kit kat update

It's been a week since the orange throw pillow named Pumba came to live with me. I think we're going to work out okay. My friend Beth, the cat whisperer, helped ease him into his new space by coming over to visit during the weekdays. She played shoestring with him and gave him a lap to snuggle in, and I'm pretty sure that her visits are the only reason Pumba decided to start eating (everything in sight) and drinking like a regular cat. He loves to sit on the table by the window, and he can't get enough snuggle time in my ever-growing pile of dirty clothes. And he only shit on the kitchen rug once, although he did make sure to rub it in a bit.

The thing about the Pumbinator is that he's old. The cat-lady at the shelter said he was eight or nine, but I doubt it. Pumba the Warthog hit the movie theaters in 1994, and I'm guessing that some kid named this sweetheart cat after the farty-but-loveable cartoon character pretty soon after the movie came out. So I bet this kitty is more like 10 or 11 years old. He has some trouble getting his back legs to cooperate after he’s been sleeping on them for a few hours. When he has trouble getting up on the couch, I always think of that scene in My Dog Skip when the puppy has gotten older and can’t jump up on things like he used to.

His meow-er is broken too...

So I got a new kitty cat over the weekend. His name is Pumba, and he's about 8 years old. Generally, we're getting along great. He's super-fuzzy and loves to snuggle. And he has the softest hair of any kitty in history.

Still, he's got some issues. My cat is anorexic. He's turned his nose up at three kinds of food now, including the stinky wet stuff that makes most cats crazy. He walks by the dish to smell his food, but he's apparently worried about fitting into his leather pants, because he doesn't eat at all! I should have renamed him Lohan.

He's a big cat, so he doesn't look particularly skinny, but when you pet him, you can feel his ribs. I'm going to call BARC, the Brooklyn Animal Rescue Coalition, and see if they have any advice for me. He's survived this long, so he must have been eating SOMEthing.

I put up a picture of him in the myspace photo section so you can admire him, or click here.

He sorta looked like a squirrel....

The subway train was late. A crowd of tired people had gathered on the platform in heat that made us all sweat right through our cute hairdos and oxford shirts.

This particular tunnel belonged to the yellow N/W trains, and as more people filed down the stairs to wait for the next ride home, the air kept getting hotter and the mood switched from impatient to desperate and abandoned.

I was standing close to the edge of the platform, so I could crane my neck out to check for oncoming trains, when two skinny rats suddenly darted onto the tracks. They were little brown ones, chasing each other over the steel rails and wooden planks, through the puddles of rain water that had collected there days ago. The whole front line of the crowd silently watched the vermin run around their little obstacle course, squeezing through impossibly tiny cracks and squeaking at each other.

Then the chasing rat stopped still on top of one of the steel rails and stared up at the crowd. It was weird, but as that rat looked up at us, I had an overwhelming urge to shoot him like a squirrel in a tree.

Now, I've never been hunting in my life, but I did grow up at a school in Arkansas where all the kids stay home on Deer Day, the first day of deer season, so they can go set up camp for the fall hunting trips. Maybe the inclination of shooting squirrels is just part of my rural fabric, but when it occurred to me how people would react to some nutter taking aim at a rat on the tracks, I realized how absurd country living must seem to lifelong New Yorkers. Of course, I guess it would also be weird for a country boy to think about standing in a packed crowd of strangers in a sweltering underground cement tube.

a pint for the lady

i bought my ticket to london today. oh, baby, i can't wait to be surrounded by british accents and pints and biscuits and fish n chips and curry houses and jelly babies! i'll be there for 10 during the fall.

this will be my first time overseas. i haven't been this excited about a trip since i visited new york for the first time four years ago. yippee!

Currently listening: London Calling By The Clash Release date: By 25 January, 2000

decadence

I ate a $30 hamburger yesterday. Just one hamburger, 30 smackers.,,, talk about shabby chic.

Served on a parmesean bun, the patty was made with shredded short ribs and foie gras. I'll probably burn in PETA hell, but it was damn good.

the tube and a double decker bus

I am going to London in September to spend my first Euros and drink a peck of pints with my friends. Damn the terrorists.

Update: Tony Blair is speaking on the radio as NPR covers the blasts in London. Outside my Brooklyn Heights apartment, I've been able to hear helicopters flying around Lower Manhattan for the last half hour. They always fly over a few times a day, but they are hovering now, keeping watch I guess.
I wasn't living in the city when Madrid's subways were bombed, but I'm sure that this was part of New York's reaction back then, too.

a great week

This has just been a kick-ass week.

I met some new interesting people, including two awesome Episopal priests, an aspiring German actor and a witty Brit.
I reconnected with some old friends, including New Orleans' own editor of Pussycat Magazine. Oooh, and I saw another buddy perform in a play called Ladyhouse Blues, and the show was so good, I actually cried in the theater.
My stepmom came through a major back surgery without any complications.
I came up with some fun story ideas for work, which has been the hardest part of my job so far.
And I topped it all off today by laying on the beach for a few hours and getting some serious vitamin D therapy.

I'm rosy cheeked and happy.

Currently listening: Sounds Of Summer - The Very Best Of The Beach Boys By The Beach Boys Release date: By 10 June, 2003