mark of a man

This weekend Steven and I have finally begun to tackle the landscaping in our front yard after one too many comments of, “Oooh, you’re a landscape designer? I bet your yard must be AWESOME!” Yes, the crabgrass is very healthy.

Yesterday afternoon we began OPERATION: WEED NUKE. It was a lazy, rainy sort of day which made the weeds easier to pull up, but it also meant we became caked with red mud.

Soon, a muddy Steven announced, “I’ve got to pee.” I started to think about all the logistics involved with his having to remove enough mud from his person so he could enter the house when he just walked into our backyard, found himself a tree, and marked it as his.

I laughed and shouted, “Yay, you got to mark your territory!”

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hey waiter, there’s a guitar in my renaissance

I am really enjoying the Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men’s Chest soundtrack. It has just enough of the original movie’s themes but then builds on them to create totally new pieces of music. To me, it’s the way a sequel soundtrack should be done.

I was talking about this with a fellow soundtrackophile who dislikes the soundtrack because something about it bugs him. “The guitars,” he says. “I don’t think they should use instruments or songs in movies where they wouldn’t exist in the movie’s time in history. Take A Knight’s Tale, for example. They start singing, ‘We Will Rock You’! That bugs me.”

Though I saw his point I still disagreed — I just couldn’t exactly think why except that I knew that stuff usually didn’t irritate me. I also couldn’t think of any good movie examples to refute him, so we let the conversation wander on to less debatable things.

I was thinking about the subject again this morning as the Pirates soundtrack was blasting through the house, and an idea struck me: people of our current time and generation relate to different types of music in a much different way than people of previous time periods and generations do. That’s why modern instruments and songs in otherwise period movies don’t grate against me.

For example, take Beethoven. Most of us hear his Fifth Symphony and images of dour old laidies in pearls and men with waistcoats and pipes sitting around a grammarphone dance in front of our eyes. However, that was not how that piece of music was perceived in Beethoven’s time. People were shocked when they heard the crazy things he was doing with musical sounds — much like the way adults were horrified when the Beatles became popular. Beethoven was a rebel — he did things with music that nobody dreamed of. The punk rocker of his day, that one.

Back to A Knight’s Tale and the crowd of common folk sitting in the stands, chanting “We Will Rock You!” Because we know that song and relate it to sports events, competitions, and general one-upmanship, we get a much better idea of what those people back in that era were feeling when they went to jousts. It was a rarin’ good time! Knowing what that chant means to us makes us realize their sporting events meant no less to them than a good Auburn/Alabama rivalry game means to us. We could not have made that connection had there been a four-piece ensemble of fools playing oboes.

And so with Pirates, the guitar kicking in during the exiting, tense bits of music bumps up our knowledge of the struggle and adventure that is going on on the screen. We relate that sound to high-adrenaline rock bands and that’s how the moviemakers want us to feel when watching the action scenes.

So to my fellow soundtrackophile — ’cause I know you’re reading this — I have just two words for you.

Moulin Rouge.

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like a rock

Neither of our cats really clean their butts much, but Hermione is especially notorious for it. She collects her little butt nuggets like baseball cards then sticks her rear in your face to show them off.

A few days ago she was flashing her new nugget around. I was too tired to clean it off for her so I just dubbed it Gibraltar and left it at that.

Yes — I named a butt nugget. I know.

Since then I’ve asked Hermione how Gibraltar was doing when she would come to cuddle with us on the bed. She’d flash him, mutter at us, then curl up to sleep with Gibraltar in tow. Being a butt nugget must be hard living.

This evening Steven and I were relaxing on the bed — him listening to a novel while I was reading one — and along comes Hermione with her Friend.

Seeing Gibraltar, Steven points out, “You need to get off this one — I got off the last one.”

“But I like Gibraltar,” I whined.

“It’s. A. Piece. Of. Turd. You don’t have emotional connections to shit.”

Then I broke down into snorting laughter, and came into the office to write this story.

I think Gibraltar is about to be chipped off.

I capture the cat

Last Sunday I get a call from my sister, who was staying up the road with my parents: “There’s somebody here you need to come meet!” she said in a sing-song voice.

My first thought was, “Oh, my goodness; they’ve tamed Jim-Bob!” which is the name of a baby rabbit that has been frequenting my parents’ patio. No, it wasn’t Jim-Bob — this moth-eaten cat with skinny hips and a loving demeanor had shown up on the patio instead. That patio is a Grade A Animal Attractant, what with the birds and snakes that come around, too.

“We think this could be our second kitty,” Cathy continued. Only what would they do with said second kitty until they move into their new house in July? They certainly have no room at the moment in their itty-bitty apartment house with Harrison, the first kitty.

I told Steven the situation. “A kitty?” His eyes lit up. “I’ll go get the carrier.”

So we found ourselves that Sunday evening on my parents’ back patio loving on this grey tabby who was starting to remind me of a male Hermione. As he passed back and forth between all of us, Cathy and Jason discussed their options. We had pretty much decided that he was a stray of sorts — he was just too skinny and crunchy to be someone’s pet and if he was, he wasn’t well-cared for.

It was soon decided that they would christen him their Second Kitty, and Steven and I would play foster to this cat until they moved into their new house in mid-July. After all, we had a basement. So home we went with a grey tabby in tow. Thankfully he rides in the car more like Renton than Hermione.

Now, what to call him? His ears are all crunched up like he had been in a fight, so Steven and I started calling him Fidget (movie reference; see The Great Mouse Detective) until Cathy and Jason could decide on a name. He checked out well at the vet — not many fleas, no bad things, he had just been in a cat fight and was already neutered. That evening Cathy and Jason had decided on a name: Malcolm, like from Jurrasic Park.

Since he is going to be with us for a full month, we decided we’re going to slowly incorporate him with Renton and Hermione so there is less stress on all involved . . . except Renton and Hermione. We’re worked him up to the office now. Hermione and especially Renton knows he exists (Renton and Malcolm accidentally saw each other once) and they’re handling it okay so far, though Hermione is more peeved than Renton. We’ll see how all this goes.

Malcolm is very much like a male version of Hermione. He’s very talkative, especially when he first sees you, and he LOVES to be petted and doted on. He especially likes butt rubbins. The way he scrunches up his nose when he meows makes me laugh. I think he’ll make a great pair with Harrison once they all get settled. I hope Harrison is ready for one talkative brother.

hurray for weddings

I don’t know if I’ve really mentioned it much — y’all know it’s been hectic here for a while — but Ken and Lisa have had a wedding sneaking up on them, and it finally took place yesterday. It was a lovely affair, and Lisa even said, “I do.”

I couldn’t help but bring my camera and take pictures, so I’ve already got them on my Flickr account. They’re gonna have much better pictures than these, though, because they had no less than four photographers snapping their every move. That was amusing in and of itself.

Anyway, they’re finally married — they’ve been together for quite a while — so they can continue with their playful bickering. Now they just get to wear wedding bands while doing it.

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Everything else around here seems to be finally settling down. We still aren’t really unpacked yet, what with the slew of birthdays, holidays, and other festivities going on . . . that won’t quit until August. I feel like I need a vacation but, alas!, no vacation days ’till Christmas. I still have hopes for a holiday anniversary London trip.

Summer has definitely arrived with a bang around here, so now I begin my long annual watch for the first blessed cold front around late September. This is always the longest four months of the year.

Man, I was hoping to have a longish entry but there’s really not much else going on worth noting besides the stuff I’ve already mentioned. Wait, there is the thing with the Bubbettisms, but that will be it’s own post. I’ll get to that later.

an open letter to the imbecile

To the white Ford gas-guzzler who honked at us on Rocky Ridge:

What was your problem? Are you unfamiliar with people in front of you slowing down and stopping of the traffic is backed up? Are you unaware that Pump House Road and Shades Crest filter out onto Rocky Ridge at that intersection?

See, if someone in front of me stops, I stop as well. It’s the SAFE way to be. The person in front of us stopped to turn left onto Pump House Road. They stop; we stop. IT’S THAT SIMPLE.

There was certainly no need for you to get all in a huff and lay on your horn. God forbid you be 30 seconds late to your very important Country Club affair. Did you have too much coffee today? Or, worse still; not enough?

After that little show we opted to go the bonifide speed limit so you would simmer down a bit. I think 50 mph was a little too rich for your temper at the moment. If you hadn’t been such a blowhard, we would not have made a point of it.

So, 40 mph it was, and you were seething. Despite the rain and the double-yellow line, I could see you had a hankering for some illegal passing. Of course, the rush hour traffic prevented that.

We come to our turn and, praise God, you went straight ahead. You hadn’t simmered down, though, had you? Nope, you had to get in one last honk, the final word, to let us know how much you didn’t appreciate our (legal) driving. Did you see my middle fingers? I showed them to you. I hope you liked them.

Look, we’re (mostly) civilized people here, so let’s get something straight. We all live in a large, car-riddled, metro area. We have a hell of a lot of traffic, due in part to our government’s fixation on a theme park and a mythical sports dome instead of a mass transit system. Therefore, people drive cars around here — lots of them.

Be careful, one may be braking near you.

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