BRAINPAN LEAKAGE

One might think that I am referring to the May 5 astronomical event, in which the moon was at its closest point to earth in its egg-shaped orbit, AND was full at the same time. Full of what? Cheese, most likely. Although I suspect there is also a case to be made for Helium 3, but it’s too early to get into that right now.

However… No. I am NOT talking about that particular moon. I am talking about this morning’s moon. Odds are you missed it. The fact of the matter is, I caught it purely by chance, and it was a sight to behold.

You see, we have this cat.

Odd way to start this story, I suppose, but trust me, it’ll make sense.

Said cat is named Tiger. I personally call him Nachos el Tigre – or Nachos for short. Why? Because my daughter gets upset when I call him Almost Roadkill. Like any animal we have around the house, Nachos is a rescue. He came from the middle of the highway as a tiny kitten who was apparently washed out of his home during a flash flood (probably a storm drain) when he was on the order of 4-5 weeks old. I won’t go into the sordid details of us adopting him, suffice it to say he came to live with us, but while you can take the cat out of the feral, you can’t take the feral out of the cat. ‘Nuff said.

And so… Nachos has wreaked all manner of havoc throughout our house, up to and including ripping holes in the underside of our mattress foundation and using the resulting hollow as his “Nachos Cave.” His personal fort, so to speak. What does this have to do with the moon? Nothing. And everything. Yeah, it’s sorta like that.

You see, the redhead – yes, her worship Evil Kat – is none too pleased with his penchant for ripping up the mattress foundation. In fact, if he was… oh, I dunno… just some guy, and not a cat, he’d already be wearing one of her stilettos as a hood ornament. Then we’d have to change his name to Jimmy Choo the Unicorn. However, since he’s a cat, and not a dood, he gets a sorta free pass. Meaning, she just yells at him instead of stomping on him while she yells at him. Odd how that works. Maybe I should get myself a tail and some whiskers… But I digress.

And so, today was no different, or so I thought. Her worship was getting dressed for work when I returned from dropping off the o-spring at school. Upon entering the house I heard a ruckus, followed by the redhead screaming all manner of expletives at Nachos el Tigre. It was pretty obvious to me what was happening, or again, so I thought. The ruckus and screaming continued, so I went to investigate.

There… Below the horizon… as in down on the floor, clad in naught but her lacy undergarments, was the redhead, screaming at the dust ruffle while fishing around underneath the bed with one arm.

Let’s just say Downward Facing Dog does little justice as a description for the moon rising in the doorway. And I have to say, it was super…

Suddenly, the yelling stopped. A moment of quiet fell, then the redhead looked up. “Is this going to be a blog?” she asked.

My reply was simple. “It is now.”

Later…

Le Swerv

Or: How Michele Bachmann Got Me Into Trouble With My Wife

I’m not a Michele Bachmann fan. Personally, I think the woman is off her rocker, but I am stating that as my opinion based upon her rhetoric. I’ve never met her – nor do I want to meet her – and moreover, I am not a clinical head-shrinker, so I’m not academically qualified to diagnose her as a nutjob. That said, (being a disclaimer and all, you understand) I’m relatively certain her elevator stops somewhere in between the first and second floor.

All good. I’m not about to begrudge her the right to run off at the mouth. However, as I’ve always stated, other people’s rights end where mine begin, and now Michele has directly affected said rights. How? She got me in trouble with The Evil Redhead.

For this to make sense, I need to give you a bit of info. You see, there is a routine here at E K Central. Each morning I wake up at oh-dark-thirty, start the coffee, visit the “Little Merp’s Room,” then install a 45 minute back massage on The Redhead. Trust me, if she doesn’t get her back massage in the morning, there’s hell to pay. After that, I proceed to get breakfast ready, answer email, prep EKay’s lunch, clean litter boxes, and on, and on. Somewhere in there, I take the o-spring to school, get my daily walk in, then return home in time to refill my coffee, bow and scrape to The Redhead, and then walk her out to her vehicle. It’s not that she needs an escort; it’s that she needs a pack mule. Yes, I “carry her books” for her (that’s a metaphor. I carry her lunch, extra shoes, and other stuff. Although, sometimes there are books, too.)

It’s at this juncture where her supreme evilness imparts upon me the instructions for the day. You know, stuff like, “Pick up my dry cleaning, polish all of my shoes, paint the house, build me a gazebo, make sure you prepare Beef Wellington for dinner tonight, and my vodka & tonic was too weak yesterday so if you don’t do better this evening there will be hell to pay. “

See what I mean? Normal stuff.

What does this have to do with Michele Bachmann, you ask? I’m getting to that.

On Friday morning, following standard procedure, I walked E K to her vehicle, loaded her lunch, stood still while she slapped me around, replied with, “Thank you, Mistress, may I have another?!” just as I am supposed to do, and all was good. Among her daily instructions to me was the following: Water the Basil and Oregano on the porch.

Easy enough, even for me, right? Well, not so much…

After seeing off Her Worship, I went back into the house on a mission to fill the watering can and tend to her herb garden. As I entered the door, The Early Show was blaring from the idiot box. On the screen was one of the co-hosts, and Michele Bachmann. From the speakers I heard, “Inducements inducing people to break the law to be induced to get the inducements that they were induced to be induced by, for the purpose of inducing…”

Okay… Yeah… So that is definitely NOT a direct quote. Here’s the real one:

“We’re inducing more people to break the law by giving them inducements and if someone comes into this state, they can subsequently also obtain other benefits on occasion as well,” she continued. “So we don’t want to have any inducements that will be a magnet to induce more people to come into the united states illegally.”

Even so, my overarching point here is that Michele Bachmann was flinging a ten-dollar word out there, in its various forms, multiple times in the same sentence.

I make my living with words. I notice shit like this. Especially when someone overuses the living crap out of a word. I mean, grammatically it’s never a stellar idea to use a word multiple times in a single sentence unless it’s an article or a preposition or a conjunction or something of that ilk. Know what I mean? It’s sort of like the old rule about not using a word in its own definition.

So… How did this get me in trouble?

Again, that’s easy – Inducement-gate was like a big train wreck to my ears. I stood there staring at the screen, drooling (because I was being mind-numbed), and I just couldn’t look away or tune it out. I’m sure plenty of folks are thinking, “Doooood. You’re making too big a deal out of it.”

Well no, not really. I’m not saying she should take a long walk off a short pier because of Inducement-gate (there are plenty of other reasons why I think she should do that.) However, as I said above, words are how I make my living, so a verbal train wreck like that was bound to make me go all googly-eyed.

And so, with my eyes goggled up, and my brain severely numbed, I completely forgot to water The Supreme Redhead’s herb garden – a fact that dawned on me Friday evening as I was paying daily homage to Her Worship by removing the lint from her sweater with a single three-inch strip of 15 year old generic cellophane tape, just like she’d told me to do. I guess I was still a little brain-numbed too, because instead of just going and watering the damn plants, I said with my out loud voice, “Oh crap, I forgot to water your herb garden!”

The doctor says I’ll be good as new in a few weeks if I just take it easy. He also suggested that I avoid exposure to Michele Bachmann.

I wonder if I should send HER the medical bill, or just forward it on to the GOP?

More to come…

Murv