Immolation Faker
It took him most of the evening to work up the courage to tell us he had set his cat on fire. People who set cats on fire are often not cherished but we few stragglers at the party did not feel judgmental, and that is probably a testament to the numbing effects of alcohol. If the man had gone out on the street wearing a sandwich board that said I set my cat on fire it is likely he would have been treated harshly by at least some of the passersby. I actually laughed but felt immediately ashamed, until a few others laughed with me and then I felt all right about it. You may be trying to figure out now which is the sicker bastard, the one who sets the cat on fire or the one who laughs about it. It could be a tie. There doesn't always have to be a winner.
Cat's are not firewood and should not be set on fire. I think we can all agree on that.
Now I would like to distance myself from this man and say that my laughing was obviously of the nervous type. The type that occurs when what you are really feeling is something more akin to horror. I had for the most part felt safe at the party, until the ending where one of us turned out to be a man who casually admits to setting his cat on fire.
Cats are cuddly and gentle creatures, except for the one that I am raising and she is a cold-blooded mauler, who on this most recent trip tattooed a nice scratch onto one girl's arm, swatted at a 7 year-old who up until that time had been worshiping her and subsequently was seen to mope, and later that evening the little tiger apparently punctured a vein or two on the back of my hand so that I dripped blood on the eve of Christmas eve and then the next day, actually just before the man admitted to setting his cat on fire, my cat shredded the face of a woman who afterwards came into the room where the few of us sat passively drunk (and not yet aware of the cat immolator in our midst) to alert us with blood dripping down her chin that my cat had some behavioral problems.
Men who set their cats on fire must be exposed but I have taken this Christmas tale as far as I can. I could have told you the truth but I didn't. I could have said I talked to a man at a party who told me his cat had brushed up against a candle in his home and singed a good bit of her hair on one side but instead I decided to make something up, to allude to the evil that may lurk in men. No cats were seriously injured in this story, but all the human suffering was real.
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Two Slices And A Pepsi
I had just spent seven dollars for a small bag of cat food on Stanton St. after having been turned away from a place on Clinton that was setting 4p.m. as the latest they would serve a late breakfast. So I parked the turnip truck and crossed Houston for a couple of slices at Ray's. The man at the counter put the slices in the oven for me and I just stood there, once peering over at the drink cooler with what might pass as a professorial interest, a man who has studied drink coolers across the globe. A Jamaican woman behind the counter surprised me with a loud, lilting and enthusiastic--Look At What I Got, holding up what may have been a candle holder or a piece of African art paying tribute to the twin towers. Oh, that's very nice, I said, suppressing what any man less self-conscious of driving a turnip truck would say--What the hell is it? Suppressing those words was harder than you would think and I found myself nodding and tilting my head back and forth in a rhythm that I think resembled deep understanding. The woman then asked could she get me something and I told her the man had already taken care of me. She asked did I want a beverage and I said yes, I would have a can of Pepsi, glad that I had earlier studied the contents of the cooler. Decision making is not my forte. She rang me up and said, six dollars and twenty-five cents. I had not studied the expansive menu board up on the wall behind the counter and besides, did not want to put a damper on the woman's spirits by haggling over the cost of two slices of cheese pizza and a 12 ounce can of Pepsi. The man served up the slices, placing them on two overlapping paper plates. I sat down at a table which had a few crumbs littering its surface and a few more on the chair. I chose it because it had the most condiments handy, the pepper flakes, the powdered Parmesan, the garlic salt, and even a bottle of hot sauce, or I think it was hot sauce. It is possible that it was something more mysterious than that. A simple slice of freshly warmed cheese pizza is a wonderful thing and I felt after the first two bites a growing sense of well-being. I was one of three customers, but the only one stuffing my face. At the table by the front door a couple waiting on a fresh pie-to-go were sitting and talking to the Jamaican woman, who was now leaning forward with her elbows on top of the grey plastic trash can cover just to the right of the glass doors. She had much to say but I had little interest in any of it. At one point the woman she was talking to, who sat across from her mostly silent man (with his shaking leg in contrast to his complacent demeanor), lowered her voice and turned around slightly to judge how quiet she needed to be to keep me from hearing, and said something that sounded like--He drinks his urine. I took a sip of Pepsi to wash away the effects of my imagination. Looking up at the menu board I did the math, 1.25 for each of my three items, and then cast a knowing glance into the void of non-confrontation. After leaving out of there I could not find my turnip truck so I just walked home.
I had just spent seven dollars for a small bag of cat food on Stanton St. after having been turned away from a place on Clinton that was setting 4p.m. as the latest they would serve a late breakfast. So I parked the turnip truck and crossed Houston for a couple of slices at Ray's. The man at the counter put the slices in the oven for me and I just stood there, once peering over at the drink cooler with what might pass as a professorial interest, a man who has studied drink coolers across the globe. A Jamaican woman behind the counter surprised me with a loud, lilting and enthusiastic--Look At What I Got, holding up what may have been a candle holder or a piece of African art paying tribute to the twin towers. Oh, that's very nice, I said, suppressing what any man less self-conscious of driving a turnip truck would say--What the hell is it? Suppressing those words was harder than you would think and I found myself nodding and tilting my head back and forth in a rhythm that I think resembled deep understanding. The woman then asked could she get me something and I told her the man had already taken care of me. She asked did I want a beverage and I said yes, I would have a can of Pepsi, glad that I had earlier studied the contents of the cooler. Decision making is not my forte. She rang me up and said, six dollars and twenty-five cents. I had not studied the expansive menu board up on the wall behind the counter and besides, did not want to put a damper on the woman's spirits by haggling over the cost of two slices of cheese pizza and a 12 ounce can of Pepsi. The man served up the slices, placing them on two overlapping paper plates. I sat down at a table which had a few crumbs littering its surface and a few more on the chair. I chose it because it had the most condiments handy, the pepper flakes, the powdered Parmesan, the garlic salt, and even a bottle of hot sauce, or I think it was hot sauce. It is possible that it was something more mysterious than that. A simple slice of freshly warmed cheese pizza is a wonderful thing and I felt after the first two bites a growing sense of well-being. I was one of three customers, but the only one stuffing my face. At the table by the front door a couple waiting on a fresh pie-to-go were sitting and talking to the Jamaican woman, who was now leaning forward with her elbows on top of the grey plastic trash can cover just to the right of the glass doors. She had much to say but I had little interest in any of it. At one point the woman she was talking to, who sat across from her mostly silent man (with his shaking leg in contrast to his complacent demeanor), lowered her voice and turned around slightly to judge how quiet she needed to be to keep me from hearing, and said something that sounded like--He drinks his urine. I took a sip of Pepsi to wash away the effects of my imagination. Looking up at the menu board I did the math, 1.25 for each of my three items, and then cast a knowing glance into the void of non-confrontation. After leaving out of there I could not find my turnip truck so I just walked home.
The Vodka Story
Poor, poor Mr. BC. In moments of astounding bad judgment he will on occasion give to me the overflow of liquid gifts that come his way during the holiday season. Once it was a bottle of Johnny Walker Blue. I did not know of the Blue at the time, only that it was not Red or Black, but remember thinking how uniquely delicious and smooth it was, everyday, until it was gone. It was, in retrospect, almost touching how sincere BC was when months later he asked me did I save him any. I looked at him like he was crazy, which, I don't know, I think he may be. Not daunted by such bad judgment he then handed over to me numerous bottles of a fine Hetman's vodka, hand delivered from the Ukraine. All I can tell you is that I saved each and every one for as long as is humanly possible. There was later another group of vodkas entrusted to me, and, exercising my own terrible judgment, I gave the best of these, a Beluga brand, to a local man who was having a spot of trouble, and needed some cheering up. I had one, or two, sips of it though; if only BC could say the same.
Then, last year, really, I don't know, he must go into a deep cave of denial about this decision making ineptitude from which he suffers, this trusting of me with cherished liquids, for he gave to me another batch of liquor, left over from a Christmas party. It was mostly of the higher quality but generic grade, but there was again, an interesting vodka or two. Honestly though, I can't even remember what they were. There was however a quirky-shaped bottle that for whatever reason I stashed in a cupboard up at the bighouse, thinking anything this stupid looking must be stupid vodka. I have at this point, as you can imagine, developed such a sensitive palate for vodka that I won't drink it except on those occasions where I find it acceptable, or more likely, necessary, to dilute it with a dash of vermouth and an olive or two. The exception I would make to this rule of dilution is to of course at least consider drinking straight any vodka received from Mr. BC.
Well, I can only tell you this--I get sometimes lonely and bored out here. And thirsty. Bernadette is only able to visit every so often, which is good, until she leaves, and then it is bad, bad like being held down by a syringe-weilding god in a dark alley littered with lost souls and then getting injected with pure loneliness. But I only mention that as a distraction because I was neither bored nor lonely when I decided the other day to grab that funny shaped bottle and give it a new home in my freezer. It's flat on one side so it does lie nicely in the cold storage. It is a brand called Kauffman's and is distilled 14 times, whatever that means. Anyway, it's not very good. For one thing, unless you inhale with the snorting force of a Hoover, there is no smell to it whatsoever. I mean nothing, unless you count that faint hint of a single flower growing on a far away hill as something. And the taste, jeez, what can I tell you--it has none, except maybe a touch of the petal of that aforementioned flower, one strand of its root, and a single fine speck of the loamy soil from which it grows. It is almost like it doesn't even exist because frankly drinking ice cold spring water burns the throat and stomach more than this Kauffman's does.
I don't know why you would bother with this one. But, if you feel it is in your best interest to taste this vodka, I will with every fiber of my pretty much non-existent self-control, restrain myself for one month, Mr. BC, from drinking every last drop of this latest clear liquid. After that though, I will only be able to tell you a story about it.
Poor, poor Mr. BC. In moments of astounding bad judgment he will on occasion give to me the overflow of liquid gifts that come his way during the holiday season. Once it was a bottle of Johnny Walker Blue. I did not know of the Blue at the time, only that it was not Red or Black, but remember thinking how uniquely delicious and smooth it was, everyday, until it was gone. It was, in retrospect, almost touching how sincere BC was when months later he asked me did I save him any. I looked at him like he was crazy, which, I don't know, I think he may be. Not daunted by such bad judgment he then handed over to me numerous bottles of a fine Hetman's vodka, hand delivered from the Ukraine. All I can tell you is that I saved each and every one for as long as is humanly possible. There was later another group of vodkas entrusted to me, and, exercising my own terrible judgment, I gave the best of these, a Beluga brand, to a local man who was having a spot of trouble, and needed some cheering up. I had one, or two, sips of it though; if only BC could say the same.
Then, last year, really, I don't know, he must go into a deep cave of denial about this decision making ineptitude from which he suffers, this trusting of me with cherished liquids, for he gave to me another batch of liquor, left over from a Christmas party. It was mostly of the higher quality but generic grade, but there was again, an interesting vodka or two. Honestly though, I can't even remember what they were. There was however a quirky-shaped bottle that for whatever reason I stashed in a cupboard up at the bighouse, thinking anything this stupid looking must be stupid vodka. I have at this point, as you can imagine, developed such a sensitive palate for vodka that I won't drink it except on those occasions where I find it acceptable, or more likely, necessary, to dilute it with a dash of vermouth and an olive or two. The exception I would make to this rule of dilution is to of course at least consider drinking straight any vodka received from Mr. BC.
Well, I can only tell you this--I get sometimes lonely and bored out here. And thirsty. Bernadette is only able to visit every so often, which is good, until she leaves, and then it is bad, bad like being held down by a syringe-weilding god in a dark alley littered with lost souls and then getting injected with pure loneliness. But I only mention that as a distraction because I was neither bored nor lonely when I decided the other day to grab that funny shaped bottle and give it a new home in my freezer. It's flat on one side so it does lie nicely in the cold storage. It is a brand called Kauffman's and is distilled 14 times, whatever that means. Anyway, it's not very good. For one thing, unless you inhale with the snorting force of a Hoover, there is no smell to it whatsoever. I mean nothing, unless you count that faint hint of a single flower growing on a far away hill as something. And the taste, jeez, what can I tell you--it has none, except maybe a touch of the petal of that aforementioned flower, one strand of its root, and a single fine speck of the loamy soil from which it grows. It is almost like it doesn't even exist because frankly drinking ice cold spring water burns the throat and stomach more than this Kauffman's does.
I don't know why you would bother with this one. But, if you feel it is in your best interest to taste this vodka, I will with every fiber of my pretty much non-existent self-control, restrain myself for one month, Mr. BC, from drinking every last drop of this latest clear liquid. After that though, I will only be able to tell you a story about it.
Conrad On Foot
It was frightfully windy last night. The wind bent the trees and rattled the windows. It blew clouds so quick across the moon that the on and off lighting of it was like a signal, but one I could not understand a word of.
The electricity flickered on and off a number of times, which is not an unusual thing in these parts. It finally went off for good right when Bernadette was putting a slice of salmon filet in the oven. Bernadette did not say--do you think it will come back on? We just started lighting candles and turning on battery operated devices. I made a fire in the cast iron fireplace but it didn't take right off so Bernadette blew on it. It got going pretty good after awhile.
We sat down and played cards. Bernadette is a card player from way back but she hasn't had much experience with Gin so I eased her into it. I am not all that adept at card games but do know most of the rules of Gin. She would say things like--uh oh, I'm screwed, and then the very next draw would lay down her cards and say, Gin. And she would have Gin. I would, not very calmly, perhaps even ranting, explain to her that you cannot one minute say, uh oh, I'm screwed, and then immediately after that win the game. That not only was it incorrect to do so but exasperating. And that she might have to forfeit the game if she did it again. I don't mind losing though, much in the same way I don't mind getting wet when taking a shower. Or squinting when the sun is in my eyes. Or coughing when a bug flies down my throat.
The electricity never did come back on so we had cold steak sandwiches.
Earlier in the day we had eaten at an area restaurant about six miles from here. It was moderately satisfying. It was okay. A few blocks away is an antique barn and before eating we had stopped there for a few minutes and looked at antiques. On the road leading to the parking lot we had passed a man wearing a light jacket and carrying a plastic bag, walking in the grass alongside the road. After eating we drove the six miles back to the house and passed the same man about four blocks from our driveway, and when he turned, in this context of seeing him so close to his own driveway, I realized it was the 79 year old Conrad Jones, who has had his truck taken away from him by his concerned children because of the rapidly progressing dementia. Yet he still figures out ways to sneak off and get around, even if it requires 12 miles of hiking on a nearly freezing day.
Conrad's people go back about three hundred years in these parts so it is understatement to say that he is well known and I can only guess that I am not the only one who passed him by unaware that he was Conrad Jones on foot walking twelve miles to get something that would fit into a small plastic bag.
It was frightfully windy last night. The wind bent the trees and rattled the windows. It blew clouds so quick across the moon that the on and off lighting of it was like a signal, but one I could not understand a word of.
The electricity flickered on and off a number of times, which is not an unusual thing in these parts. It finally went off for good right when Bernadette was putting a slice of salmon filet in the oven. Bernadette did not say--do you think it will come back on? We just started lighting candles and turning on battery operated devices. I made a fire in the cast iron fireplace but it didn't take right off so Bernadette blew on it. It got going pretty good after awhile.
We sat down and played cards. Bernadette is a card player from way back but she hasn't had much experience with Gin so I eased her into it. I am not all that adept at card games but do know most of the rules of Gin. She would say things like--uh oh, I'm screwed, and then the very next draw would lay down her cards and say, Gin. And she would have Gin. I would, not very calmly, perhaps even ranting, explain to her that you cannot one minute say, uh oh, I'm screwed, and then immediately after that win the game. That not only was it incorrect to do so but exasperating. And that she might have to forfeit the game if she did it again. I don't mind losing though, much in the same way I don't mind getting wet when taking a shower. Or squinting when the sun is in my eyes. Or coughing when a bug flies down my throat.
The electricity never did come back on so we had cold steak sandwiches.
Earlier in the day we had eaten at an area restaurant about six miles from here. It was moderately satisfying. It was okay. A few blocks away is an antique barn and before eating we had stopped there for a few minutes and looked at antiques. On the road leading to the parking lot we had passed a man wearing a light jacket and carrying a plastic bag, walking in the grass alongside the road. After eating we drove the six miles back to the house and passed the same man about four blocks from our driveway, and when he turned, in this context of seeing him so close to his own driveway, I realized it was the 79 year old Conrad Jones, who has had his truck taken away from him by his concerned children because of the rapidly progressing dementia. Yet he still figures out ways to sneak off and get around, even if it requires 12 miles of hiking on a nearly freezing day.
Conrad's people go back about three hundred years in these parts so it is understatement to say that he is well known and I can only guess that I am not the only one who passed him by unaware that he was Conrad Jones on foot walking twelve miles to get something that would fit into a small plastic bag.
Books And Brakes
The rain is out there on the other side of that window pane mainly in Spain. V caught her first mouse last night. I don't know what she did with it. I don't see it anywhere this morning. I must say it is one of the more repellent aspects of the well fed house cat how long they can go about the torturing of mice. I am by lack of intervention, complicit. I don't know if printing up Save the Mouse bumper stickers would do any good but it is an idea that runs through my mind.
I have taken to reading downloaded novels on this computer. It is something I have wanted to do for some time but found the format unpleasant until discovering that Google has actual photo-scanned copies of real books, which you can download in PDF format. Sometimes you can see the finger of a person from Stanford or Harvard or Michigan or the NY Library copied on the page. And the occasional check mark or underlined word of some past student. You are limited to older works whose copyright protection has expired but that hardly seems a disadvantage when you realize that that limit includes Twain, Dreiser, Maugham, Shaw, Turgenev, Chekhov, London, Jefferson, Franklin, Adams, Lincoln, Boswell, Epictetus, Spinoza, and Thoreau and Emerson and Blake and a good many others. I have finished Maugham's , The Moon and Sixpence, an accounting of Gauguin as played by Charles Strickland, and Maupassant's, Bel-Ami, an engaging tale of love and deceit and acquisition, and am now riding the rails with Jack London in his novel, The Road. I am looking ahead to Treasure Island, or perhaps Tom Sawyer.
I can see the light coming on now this early morning and so really must initiate a motion towards engaging myself in the real world. I should take the Jeep to that mechanic in Sperryville and get my windshield replaced and brakes redone. But before that I should go 16 miles to Front Royal for groceries and then back here to the Post Office and the bank up on 211. I don't have to get dressed because I fell asleep last night fully clothed.
The rain is out there on the other side of that window pane mainly in Spain. V caught her first mouse last night. I don't know what she did with it. I don't see it anywhere this morning. I must say it is one of the more repellent aspects of the well fed house cat how long they can go about the torturing of mice. I am by lack of intervention, complicit. I don't know if printing up Save the Mouse bumper stickers would do any good but it is an idea that runs through my mind.
I have taken to reading downloaded novels on this computer. It is something I have wanted to do for some time but found the format unpleasant until discovering that Google has actual photo-scanned copies of real books, which you can download in PDF format. Sometimes you can see the finger of a person from Stanford or Harvard or Michigan or the NY Library copied on the page. And the occasional check mark or underlined word of some past student. You are limited to older works whose copyright protection has expired but that hardly seems a disadvantage when you realize that that limit includes Twain, Dreiser, Maugham, Shaw, Turgenev, Chekhov, London, Jefferson, Franklin, Adams, Lincoln, Boswell, Epictetus, Spinoza, and Thoreau and Emerson and Blake and a good many others. I have finished Maugham's , The Moon and Sixpence, an accounting of Gauguin as played by Charles Strickland, and Maupassant's, Bel-Ami, an engaging tale of love and deceit and acquisition, and am now riding the rails with Jack London in his novel, The Road. I am looking ahead to Treasure Island, or perhaps Tom Sawyer.
I can see the light coming on now this early morning and so really must initiate a motion towards engaging myself in the real world. I should take the Jeep to that mechanic in Sperryville and get my windshield replaced and brakes redone. But before that I should go 16 miles to Front Royal for groceries and then back here to the Post Office and the bank up on 211. I don't have to get dressed because I fell asleep last night fully clothed.
Not In Rochester
I'll tell you one thing. It's colder than a frozen possum's butt out there. Wouldn't be so bad without the 30 mph northern gusts. I'm raking leaves in a windstorm. I come in and, frankly, the cat looks a little too happy so I put her out. The sun was shining for awhile and I thought I would work on my tan while me and the cat rake leaves in a windstorm. But it's clouded up now and little snowflakes are falling even though it's forty degrees. Me and the cat we sit back and think about how fortunate we are. The cat says, I am happy not to be in Rochester.
The sun is shining over there on Mt. Marshall but not over here in the little forest behind my house. The leaves are wet and plentiful. No, I'm not raking up the pine needles. I wish I had me a little dead leaf eating goat. Yeah, I hear you, be careful what you wish for. Especially if you are not going to punctate any better than that. I brought the cat in but I had to put her back out for biting me. I'm disappointed in you I yelled after her as she ran through the hole in the breezeway screen. She favors my right arm. I have 19 puncture marks and six beautiful scratches.
I'll tell you one thing. It's colder than a frozen possum's butt out there. Wouldn't be so bad without the 30 mph northern gusts. I'm raking leaves in a windstorm. I come in and, frankly, the cat looks a little too happy so I put her out. The sun was shining for awhile and I thought I would work on my tan while me and the cat rake leaves in a windstorm. But it's clouded up now and little snowflakes are falling even though it's forty degrees. Me and the cat we sit back and think about how fortunate we are. The cat says, I am happy not to be in Rochester.
The sun is shining over there on Mt. Marshall but not over here in the little forest behind my house. The leaves are wet and plentiful. No, I'm not raking up the pine needles. I wish I had me a little dead leaf eating goat. Yeah, I hear you, be careful what you wish for. Especially if you are not going to punctate any better than that. I brought the cat in but I had to put her back out for biting me. I'm disappointed in you I yelled after her as she ran through the hole in the breezeway screen. She favors my right arm. I have 19 puncture marks and six beautiful scratches.
A Small Terrarium
She had a ruddy complexion and a grocery cart full of spinach. Other products in her cart were prominently emblazoned with the word, organic. Her clothing was brightly colored and possibly hand woven in the Himalayas. These things I noticed with averted glances. Earlier, in the frozen food section, I had not felt this level of self consciousness while inspecting the carts of my fellow frozen food shoppers. I had made no effort then to cover my frozen pizzas and pot pies and meatloaf with mashed potato dinners and the six pack of frosted cupcakes with the little bit of healthy looking produce in my cart--the bananas, the oranges, the brussel sprouts and sweet potatoes. But now the contents of my cart seemed a travesty compared to this woman's in the checkout to my right.
I've already eaten three of the cupcakes and I sincerely doubt the other three will make it very far into the day. I would only say they were disgusting if I were some kind of cupcake snob but I can at the very least admit they are not that tasty. The good new is, the plastic container they came in will last a lifetime, and would make a nifty see through jewelry box or perhaps a small terrarium.
She had a ruddy complexion and a grocery cart full of spinach. Other products in her cart were prominently emblazoned with the word, organic. Her clothing was brightly colored and possibly hand woven in the Himalayas. These things I noticed with averted glances. Earlier, in the frozen food section, I had not felt this level of self consciousness while inspecting the carts of my fellow frozen food shoppers. I had made no effort then to cover my frozen pizzas and pot pies and meatloaf with mashed potato dinners and the six pack of frosted cupcakes with the little bit of healthy looking produce in my cart--the bananas, the oranges, the brussel sprouts and sweet potatoes. But now the contents of my cart seemed a travesty compared to this woman's in the checkout to my right.
I've already eaten three of the cupcakes and I sincerely doubt the other three will make it very far into the day. I would only say they were disgusting if I were some kind of cupcake snob but I can at the very least admit they are not that tasty. The good new is, the plastic container they came in will last a lifetime, and would make a nifty see through jewelry box or perhaps a small terrarium.