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A thousand miles/years/incarnations ago

I was having a lovely, peaceful afternoon, sitting at the computer drawing a sheep (as you do), when I heard the rhythmic guk-guk-guk which means a cat is fixing to unload a steaming cargo of rabbit flavored Whiskas somewhere nigh. Like, on my desk.

We did that furious pas de deux cats and people always do, where I grab up my stuff and try to maneuver something expendable into her sweet spot, and she brushes me aside and aims wildly for the most expensive, inappropriate object she can find to hack up all over or into. The mouse, the keyboard, the tablet, my lap.

At last, I caught the whole barfload on a notepad and held it aloft triumphantly, like Shoney’s Big Boy. Thank god it’s trash night.

She had sullied the back of one of my best gridded engineering pads from the old days, and I had all kinds of recent notes in it, so I tore away the cardboard and kept the pages. And there on the inside back was this post-it note.

Sandy was a typesetter I worked with, who’s been dead and buried for…oh, fifteen years, at least. 00005307 was a database designation for a technical illustration that I must have been drawing or inserting into a document or something. A pristine fragment of a whole nother universe floating down onto my desk, right out of sweet fuck-all.

Oh, well. It’s like trying to describe a dream, I guess.

Comments


Comment from S. Weasel
Time: February 15, 2010, 6:16 pm

On that topic, Uncle B dreamed last night that I ran against Sarah Palin for the Presidency in 2012. At the last minute — recognizing my clear superiority, I’m sure — Sarah dropped out.

Yeah. That’s right.

PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES, be-yotches!


Comment from bad cat robot
Time: February 15, 2010, 7:57 pm

Now and then I come across notes from some high-octane class I took mumblemumble years ago. They are in my handwriting, but I couldn’t follow them if my life depended on it. Differential equations is a black art, don’t let anyone tell you different, and I *used to understand it*. Sigh.

Weas, when you are president can I have Seattle as my personal hobo-hunting preserve? (and I have a very generous definition of hobo, it includes anyone taking gubmint money)


Comment from weirdsister
Time: February 15, 2010, 8:11 pm

Why is that we are compelled to keep cats? I have FIVE of the little fur-covered garf machines. I am always so grateful when they do it on the hardwood floor, instead of on the couch or on one of the many books RSW leaves laying around the house. Lately, they’ve taken to throwing up right outside my daughter’s bedroom door…it’s quite entertaining some mornings. BTW. I’d vote for you.


Comment from jw
Time: February 15, 2010, 9:05 pm

bad cat robot? Er..you might request several states as your very own. The Gubmit money is a myth. Gubmit TAKES it from us. Da Gubermint has no money.

Personnaly?, I would grant you seattle(saddle), if you would declare california hobos in your jurisdiction. Just saying. We all have to bare the load. I’ll take N.Y. and Texas. I’ll come out ahead I bet. 😉


Comment from jw
Time: February 15, 2010, 9:07 pm

weirdsister,
We are compelled to keep cats, because they are assholes. The keep us focused. 🙂


Comment from Nina from GCP
Time: February 15, 2010, 9:09 pm

Friend of mine was going through some papers yesterday and found a valentine card her late hubby had given to her–before he died, obviously. She said it was like a valentine from the grave–so maybe Sandy is thinking of you up on her cloud, Stoaty.


Comment from iamfelix
Time: February 15, 2010, 9:16 pm

Who is your Veep? I’d vote for you, regardless.


Comment from Mrs. Compton
Time: February 15, 2010, 9:21 pm

One of our collies graces us with the precious hairball. You can hear her start and then you try to steer her out to the pool deck and she does this digging in thing so you can’t possibly move her, then you start to panic cause you just know she’s gonna hit the rug (they never hit the tile) and the gagging noise is getting faster and faster, so you grab her and stumble to the door trying to open it with your free finger and she’s lurching at your face and you just know, now it’s going to get on you and you finally get out side with her, put her down and step away to watch her blow… and she looks at you and burps, with this look, “I’m gonna do it when you’re not around!”

Little fucker.


Comment from Wiccapundit, the Red State Witch
Time: February 15, 2010, 9:48 pm

Books LYING around the house, weirdsister, my love? Must I remind you that the floor is merely the largest shelf in the house?

jw, your comment reminds me of the difference between dogs and cats. Dogs look at the human and say: “He’s feeding me – he must be God.” Cats look at the human and say: “He’s feeding me – I must be God.”

Stoaty, if you ran for Prez, could you handle a Larry King interview as well as Sarah Palin did in this clip?

http://redstatewitch.com/wordpress/

Hmmm, my promise to you not to overdo the gratuitous plugs lasted, what, 5 minutes?


Comment from Deborah
Time: February 16, 2010, 1:05 am

A few days ago I found a note that I’d written to myself and it made no sense: “50 states hang by hoist.” Cryptic, huh. After I read your post about the long-ago note from Sandy, I took some time to look at my weird note again. Then I finally remembered—I had been annoyed at the Miss American Pageant (on Jan. 30) where all the 50 state flags were displayed electronically by “hanging” them with the hoist to the top.

When so many of our state flags have writing on them, it was a careless way to display the flags, and on top of that, they hung the Texas flag backwards! Grrrr. So I wrote a note to myself as a reminder to write the pageant administrators to complain! (note to self: write better notes to self.)

Sandy’s note has been quite special. Makes me wonder what else it will prompt.


Comment from nbpundit
Time: February 16, 2010, 2:09 am

When yer prezident, I haz catz.
http://bayourenaissanceman.blogspot.com/2010/02/bird-gets-cat.html


Comment from S. Weasel
Time: February 16, 2010, 8:03 am

It’s a sweet thought, Nina, but Sandy and I couldn’t bear each other. We fought ALL the time. Typesetters (and pressmen) were arrogant sacks of shit, impossible to work with. Though we made peace when she got sick (she died of some horrible blood disease…like leukemia, but not leukemia).

The worst, Deborah, is that Drunken Me used to leave notes for Sober Me. Yeah. Those were fun to find next morning.


Comment from S. Weasel
Time: February 16, 2010, 8:16 am

My favorite comment spam of the morning:

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My blog Free trial


Comment from S. Weasel
Time: February 16, 2010, 8:20 am

Now, this one really is too bad because, as it turns out, I AM a lazy slob and I would very much appreciate a magic pill:

6 out of 10 People in the US, Canada and Europe are Over weight, so losign weight has become the most important goal for many around the globe. If someone is a lazy slob who wants a ‘magic pill’ to give him a fabulous bpdy, that will always remain as a dream.
One should be willing and determined to in efforts over a period of time and only then they can get lasting results. I find a few programs quite interesting and effective, you can also check some programs here and rate them based on your experience. Find the programs here, lose weight easily
– by Melinda


Comment from S. Weasel
Time: February 16, 2010, 8:24 am

Here’s a business model: selling term papers in a language you obviously don’t speak —

A lot of persons understand techniques of term paper accomplishing, nevertheless it doesn’t mean they are able create superior quality papers, however a custom writing service could assist to compose the argument essay of A+ quality and improve writing ability of students.


Comment from S. Weasel
Time: February 16, 2010, 8:28 am

Deep Thoughts, spammer style:

How come only your fingers and toes get prune in the shower and nothing else does?


Comment from Uncle Badger
Time: February 16, 2010, 8:57 am

Ouch! That last one made my eyes water.


Comment from Wiccapundit, the Red State Witch
Time: February 16, 2010, 10:27 am

I once received a thank-you note from a foreign businessman after a trip abroad that said: “I am thanking to your face for to me such kindness giving.”

As a grammar whore, I spent many enjoyable hours trying to parse that sentence and diagram it. I think the diagram was in 3-D.


Comment from Pupster
Time: February 16, 2010, 12:13 pm

Want some good news from back home?

It’s a feel good story.

H/T Mesablue at Teh Hostages


Comment from S. Weasel
Time: February 16, 2010, 1:10 pm

Heh. I was just commenting on that story at HotAir, pups. What with my local knowledge at all.

I used to live in the town next door, Pawtucket — where all the really rude limericks come from. Central Falls is a drab, gray pit and has been for so many generations there’s not much hope it’ll ever recover.

Good on the school superintendent, anyhoo. I hope they don’t skin her alive.


Comment from Pupster
Time: February 16, 2010, 1:24 pm

I agree Stoaty, good on them.

Of course they still have to hire teachers and administrators, and chances are they will be the same folks. Maybe at a reduced salary? I don’t know how that stuff works.


Comment from Gromulin
Time: February 16, 2010, 4:30 pm

That guk-guk-guk sound? If you hear it, then you have to pick up the cat puke.

Wise men don’t hear it.

The cat puked? Where? 🙂


Comment from Wiccapundit, the Red State Witch
Time: February 16, 2010, 6:09 pm

If the cat is named Schrodinger, and you didn’t actually HEAR the sound, then the garf didn’t occur. The has both garfed and not garfed, and until you take note of it, you have not collapsed the state vector into one actualized reality or the other. Or something like that.

I think.


Comment from Can’t hark my cry
Time: February 16, 2010, 6:27 pm

Like Mrs. Compton, I practice the “moving the horking pet to a better location” response rather than the “modifying the location to reduce the ill effects” response. You’re really nice to your pets, Sweasel. . .

And I have one who regularly upchucks on the run, managing to dribble regurgitated cat food over several feet, usually including upholstered surfaces. It gets old, fast.


Comment from S. Weasel
Time: February 16, 2010, 6:38 pm

I had an old puss who was a regular horker toward the end of his life. I got good at scooping him off of carpet and pitching him at wood or tile. It usually took a couple of tries, because he’d turn and run for carpet. I didn’t always win.

Then one day I realized I was tossing around an elderly sick cat, and I felt bad.

Anyhow, there was nowhere to pitch Charlotte.


Comment from Christopher Taylor
Time: February 16, 2010, 8:01 pm

When our cat starts the barf dance, I chase her around the house and she forgets all about it.


Comment from Rich Rostrom
Time: February 16, 2010, 9:24 pm

There is a strange plangent feel about something rising out the past. Doesn’t have to be something that was really good or really bad or really important – just… the past. I think of the last line of Kipling’s story “The Solid Muldoon”:

‘Eyah! Cork’s own city an’ the blue sky above ut—an’ the times that was—the times that was!’


Comment from Can’t hark my cry
Time: February 16, 2010, 11:35 pm

I got good at scooping him off of carpet and pitching him at wood or tile

Yeah–I try not to hurl them, but I have been known to push someone off the bed pretty precipitately. I HATE it when they puke on the bedclothes. . .

Oh, yeah. forgot to say: I’d DEFINITELY vote for you. I mean, well, geez, lemee weigh stuff: patient, gracious, welcoming, inclusive. . .independent and careful thinker, fair-minded, quirky, not easily backed down but slow to anger. Yeah. Plus which–been quite a while since we had a president whose life didn’t begin with politics. . .and so far as I know we’ve NEVER had a president who could do excellent graphic art.

So, is it possible to run while living the expat life?


Comment from Hammer
Time: February 24, 2010, 9:18 pm

One day out of panic I seized the beast and hucked it gracefully out of the room onto the nearby tile just in time to hear a satisfying splat. After a couple more airborne horking cat events, the cat has taken to struggling over to the tile when I get up during a gurk fest. So much for not being able to train a cat.

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