Crunchy Thoughts

I miss the smell of diesel fuel at the buttcrack of dawn. This realization came upon me yesterday morning as I was coming into work an hour early for a road trip to Chattanooga, where my boss had his diesel truck running in idle. It was a surprisingly good smell, and memories of band trips of the past came into my mind. . .

Get up, no time for shower, grab your stuff and go go go to the band hall, wait for the buses so you can get a good seat, talking through your chattering teeth to your teeth-chattering friends. Hey, they’re passing out the per diem, money money money, how much did you get? Dude, they better stop us at someplace cheap.

Oooh, the buses are here, rush rush rush to The Drum Bus Bus #2, claim your seat with your jacket and backpack full of amusing stuff. Find the Pit people, gather the instruments, make sure it’s packed, ReadY? One, two, lift! Into the belly of the bus, now do that five more times, is it all in? Fantabulous, I’m gonna go get some cheap coffee from the Sunshine Room, want some?

Hey, the sun’s coming up, think it might rain? So freezing cold, get on the bus and wait, wait, wait for 350 other people to situatie themselves, are we readY? Yeah, there goes JV, we’re ready, start up the bus, moving out. Road Trip!

And now it is the morning.

And there is no snow save for a two by three inch patch in the woods.

I am going to go cry now.

Ahh, new updates. Huntsville finally woke up this afternoon and placed us northeast Alabama counties in a Winter Storm Warning, so the excitment is still building here. I’ve half a mind to set my alarm clock to 3 a.m. to see if the predictions were oh so true. And, knowing myself, if I see this blanket of white I’d be quite likely to see how far I can get out there with my camera. Or I could go back to sleep. It will be 3 a.m. after all. And I’m also assuming that it will snow. One can never be absolutely sure around here.

Thankfully my food situation is good enough so that I didn’t have to hit the local Wal-Mart this evening. In this small town, Wal-Mart is the local hangout, so you don’t want to be needing bread and milk on a normal afternoon, much less one that is threatening snow. I’d rather starve, or go to K-Mart, even though they don’t have the jelly I like.

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I’ve discovered recently that Renton likes rubber bands, but they don’t like him back. Today the bathroom looked as though it got stuck on the way out, so he rubbed his butt up against the bath tub to help it along. Thanks for that, baby. I needed to clean the bathroom anyway.

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My feet are cold. Where are my Muppet Socks?

Last week I was complimenting the nice change to warm, sunny weather. This week I shall compliment the return back to cold, cloudy weather. Usualy I would not, but today, there is talk of snow in the air. Snow snow snow snow snow! Supposedly two to four inches here in the valley. Right now I am sitting on my butt waiting for Huntsville to get off theirs and issue the warning already. Counties south of here have theirs, yet it’s Jackson and DeKalb that are forecasted to get the most. As Steven pointed out, people in Huntsville are engineers, not weathermen. No kidding. I could go on and on about their on-camera weathermen, but I’m feeling nice today. However, I will say that I miss James Spann something terrible.

Maybe I will update later about the potential for snow, and if I can think of anything interesting going on, I’ll do that too. But for now . . . database.

Well, I’ve got stuff to do and a cat to deal with, so I’ll do the map thing that everybody else has done. When in Rome and all that stuff. Enjoy.

Here are all the states that I’ve ever been to. Arkansas and Kentucky were both wrong turns, I believe.

Here are states that I would like to visit. Notice I’ve highlighted states that I’ve already visited; it just means that there’s places in those states that I’d like to see. Also notice my lack of desire to visit Texas.

States I’ve lived in. It is sort of sad. I would like to see my dad’s version of this map; he’s lived everywhere.

Where I’ve been to in this old world. Another sad map. I plan to paint the world red with my travels someday.

So now go give it a whirl yourself

Yesterday was a very special day at my apartment: it was Renton’s birthday! He actually made it to one year of age without me killing him; we are all proud.

He got a nifty toy for his birthday, too. Let’s see how I can describe this thing. It’s a round thingy with a ball in it that rolls around on a track of sorts so he can bat at it, and in the middle is a replaceable pad made of cardboard for him to sharpen his claws on. I call it his Ball Thingy, and thank goodness he likes it. Based on past experience, it seems the cheaper the toy is, the more he likes it. He likes it even more when it’s not supposed to be a toy at all, like the pictures hanging over the sofa.

There is also good news to report on Mission: Toliet Cat. The last two times I’ve been able to catch him while he was peeing, he had three feet on the toliet rim! Yay, just one more foot to go, then we can work on weaning him from the litter totally. Thank god for Tuna, the only cat-persuasion device you could ever need.

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I would like to take this moment to welcome back the Sun, which we have not seen here in Fort Payne for the past two weeks or so. Walking out of my office this afternoon was like entering another dimension; one with color and bright things to amuse the eye. I do still wish for snow, though. I moved up here specifically for snow, dammit.

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Oh, and if anybody is the least bit interested, if you want a website done, I’ll do it for you. All I ask in return is money. Hey, it’s a great deal! You know you need one . . .

Woohoo, look at me! I’m posting on a Wednesday; I’m being . . .spontaneous! It is all about the spontanaiety. Spontenaeity? Damn, I still can’t spell.

As I’ve mentioned before, I’ve been having some trouble with Renton constantly getting onto the top of the refrigerator. I believe his motive is to get his daily fabric fix by munching on the dishtowels that I keep up there; which, by the by, I put up there so he could not get them from the magnetic hook on the frige door. Apparently all this has done is given him a challenge that he had to accept.

Yesterday, after finding my oven mitts on the floor with a munching Renton attached to them, I went back to Tape Deflection Mode. I guessed that he got to the top of the fridge via the adjacent counterspace, so I covered the entire area with packaging tape, sticky side up. “Try it now, cat! You just might get into a sticky situation indeed.” I laughed my evil laugh.

Alas, it seems that Renton does not use the counter to get up there. I’ve come to two conclusions. Either he has a ridiculous amount of gadgets that he uses to raise himself up then levitate across to the fridge like a furry Tom Cruise out of Mission: Impossible . . . or he is able to jump from the kitchen floor clear up to the top of the fridge, which I am guessing is about six feet high. It’s taller than me, for sure, because I had to grasp up there blindly this morning until I got him by his tail and dragged him down to reality.

While he was still in the bathroom serving ‘Punishment Time’ afterwards, I rigged up a bunch of boxes to put on top of the fridge to add another foot and a half, and I then covered those boxes with more packaging tape, sticky side up. If he is desperate enough to get up there, he better be able to clear seven feet easily while covered in oil.

So far, I do not think he has made an attempt. Either that or he got up there, laughed at my stupidity, then reset everything, including the packaging tape, exactly like he found it.

And if he can do that, then why can’t he learn to keep his toys from the crack under the laundry door that leads to the Black Hole of All Kitty Toys?

Such a strange cat.

Yes, I am back once again, on a Tuesday no doubt. As it was pointed out to me earlier this week that I tend to do my postings on Tuesdays, I wanted to avoid this predictable occurence, but alas. I meant to write yesterday, but the broccoli thought otherwise.

Last weekend, I was helping Steven go though his huge batch of mail that he receives every month and a half or so. Apparently mail is not a daily thing in the little of corner of Auburn in which he abides, but that is another matter. He had some junk mail, a check (a check!!!), various offers from BellSouth to please oh please come back, a card from me (that I sent the second week of January), and what looked to be an invitation-greetinglike card, all done up in a translucent envelope. You know, that new style of paper that is oh so 21st century.

Y’all know BellSouth, right? Oh come on, sure you do. If you’re from around here anyway. We had the privledge of seeing their big building up in Nashville. It sure scared the boogers outta me. I did get a picture, though. Wanna see it? Sure ya do.

Ready?

Ohhh, you’re gonna love it . . .

Here it comes . . .

Mordor was inspired by Nashville; just had to be. So anyway, where was I? Oh yeah, BellSouth mail stuff. Soon after last Christmas, Steven and I decided that paying for two phone lines along with two high-speed DSL connections was just a bit more money than we wanted to fork over to BellSouth, so we cancelled the service for the Auburn apartment. Ever since, they have seemed awful desperate to get their 95 dollars a month back. Uh huh.

Okay, back to the invitation-greetinglike card.

I open it up and begin to read.

“Okay, we admit it, we let the romance slip away . . . ” And I am thinking, “Umm, this isn’t the card I sent him . . . ”

“Maybe we didn’t say ‘we care’ as much as we should have . . . ” Now I’m thinking, “Maybe they got the wrong ‘Steven’ ”

“Maybe you were right about everything . . .” I’m starting to think, “Steven, do you need to tell me something?”

“Please come back; we promise to be really, really good to you from now on . . .” My thoughts digress to, “What?!”

“. . .starting with a phone plan you’re gonna love!”

Huh?

“Come back to BellSouth for local service and enjoy extra flexibility with the BellSouth Complete choice Plan . . .”

What a card! Literally! Well I began laughing so hard I almost fell to the ground (which is not all that unusual for me). “Maybe we didn’t say ‘we care’ as much as we should have”? Too right. Well, at least they did say “Thank you” in small lettering under the ‘amount paid’ section of the bill. Sending out cards like this makes me worry for their sanity more than anything.

Still, you gotta admit it’s a good marketing campaign. It certainly got my attention and emblazoned their name into my brain.

However, I’m still not giving them 95 clams a month.

Hmm, ’tis a Thursday. For all of you who are gravely concerned about my health (and sanity) by fault of the last post, I am much better now. It’s a weird, weird week when I fight a cold and actually end up winning. Much thanks to the Nyquil company and Vick’s nose spray.

I’m really straining to think of something to talk about, but my week has been quite mundane. I’ve either worked, slept, peed, pooped, blew my nose with little sucess, called on Renton, played with Renton, warned Renton, punished Renton, put Renton to bed, woke Renton up, read a book, or scratched my ass. As you can see, there’s not much to talk about.

I hope to have some good stories after my trip to Auburn.

Here’s hoping for some excitement.

“Hell yes, I’m for debatting anything; Rhode Island says ‘Yay!’”

I’m hopped up on Nyquil, can you tell?

I’ve come to the conclusion that . . .

. . . if Renton wants to get on top of the refrigerator, he will do so no matter what reservations I have of it.

. . . Wal-Mart puts way too much frosting on their cupcakes, yet I eat it anyway while wishing for more actual cake below to balance out the sugary Mt. Everest on top.

. . . Nyquil is good, Nyquil is grand, Nyquil is the best unregulated alcohol in the land.

. . . I forgot.

. . . I need more time than I have.

. . . I’m out of conclusions.

I think I’ll stop now. Wheeeee!