the relentless hours of sitting on the floor, fighting with the dual cassette player, calculating the timing of songs on each side of the tape, and pouring your heart into the perfect playlist was unmatched. It was a greatness that kids today will never know, because what used to take me a solid 8 hours to complete, I finished in less than a half hour today with the help of iTunes, a few websites, and high-speed internet. We've come a long way, baby. And there's no feeling of job-well-done, only a disappointment that I had to settle on songs that were already downloaded onto my computer, leaving my old blood, sweat, and tears mixed tapes behind.

I must say it was pretty fun though, and now you find blog readers can listen to some tunes! There are some songs that John loves, some songs we both love, and some songs I love. And my all time favorite song, one that's been on every mixed tape & cd I've ever made - You Can't Always Get What You Want.

I think the e-boombox works interactively, too. If you hate a song, just fast forward.

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