Month: November 2020

So now that we’ve gotten all gratitudey … and eaten, I think it’s safe to possibly air out some annoyances. I was gonna do it yesterday but I didn’t want to step on all this gratituding going around, especially when it was so well called for, so necessary in such a sad, sad year as this one and not just for reasons of a pandemic alone.  An Orange tinge hovers, blusters. Plus, it would have bothered my Mom as she was so enjoying my shirt and tie on our Thanksgiving Zoom call with her and my Sis. I told her that Zoom has a code of fashion conduct that you have to follow in order to sign up for their services, that you have to look presentable so thus the shirt and tie. But I also told her that that code didn’t include pants. She looked at me, with a wry smile, as if to say stuff it Stephen.

Gotta love getting a laugh out of Ma, who has such a genuine and infectious one, even as her days are different now, that they come with a slide. My sister and I, along with her had looked into assisted living places just before the pandemic, even found one that would just do. A just  “would do” wasn’t enough though, I wasn’t a huge fan of some of the details. But then there was the lockdown and the stay at home and Beck took her to her house near Albany with my nephews and cats and a Razzy, the definition of sweetest of dogs.

Now I have written of this before but why not a bit of repeat? Heck, it is MY blog so why not? When Beck told me, as some pandemic time passed and while I wore the same pair of sweatpants to work every day for three months, maybe even four, my own way of trying to cope by being silly amid a scared crazy, even if no one noticed other than me, I just thought these sweatpants were funny (they were clean by the way, well, as clean as butt aired out every night on the back of one of my one or the other computer chairs and then thrown in the wash every Saturday can be) but when Beck called me on one Friday and told me that she was going have Ma stay with her instead of that facility I said “that’s great” we talked some more, I held in, said “Love You’s”, hung up the phone and then broke down. Hard. Puddle.

This shitty thing, this shitty ass time, this fearful adapting had actually brought some good and, in my world, our world, that was a huge good, the best of possible good. If not for it then Beck and the boys and the fur may never have had the opportunity to discover that having Granny around was a good thing and so much better for her than some place full of strangers, to help slow her slide with all the interaction and stimulation of a house with the non-stop action of a teenager, a 20 year old, cats who don’t always get along, sometimes never and with noise, a beyond loveable dog who adoringly sits on her hip and even a crazy kitten who garners a ton of “Bloody Hells!!!” from that English lady in the extra bedroom. She was finally away from the solitude of a little one bedroom place that, though she loved, was killing her.

Yeah, my gratitudeyness yesterday was that Zoom call, and seeing Mom in some fancy dangling earrings that she so loves to sport and laughing that laugh of hers and my Sis, in a Pittsburgh Pirates sweatshirt, in an our Pittsburgh Pirates sweatshirt, seeing the gang lounging Thanksgiving comfy in whatever spots I could see through Beck’s laptop cam. So, I held off on airing annoyances until today.

But gloves are off now Mr Gratitude you thankful baastaad! You had your day and your food coma now back the hell off!!

Ma, you looked good, proud look dangling earrings an’ all and though I held off.  I think you and I could share some stories of annoyances, at least some you could remember in the moment of the telling.

It’s been a long year, a too long a year filled with too many painful reminders of how fragile this all is. I wrote a lot of words last night given the time of an extra day/night (a favorite of things), getting lost in waaaaay too many of those words that kept me up, but all of them were shit, thrown away.

I tried to be profound, hoping for a “wow” that didn’t come.

I tried to sound sagely but lord knows, though I’m old and know a few things, I couldn’t pull it off and I knew no one would listen.

I tried to force some of those words through sheer keyboard.

I even thought to ingratiate myself to the myriad pets and their charges who don’t know they’re charges with tails of a simple cat guy owned, maybe even with an “Awwwwww” picture or two. Usually that’s a slam dunk. No go.

I don’t know what your day is, or how you plan to spend it.

But I hope it’s a safe spend and not one of silly defiance.

We’re still breathin’, hopefully without labor or assistance and still talkin’ of such.

Be thankful for that.

A Zoom call awaits with my Mom and Sis and the gang later (brother Nick proving to be the hardest working guy I’ve ever known as always) . I might even wear a tie for Ma just for the laugh.

I mean, gotta look good on Thanksgiving day right?

Just because I’m tired, tired.

When I was a kid, in grade school, we had an art project. I was maybe 7 or 8 years old. The project was to find a picture that meant something to us and we were going to laminate it (you also had to find something to laminate it on … thanks dad). I don’t remember what that laminating was, probably some highly toxic shit that I haphazardly brushed on with a 7 or 8 year old’s haphazard glee, maybe even ate some of, not concerned with the possibility of future kids with four arms or an extra eye. But an art project it was. I still remember my teacher being taken aback at my choice of photo. I couldn’t’ tell ya where I would have come about this, a newspaper clipping from years earlier, but I’ve always been a baseball guy and this picture meant a great deal to me then for some reason. I’m sure my teacher was concerned with the violence of it but to me it was just baseball, but when it went awry. Who doesn’t the love the staid when it gets a bit off course?

I think about it now only because, like I said, I’m tired, and I’m eating. There’s only so much you can deal with before a regress to when things were simple, when times weren’t as contentious, or when we weren’t as frightened, when mom and dad only argued, not over politics, but over how much dad would have in his pocket tomorrow and why couldn’t he just brown bag it like the kids (my dad always wanted a couple of extra bucks in his pocket, not for buying lunch, but just in case he came across someone who could use it)

I still have this “art” project, 50 or so years later. It serves as a sort of table at my crosslegged feet while I pathetically or not pathetically eat my dinner, sharing it with cats and a bit of TV I can never decide on. It is one of my greatest reminders.

(excuse the duct tape corner. This stuff that it was can get a bit stabby after all the years)

As Hollywood screenwriters and those that specialize in surreal dark humor shake their heads in frustration knowing that no matter how good they are at what they do they will never be as good as the reality that is the batshittery of the Rudy Traveling Medicine Show, where the only thing missing from this latest stop in the tour was his sweaty melting head’s contorted face and his two snake oil associates revealing that, not only did Biden rig this election with Cuba, Jews and a long dead Hugo Chavez’s help, sending our votes overseas to be counted in Germany and Spain, but that the Biden campaign also got help from aliens. Not the job stealing brown thieving, raping, pillaging, murdering, land claiming aliens trying to cross our border by the hundreds of gazillions on a daily basis but by ACTUAL aliens, the outer spacey kind … before they get their asses kicked by Will Smith and Jeff Goldblum of course.

But these aliens, obviously as conniving and corrupt as Biden himself to offer him their assistance, couldn’t stop the bravest of brave Rudy Show associate snake oilers, Sidney Powell, from dropping some cold hard truth on us … “President Trump won by a landslide, we are going to prove it, and we are going to reclaim the United States of America for the people who vote for freedom” conveniently leaving out that her definition of “freedom” is WILDLY different from the one we’re more accustomed to while adding “oh, and Will Smith and Jeff Goldblum are comin’ with a nuke for your alien asses!”

Rudy Giuliani floated ‘dangerous’ and incendiary false claims of election conspiracy — and Fox News broadcast it live – The Washington Post

The other day I posted to Facebook an imagined thought from old, quirky girl Mimi, with a picture of her sitting at my hip, as she often sits, on the Shoes chair, asking me to maybe write at my blog something about cats.

“Mimi says I should write something at my blog about cats. I told her that’s just crazy talk.”

It was a simple and funny two sentence post as, well, if you know me that’s one of things that I do. I’m a cat guy, I’m a these cats guy, and a former cat’s guy for those remembered. They are a current sanity or a teary fondness.

So Memes … move just a little girlfriend, your head is blocking my arm … can’t write this imagined thing without it … I could but it would take so much longer … not much of a one handed typer … better … so Memes, I take a picture and write of cats.

/////////////////////////////////////////////

When it comes to my fur over the years I’ve, obviously, always been the adopter, I’ve never had the tables turned like some of those video’s that pop up after your original watch intention that you make the mistake of clicking on, just a one you say, oh, the too cute story of the kitten or dog who just showed up at someone’s door or foot looking for help and home till hours later you’re too far down a rabbit hole of furry “awwwww” to escape.

Well, hold on, let me amend. My sister and my brother and I were adopted by a stray orange tabby when we shared a house together for 5 years, starting in 2000, who we soon discovered was in the kitten way and needed a place to crash on the cat couch after her apparent bender with some surely disreputable Tomcat. That was Mia who produced, among her 5 little squirmy meowy things in a toweled warm human hovered cardboard box world in the closet between Nick’s room and mine, Shoes. My beloved Shoey and whose chair Mimi and I share now. But other than that I’ve never been the adoptee until Mimi, Mimi the Quirky, or simply, Memes.

I call her Mimi the Quirky because she is just that, quirky, timid, fragile, has some so straight legs that seem like sticks stuck out of a bad grade school art project of what’s supposed to be a cat. She walks this straight legged, no bend to the knee always and she shies from a pet, trying to back away, arching her back low, backing up, giving you the impression that she’d rather be any place other than this petting attempt. And she does a nervous lick at the air thing at every stroke of her back. No matter how softly you pet she lick licks at the air. It’s been a goal of mine to see if I can get to a pet without it.

I first came across her downstairs in my well chronicled tales, or tails, of numerous fur and one single, loudly insistent feather here at the stead. When I’d go into the kitchen after a come home to say Hi to Celie I would see the Memes, hear her first actually, a smoking cats rasp, if cats smoked, walking at me with those sticks, no bends of cat knees, in as much of a rush as a Mimi could muster.

“Hey Mimi” followed with reticent receiving of a pet and a pickup and a grabbing, untrusting claws clutching a shirt.

“It’s Ok kid … no grabs”

As Celie and I talked, a Mimi in my arms, she would relax and even, on occasion, fall asleep. I hated to put her back down before I made my upstairs to a Steve.

Before this world’s pandemic upside down when a small percentage, as we’re told to try and make us feel better, brought such a great percentage of sadness and loss and so much fear I did high School Football games for Spectrum Sports walking the sidelines along with the game’s action. There are two things I’ve missed in all of this. The normalcy of baseball (this past asterisk season not included), the schedule, the readings of my Bucco’s happenings, the current but still genuine connection to the past that only baseball can bring and those sidelines. Who could ask for more than your world, my world taking a break, if for only a few hours in crisp, sometimes biting Fall air? Walking sidelines and feeling oh so cool with a headset, doing important looking stuff for a live broadcast?

Text: You have a new girl.

Me response: ??

Text: Mimi, she snuck up the stairs behind me and seems to be liking the quiet of Uncle Steve’s apartment.

Me: Well, ok then.

I got this text from Celie as she gave me a hand and fed my fur during one of the High School football games a couple of hours away in and around Albany wondering now of what awaited me and if Bella would want to kick my ass.

///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

Bella is just Bella by the way, sorry, not in a “just” way mind you, or a taking for granted, though maybe a little bit I admit, but she’s just my always Bella, the head of the household, the first I acknowledge on my step back into my normal after a day. She’d already taken some shocks to her cat system over the last few years, so how was she dealing with this old interloper while kids looked for glory in helmets and plastic armor hours away?

The first shock was a move from the only place she’d ever known and from a broken relationship of mine that I can only blame on my solitude’s needs, but at least she had her Shoes to keep her company under bed covers for two weeks after the move was done. But then Shoes passed.

The second time, another move, she had her/our stray friend, Grayson, who took so much well earned time to bring into the fold and proved to be quite a pal but after only a couple of years together he also passed, and suddenly.

There was the early addition of Cricket the Blind in this second move, and current Attic spot, but she didn’t count for company as Bella didn’t/doesn’t like her.

And there have been other tries as I’ve continuingly attempted to give Bella some new friend after Grayson’s sudden and Shoe’s slow sad passings. None went well. The incredibly vocal Gibson (which at least ended up on a positive with a good friend who found his new catmate), the large and extra furry Duke, the product of tragedy and loss I thought to see if I could find a light in, the numerous curious from downstairs who  I allowed to venture, often leaving the door at the bottom of the stairs “accidentally” open just to see.

None worked.

Bella was a Bella and me was a me and she was a mine, we were an ours and if something didn’t click we both knew it and it was done (though there was a “Blink”, a little flurry of kitty humor and annoyance and joy that did work but that one just breaks my heart as it was so perfect but so fleeting and has me wonder at the Universe and the why’s. Still).

///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

So the Memes sitting somewhere in my apartment while I cool look headsetted it almost two hours away had me a bit concerned.

I didn’t need to be as Bella couldn’t have cared less. The Memes wasn’t intimidating. Gibson and Duke and some of the allowed momentary waywards were. Mimi? She was just an old girl Bella sniffed/sniffs at just like Cricket the Blind (that’s another tail as to the how).

I found Mimi in my bathroom maybe suddenly realizing, hours earlier, that this sneak up the stairs might not have been the best of moves … or not. She was comfortably asleep in my little bathroom cabinet empty except for two rolls of toilet paper and the one hand towel I don’t use, a good bed it seems. I said Hi and she stretched, climbed out and did a tappy tap thing on the bathroom floor with her front paws, comfortably, as if to say “where have you been?”

I had been adopted.

Though downstairs can be a wondrous thing of many fur, an often halfway house, it can be easy to get lost in the shuffle, attention divided.

Mimi tappy tapped with a sigh of relief that I didn’t just pick her up and bring her back downstairs. I think she knew I wouldn’t. That tappy tap was a comfort for her, an escape from the din as she already knew she owned me.

And though Bella doesn’t seem to care, I kind of feel like she’s happy to at least have Mimi’s presence in the place, even along with Cricket.

“C’mon Bell, which chair do you want tonight? Memes?” Cricket will follow eventually and climb my leg into whichever chair Bella decided against.

Bella sleeps next to me in whichever of my two PC chairs I’m not in, Cricket has eventually gotten bored and left my lap to the bed waiting (she is the best of sleep partner cats) …

… and Mimi? She sleeps on my desk on the old bar towels my English cousin gave me so many years ago that I have layed out for her or grabs my left hip on the Shoes chair staring into cat nothing or everything knowing she has a human to call all to her own.

///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

Breaths coming with a timed hic.

“Memes? You Ok?”

She was just to my left, on the Shoes chair as she often is, when I realized that that timed hic was actually hiccups. Yes, fur get them too it seems. I petted, her tongue lapped at the air until it didn’t. No more tongues, no more hics. She soon breathed easy and fell asleep while I keyboard scribbled.

Trust.

There ya go Memes. A post about cats. Now that’s just some crazy talk right?

(to the tune of “Walk Of Life” – Dire Straits)

Though I was hoping for a new found lack of material with an Orange loss,  there is still, sadly, more to be had.  Future dreaming despots don’t go down easy it seems, especially when they’re enabled. 

I don’t really like this one, for a Dire Straits tune I much prefer this,  but it was time well spent and worked, worded. 

Note: Taking a step back a few days days later after posting it’s much better than my initial reaction after I finished it. Cool, I feel better now. Spent the last few days avoiding listening to it again thinking it sucked.  

Song Of Lie

Alright

Hello Philadelphia

We ready to go now?

Hey?

Where’s my bottled water?

And my 6 pack of good ol’ American beer in a can?

And there should be a pack of smokes around here somewhere

And whoa! Why’s the band not wearing MAGA hats?

My beautiful, greatest marketing slogan ever MAGA hats?

Hey!

Stage manager didn’t you read my rider?

It was in bullet points with pictures and everything

Baron did the pictures for me by the way, great job, beautiful boy

And where’s my tray of quarter pounders?

C’mon now!

—

Here comes Donnie singin’ oldies baddies

“Be-Bop-A-Doozy”’s now a comin’ your way

This is ol’ Donnie a contentious of loser 

Trying to make his propaganda play

—

He banked the action ‘gainst mail in voting

Early days of Spring

Simple one minded, to the notion

Claiming legal ballots are fraud he does sing

—

He sings of wrong along with William the Low Barr

He Sings with Mitch, a Lindsey and a Mike P

Ooh He sings the talk, he sings election lie

Yep, he sings election lie

—

Boo Hoo Hoo

—

Here comes Donnie, Captain Danger Democracy

GOP cults superhero fool

Here comes Donnie, with a red white and lie cape

Flyin’ round, loud mouth agape  

—

He’s claiming fraud to halt his demotion

Wiiiiith syc-ophants in tow

Infatuation, genuflection

Insisting Stockholm’s to go with his flow

—

It’s a song about election’s just not right  

With claims of rigging fraud done in plain sight

And they sing his song, sing his election lie

Yep, they walk his song of lie

—

Boo Hoo Hoo

Boo Hoo

—

Here comes Donnie singin’ always same key

“Be-Bop-A-Doozy” if you support me

Believe my words and just mine alone now

All is doomed if it goes against me

—

He gots the anger, he gots his lapdogs

Yeah, they’re yips can play

Subjugation, fetchication  

Grabbin’ balls for another hopeful Trump day

We’ll prove with evidence that really don’t exist

That comes with Dem’s co-ordinated blue assist  

He sings his song, he sings election lie

Mmmm he sings his song of lie-ie-ie

—

Booh Hooh  

Booh Hoo Hoo

Boo Hoo Hoo

It’s a weird day. When you’ve spent so much time railing it’s weird to not have to rail any longer, or at least for five minutes. When a number of Me’s, or at least a greater number of Me’s than the number of them’s said enough. When these Me’s said can we catch a break please, from the onslaught of lies?

I’m a pretty simple guy, a pretty simple and quiet guy with cats. I don’t have a lot of asks. Mimi the Quirky has her couple of spots, the top of my current pillow or the one I have layed on the floor just to the right of my bed, Cricket the Blind has my left, and my little Bella holds the middle, you could say, on her comfy lay of an old comforter folded just right in a closet with shoes I never wear. That’s the simple. But I had no couch in my simple and my quiet for the Orange. My simple was tested and my quiet got a little loud, or at least as loud as it could be, a little tuneful at times. He layed on my chest unwelcome for four years making it difficult to breathe.

You can almost miss him, but not really. The daily derision you rightfully showered him with, wishing you could do it one on one, making you feel better in your mind with an imagined confrontation over these four years of a tinpot’s imagined dictatorial reign is easily missed.

Can you take a break for a second now? Sure, but Joe Biden is just a treatment not a cure. He’s what makes us, some of us, feel better at the moment, allows us to maybe take a step back and assess just how we went wrong. Will that assessment come easily? No. Will it amount to anything? Couldn’t tell ya. Another four years can be short. There were losses in this win, big ones, and the damage is extensive, our democracy has taken a hit that will be difficult to recover from. Flaws have been exposed. This cancer won’t just go away now, it will continue to attack our core even when we’ve figured out how the remote for the bed works, tall back, short back, under knees bumps while doctors and nurses hover.

This treatment probably won’t be enough.

It’s a weird day. For the unknown. One man, one man in a nation of millions was enough to turn our world upside down, sideways, ass backwards. How do you recover from that? Knowing now that that’s possible?

A friend said to just breathe now Steve.

I’m trying.

(to the tune of “American Pie”)

Day 17 of my 17 days of Trump parodies. This is it, the big one today. A day of anticipation and also dread. Do we go with a creeping autocracy or something with a bit of hope?

So, on this last day, I’ve got one more parody tune to re-post for ya. I didn’t have a ‘new’ tune yesterday for day #16 as I just went with repeating my latest from a couple of days ago, my take on “Walkin’ On The Sun” … “Walkin’ Tow’rds Ruin” which came out pretty darn good but also has a short window so thus the again. Well at least I re-posted it at Facebook.

I’m gonna finish up then today with one of my better ones, my version of “American Pie”.

Well, let’s hope for the best today, hope that maybe I no longer have the material for new songs.

(originally posted here in the Attic August 30, 2020)

American Sigh

A long red time ago

Repubs may not remember

When they had some semblance of a soul

But now it seems they’ll gladly send               

That semblance out into the wind

To lapdog satisfy their orange sin

—

It’s shameless propaganda now

Reminding time of where we how

Vowed it’s return to not allow

After we thought we’d learned just how

—

It’s dark and lie filled but with a glint

A knowing smirk aware lie’s tint

Care not for truth knowing you’ll not blink

The day Democracy dies

—

So, bye, bye blue Democracy sky

Pledged on parchment with a dream when the future was nigh

Pursuit of happiness the framers all had that eye

But that stands to now to maybe just die

Unless we get out reclaim that high

—

The goal now is hold us back

To use any underhanded tack

Destroy the mail or employ law’s hack

Or maybe send guns to man the polls

Claim integrity protec-ting the rolls

Even declare a win in possible defea-ea-eat

—

Now if you believe in great leader’s lies

If you think there are no foreign ties

You surely believe too

That he cares for a me and a you

That he’s not trying to suppress the vote

That he’s only trying uphold his oath

But it’s a one he just made to self

While seein’ democracy die

—

And I’m singin’ bye, bye blue Democracy sky

Pledged on parchment with a dream when the future was nigh

Pursuit of happiness the framers all had that eye

But that stands to now to maybe just die

Unless we get out reclaim that high

—

For four dumbing years he’s been tryin’ to sow

A discontent help divide to grow

And doesn’t care what is the toll

He leans on loyalists while skirtin’ the rules

Knowing in the Senate he has the tools

That will submit with joy that they’re all just foo-ools

—

He’ll even pretend messianic grace

Holds a thing with words smoke in our face

A Low Barr surely grinned

At his words peace it then was burned

And while lies come at a furious clip

Our intelligence it continues to dip

And we sing laments to truth in the dark

As we watch Democracy die

—

I keep on singing bye, bye blue Democracy sky

Pledged on parchment with a dream when the future was nigh

Pursuit of happiness the framers all had that eye

But that stands to now to maybe just die

Unless we get out reclaim that high

—

Now death still comes at a steady pace

Since Trump declared straight to our face

This was nothing and would go away

But the problem here is this interfered

Self interest ruled and he was a’feared

Of keeping place so what of people’s tea-earrs?

—

So discrediting it soon began

The truth of science sent on the lam

It was all just a Fauci scam

Despot playbook played and ran

—

So great leader thought to change the rules

To take away some important tools

To fudge numbers or to just disclude

While watching Democracy die

—

We all are singing bye, bye blue Democracy sky

Pledged on parchment with a dream when the future was nigh

Pursuit of happiness the framers all had that eye

But that stands to now to maybe just die

Unless we get out reclaim that high

—

Ooohhh and now we stand on the edge of fate

While dealing with an unbounded hate

Of any truth that doesn’t rate

The trump dumb down it takes it’s toll

My own head a mess atop the atoll

This orange devil just might be our death kno-oll

—

We’ve heard him now in his tweeted rage

Or instead a whine meant set the stage

For an outcome of the age

That might not fit his gauge

—

He’ll burn this all down now if he can

Not caring of just what that might bring

To anyone who doesn’t sing

The day Democracy dies

—

We need be singin’ bye, bye blue Democracy sky

Pledged on parchment with a dream when the future was nigh

Pursuit of happiness the framers all had that eye

But that stands to now to maybe just die

Unless we get out reclaim that high

—

I met a truth who sang the blues

Seemed there wasn’t any happy news

It packed it’s bags and then turned it’s back

I watch now as truth walks away

A slow trudge feet stuck in swamp’s clay

A stuck that is now so hard to esca-a-ape

—

And in the streets pro-tests still reel

Injustice tryin’ to make us feel

But Orange won’t allow that

Paints as anar-chy’s bat

—

And the three men Trump admires most

Himself, himself and he as host

Conduct a train called Realities Ghost

And ride while democracy dies

—

Bye  bye blue Democracy sky

Pledged on parchment with a dream when the future was nigh

Pursuit of happiness the framers all had that eye

But that stands to now to maybe just die

Unless we get out reclaim that high

—

And I am singin’ bye, bye blue Democracy sky

Pledged on parchment with a dream when the future was nigh

Pursuit of happiness the framers all had that eye

But that stands to now to maybe just die

I’ll give him credit. The dude has hung with me for going on 15 years now, I’m sure shaking his head on occasion after yet another phone call of me ranting my nutty and positing of what we should do now and who we should condemn. From Rob Manfred pissing me off as he fucks with my one true constant and love to the orange elephant that fills the room with a two handed glass and proud ignorance. But he has hung with me amid a seeming crazy on my part, has surely nodded on the other end of the phone with a rolled eye and a check of his wrist, our talk of cats and dogs and dogs and cats and the world. I might seem to be an easy guy, but I’m not. I’m something of an asshole. You wouldn’t want to live with me unless you’d be alright with a solitude for companion. There’s a reason I’m single, though single shouldn’t define you, as if you are lacking, but I am an asshole. Yes, a single one. But he has hung with me nonetheless.

We talk, have talked about how the world is just the world doing what it does at will and we just try to weather it from lost marriages to lost jobs to pandemics that scare the shit out of us to lost bits of our sanity, to a frightening divide that is intentionally widened by the day with flags and bibles and guns (fuck you baby General) but to always get up, knees scraped, and have another phone call to bitch about such.

He reminds me that all is surely  … ummm … well … weller than I thought, kind of, reminds me that cats in a lap are a good thing, new puppies as well, not pathetic and I try to remind him that some things are just flat out shitty, maybe just not meant be. Not meant to be?  Jesus Steve, seriously?! Did you just say that? “not meant to be”? Could you be any more empty and generic? I would make an awful life coach.

No, I try to remind him, maybe my own reminding while I’m at it that an affordable roof and  cat food (or dog food) is all that matters. A breathing too. You just do what you need to around that.

He reminds me of youth and that I’m not done quite yet. That there is still time before a retirement of a tall bridge or the lottery.

He lives amid this shitty world now as best can be expected, does stuff, still works, as do I (the working, not the doing stuff which I have no care for) enjoying time with friends and maybe even strangers in the background of photographs. He’s a social kind of guy, something I could be envious of if only that were my thing. It’s not but he reminds me that that is ok. We are our own. He retreats to the comfort of fur on a lap just like me at the end of a day.  So maybe I’m good.

Thanks JJ.

Good talk my friend.

…

C’mon Memes, lets his the rack. It’s a nice pillow, brand new, just twelve bucks from Dollar General with two others … I know, three pillows for 12 bucks … a steal huh? Boom!! Mic drop!! (though on one of the pillows, these mic’s are fuckin’ expensive) Hey Bell, where you at? Cricket?