Same Stuff, Different Birthday

Well the fourth … hold on … no, fuck you ad (freakin’ calendar phone apps) keep holding … you know what, let me just turn this over old school instead on a wall with a tack, oh hello July, you look like a younger Grayson (he was a cat, a very special cat) …

… the fourth is supposed to be this Friday if these annoying ad inundated apps and cat calendars have anything to say about it and that is the deadline Trump has imposed on his Big, Ugly Ass Evil Bill reconciliation package so he can take a victory lap right before the holiday while grilling immigrants and hot dogs and passing out brown shirts and small flags on small sticks made in China while laying claim to yet another amazingly destructive measure that he seems to gain so much pleasure from, he’s probably even considering subtly implying necessary kickbacks from his oligarchs and thinking of hugging another poor unsuspecting flag again for emphasis … I know, who would do that right?

But, well, I’m going to try my best to not lose any more sleep over it for the moment (though that’s probably an empty desire) and instead just enjoy a short week for my birthday as I have taken it, the 1^st and then the 2^nd off, back in on Thursday and then off on Friday and into the weekend.

Now I have no plans for this, don’t wish to have any plans for it other than doing what I’m doing right now, keyboard scribbling and hanging out with the girls (Bella & Cricket) for a little extra time. And, well “no plans” is still a plan, at least in my book and I am REALLY good at such.

Hey? You need someone to assist you in planning no plans? I’m your guy. And it’s pretty simple really, I just tell people NOT to ask for my help and then just do nothing. I don’t know if they take this advice that I don’t give on helping to plan no plans but it works for me and I’m happily left in the dark as to their successes or failures.

But with my birthday rolling around for yet another year, timely precise bastard that it is (you know, you could miss a year or two, I’d be alright with that) but with it returning with reminders of more gray hair and shorter breath and larger waistlines and creakier, cracking backs I am reminded, as with a conversation with Beck earlier, that well, I, we still got ones, these birthdays and not ones that someone else is remembering for us with flowers and maybe a knelt tear or two.

No, we’re still kicking it, Beck and I reminded ourselves, while she practiced some guitar and I caught up with her on her recent past weekend away to the Burgh (Pittsburgh) with her guy, Buck.

She went out that way with him this past Thursday, something she and he do every summer, maybe a couple of times, to take the Burgh back in and catch a Bucco game on a Saturday.

And in their yinzing they visited the Iron City Beer Brewery for a tour and eventually the gift shop and picked me up a couple of things … much appreciated.

Now while she was gone I was the cattaker, as always, as I mentioned in my 5:39am post from last week, and others as well making sure to take care of her three along with my two of course, keep everyone in good furry sorts of stinky food and company, including Arthur, who I think broke a little earlier this morning at 5am in his missing of Mom (Monday the 30^th) as I heard him at the top of the stairs, meowing his pained, lonely cries down into my basement room (a nice one by the way, this basement room, not some dark and dank place with only food and water provided by someone throwing it down the stairs just within reach of the chains, but a really comfortable spot with a bed and pillows and litter boxes and stuff collected and a TV and an air fryer and a fridge and a microwave and bookcases with clothes to read on the shelves.

But he was just looking for company and, as I have done in other recent posts, a couple of quick videos then, simply because they are always Arthur cute and endearing.

Timeline:

5am: Arthur plaintively meowing at the top of the basement stairs  

8am: Groggily make my way upstairs for a shower

830am: In the final moments of getting dressed for the day

845am: Make my way back upstairs with Arthur following to feed he and Saphira and Rikki, who, raspily reminds me that I’m fucking late for her breakfast, that she has been simply wasting away waiting for me at this late time and where she just glares at me in her chunkiness when I say that she should really start an exercise routine and eat a bit of lettuce or something.

Well, another birthday, one that has me turning 61 and officially being in my 60’s now (yes, can’t fudge this shit any longer when I could still say that I was in my 50’s last year) and my first one at Beck’s place, in a nice  basement like its own apartment, with she and Matt and extra cats.

Still kickin’ it we are Beck, and happily and thankfully so.

Holding off on flowers and tears from others just yet …

Oh, and a favorite birthday post from a few years ago where it was all about Victor stories and gifts of fancy hot dogs and ice cream cakes (he is a number of years older now and would surely hate me for this re-post)