Long time readers may be familiar with my struggle, which is being my cat’s steward. Those who aren’t or those curious for a good reason to nominate me for some sort of heroism award can read up under the #mistressmyrtle tag.
A quick summary: I occasionally indulge in a one-sided conversation with Myrt that goes something like this:
Am I your fourth home because you’re such a bitch, or are you a bitch because I’m your fourth home?
For her part, Myrtle gives me an inscrutable cat stare.
I am curious, though, since I got her at a year and a half old. That’s a pretty bad track record…averaging a bounce every six months.
This was last year’s FB reminder…
For my part, I’ve been her home for six years.
You’d think that would get me a little loyalty, but no. It’s always something. This door is too closed, these windows face the wrong direction, you’re not warm enough, there aren’t any birds outside. Or – her fave, I think – you aren’t bleeding freely enough.
Breakfast was served too late, or not early enough. You served me the same dinner two days in a row. And it was cold tonight.
I dunno.
She has a distinct way in which she voices her displeasure. I call them Protest Poops.
They started as part of her complaining about her litter box, and usually occur about a foot away from the box. Subtle, no?
The cat seems to like smelly things, food & treats mostly – but her litter box is no exception. I learned that changing the litter resulted in her boycotting the box altogether. That was certainly no good.
A cat who is freaked out by fresh litter?
The workaround seemed to be that I scoop for a few days and then add in some fresh stuff. But that’s not an exact science, and sometimes I was reprimanded with a protest poop to encourage me to do better on my ratio-making.
Quick reminder, she doesn’t seem to care too much for me, so there’s that.
Lately, though, The Mistress’ displeasure seems to be escalating.
And traveling.
She had a habit a couple years ago of peeing in the shower. I blamed it on some rando pissing in my shower after an evening of – um…entertainment, so I couldn’t really be mad at her for doing what animals do, right?
Simple solution: my bathroom door is always closed now. Plus, it saves toilet paper.
You get the idea…
But she’s also started pooping further away from her box. Behind the front door, behind her cat tree, in the bedroom, behind her other cat tree.
We’ve had conversations about it. Well, some conversations. It’s either she doesn’t want to talk about it or she just screams at me and won’t have a dialogue.
With few choices left in my arsenal, I started punishing her. If she pooped outside her box, no dinner/breakfast, depending on the time of the offense. On the flip side, I started giving her treats exclusively when I cleaned her box. Same with breakfast, if I heard her using her box, I’d get up and clean her box, then give her breakfast.
She’s always been a food motivated creature.
Of course, she started gaming the system. She’s no dummy.
She’d use her box and immediately jump up on the shelf where I give her treats.
Waiting.
Meow.
I look over, tail twitching, chin bobbing in my direction, as if to say, <ahem>!
Well, it was a system that worked, I guess.
Until the other day.
I was on a call and heard her scratching dramatically at her box.
Really hamming it up.
But I’m on a call, so I’m stuck at my desk, right? There’s only so far you can go wearing a headset that’s plugged into your laptop. And I’d already learned that my desk was too close to the cat box, so I’d moved it across the living space.
After the call ends, I get up to go do my scoop and reward routine. The box was empty.
Laughing at how manipulative she is, I go looking for her. I find her mid-poop in the bedroom behind her cat tree.
“Do we need to talk about this, Myrtle?!?”
Meow!
“You’re a bad kitty! So baaaaad!”
Myrtle runs for the bed and stuffs her fatness flat as her back paws claw her slowly under. It’s quite pathetic to witness. Probably how she feels when she sees me trying to get off the couch.
All I hear of her for the next six hours – aka: dinner time – is a random plaintive meow from under the bed when I walk by.
I was running into my building to feed Myrtle last night. In doing so, I passed one of the fire exits to my building. These are recessed doorways, making them a perfect opportunity for someone wanting to duck out of weather, shoot up or take a nap – hell, maybe all three, depending on the day.
I saw the bike-turned-upside-down gate and a pair of feet stretched out under it before I passed by, so I knew it was occupied. Turns out, there were two occupants of the tiny makeshift shelter. He looked like he was feeling no pain. The other occupant was sitting cross-legged with a jacket draped over her head, like Cousin It went as a coatrack for Halloween.
“You’re pretty fun to hang out with. Do you want a boyfriend?”
I mean, way to just casually toss that out there. A directness I can appreciate.
“No”, I hear in a tentative voice from under the coat,” I mean…I already have one.”
Ouch.
And what had they been doing – and for how long – that this guy knew he wanted to lock her down but didn’t know she was already taken?!?
I acknowledged he at least shot his shot as I fobbed into my front door. My trip home was a quick one, literally ran in to feed my cat, hit the can and then I was off again.
Passing back by the door, I saw the girl was still wearing her coat wrong and the guy’s head had lolled back and to the side a bit. He was apparently not done making his case.
“…I also speak Japanese and Farsi, but I can’t write in Japanese…”
Geez. How far down on your assets list are those tidbits? I’m assuming his “physical” attributes – those most exaggerated bragged about by dudes – were either previously known or had topped the list. Then again, based on where this conversation was taking place, we knew he skipped right over where he lived and what kind of car he drives.
Or, car-ma…as the case t’were. I’m accepting that it was my fault for kvetching about one measly 4-star rating out of two and a half years of 5-star rides.
Hence the karma pun.
Anywho…Angela crapped out by the side of the road tonight. Actually, it was in a drive lane, but it was the curb side of the road – if you’ll allow me to split that hair.
I had called my friend, Diezel, before she died. He sometimes works on things like brake pads for me – hey, he works for burgers! His take on it was that it was an alternator and/or battery issue.
Angela had given me a “charging malfunction” error before I had called Diezel. When she had died the first time, giving me a last minute “drivetrain malfunction” message as she locked herself down in a parking lot.
The middle of a parking lot.
At sundown.
In The Numbers. Let’s just say that’s nowhere for an old white man to be broken down. Particularly after dark,
I Google “drivetrain malfunction” + “BMW X3” and learn that I can probably restart it after five minutes. I find a tree, take a whiz and go back.
<Le poof>
She starts up.
Knowing what to expect performance-wise, thanks to the prophet Google, I set out for home. I’m crawling, since Angela isn’t feeling like giving me more than 20-ish MPH.
Sticking to arterial surface streets, I had called Diezel as I limped westward. He tells me to look for a side street to park on and he’ll come get me and take me home, I can have her towed tomorrow.
I know he’s right – he’s an engineer and a rational thinker. I am an emotional thinker.
Emotionally, I want to get home. Knowing Diezel is right, my fallback is to get out of The Numbers.
Shit goes down there. BiPOC folx who live on the west side are reluctant to head to that part of the eastside when it’s dark. Last year was Portland’s deadliest in decades: gun violence, fire deaths, homicides, traffic deaths. You name it, if it was violent or deadly, we either broke a record last year or came damn close.
The Numbers – a nickname based on the blocks between ~122nd and 180th on the eastside of town – had more than the lion’s share of traffic and gun violence deaths last year. Don’t even get me started on the record number of stolen cars last year – October and November had around 13k stolen cars for the two month period.
Two months.
I didn’t want to leave Angela there.
We made it into the double-digit block numbers. I’d just crossed 102nd and was promising Diezel I’d pull off as I hit the 205 overpass at about 93rd.
She died. On the uphill approach to the overpass. I briefly considered jumping, but only therapeutically. Well, mostly.
I told Diezel what happened and he told me to drop him a pin for my location, he was leaving that moment.
Friends like him…they make me feel like I don’t deserve them as friends.
I throw a little pity party while I wait.
I’d just squared up my Multnomah County business taxes from 2019 and 2020, because TurboTax small business doesn’t do them – nor does it tell you that ain’t happening.
The county, though. They tell you. Two years later.
Well, that’s when they told me I owed $1400 in tax for 2019…the year I started driving for Lyft. In August. I decided to get ahead of 2020 – when I’d driven the whole year and made 4x what I made in ‘19 – and dig it out before the county hit me with penalties like the 2019 miss had created.
So much for buying a new place this year.
It wasn’t looking good, anyway, based on financial timing and the likely prime rate boosts coming down the pike this year. At best, I’d be looking at two hikes before I had mutual acceptance.
I’d accepted this. It was nice to at least have a goal to work toward, however briefly.
But here I was again, in crisis mode.
I was startled out of my pity party by a pair of headlights in my windshield.
Diezel!
But…not Diezel.
A Good Samaritan!
Yes! This was the Portland I knew and loved.
It was a woman who had passed by and pulled a u-turn in front of me to pull up to my hood grill – let’s not call it a hood whilst stalled in The Numbers. She walked up to my passenger window and asked if I needed a jump. I told her, “heck, yeah!” and she was off to her cargo area for her cables.
BMWs are weird. The battery in my X3 is in the back, but you jump it from the front. Actually, there is a positive post, that’s it. I’d been watching videos on this, so I kind of knew this – but she wanted to check in with her significant other, so we FaceTimed him. He agreed with my guess that we just needed to attach the negative to a hunk of metal and we were good to go.
She started her car and I got in mine to give Angela a wake up call.
She started right up. I revved her a few times. I was ready to let her sit and charge for a few minutes, but my Good Samaritan was antsy to go. I couldn’t fault her, but knowing about jumping cars from watching my parents do it while growing up in the 80s, that was my best guess for next steps.
Sadly, she was already talking about how to disconnect the cables with her Boo when I came around. He agreed I was good to go, so I yielded to their current information.
As soon as she turned and left, I put Angela in gear…and she re-died.
Diezel immediately pulled up behind me.
My first and third savior of the night.
“Galbs”, he said to me, “you need to call a tow truck to take this to a garage.”
I knew from his tone that this was his way of telling me this repair was beyond his capabilities. At least as far as roadside repairs were concerned.
He gave me a towing company name and number. Three hours.
He pulled another from his list and dictated the number to me. One hour!
Between calls and hold times, Diezel had been amusing himself by blowing his air horn at passing cars that had cut their lane change around us too closely. One of those blasts had clearly scared the towing company dispatcher shitless.
Fifteen minutes later, Diezel decided to get out and strobe his flashlight at the Stupid Americans who were too distracted to see his emergency flashers and proactively – not to mention safely – merge into the other lane.
He was worried about someone rear ending him. Looking at Angela’s dark brake lights and dead emergency lights, I couldn’t blame him. I was grateful to him for being there to save a near-certain collision.
There was a car backing down the overpass in front of Angela. He stopped and popped his rear hatch.
“Why don’t you go meet him?”
I acquiesced, and the man met me by my car with three flares. Another Good Samaritan.
For such a crappy night, the universe was putting a lot of amazing people in my path.
By the time the tow truck was a half hour late, the flares had burned through. Diezel was strobing approaching cars again. We could not believe how people fucked up such a simple thing as not hitting a stalled vehicle.
I couldn’t decide if it was distracted driving, stereotypically too polite Portland-slash-Portlandia-type drivers, or a combination of the two. Cars in our lane would slow to zipper in behind the car with the right of way, and that car would in turn yield its right of way by slowing to let it in front of them.
Both lanes of traffic came to a stop or near-stop several times. I retreated to the cab of Diesel‘s truck for an update on the tow truck.
Fifteen minutes.
Ten minutes later, the driver called. He was ten minutes out. He told me the tow would be just under $200. I asked if he could invoice me because I didn’t have it immediately – see also: why I was out driving on a Tuesday.
No.
Fuck. Fuck. Fuckity-fuck-fuck.
I’d payed two year’s worth of County back taxes and my January bills in the last ten days. Followed by also taking several days off to process my 4-star rating.
The savings I can usually access within 48 hours was nearly tapped. I was anticipating needing to tap into my other savings for the repair – that savings has a five day turnaround, so no driving for the better part of a week on top of opening the drain on my savings again. Not to mention any significant penalties for early withdrawal – or its modern day equivalent.
I was feeling hosed.
I looked a little more longingly at that guardrail. Sensing my distress, Diezel handed me his credit card and told me gently not to worry, pay him back whenever, but get the repair taken care of first.
I offered to at least get him a beer, but he demurred. It was after 9:30, after all…this one hour wait had turned into two and a half hours, not to mention the 30 minute transit and depositing Angela at the garage. He usually turns in closer to 8. Proposing a counteroffer of a hug, since we hadn’t seen each other in real life for over a year, he took off for home.
Realizing Myrtle’s dinner was over four hours late – a millennia in cat-time – I rushed upstairs to feed the mistress.
Then I prescribed myself a therapeutic Emotional Support Pizza that I keep in the freezer in case of emergency.
Don’t judge my Hawaiian pizza tastes!
You cannot understand the number of weekend nights I’ve come in from driving to bare cupboards. This was one of several I picked up after deciding I simply couldn’t face another 3 AM pizza from 7-Eleven. Plus, you can dress up a frozen pizza with red pepper flakes and – especially – an herb mix from Penzey’s Spices.
You’d eat this. <chef’s kiss> Admit it.
Plus, I broke open a bottle of the Columbia Gorge’s finest – from Marchese Cellars – to polish up the therapy session.
It’s a $30 bottle of amazing red. Not a bad companion to a $7 pizza…so if those herbs and red pepper flakes don’t make that pizza palatable…this will! Then this happened
Come the fuck on!
Undeterred, I got that cork out on the second try. Hopefully, that’s a harbinger of the ease of repair for Angela.
Now, I think I have some In Case Of Emergency Ben & Jerry’s around here somewhere…
Mistress Myrtle: How did you not even realize you farted, Stoopid Hooman?!?
This is pretty much the disdainful regard that I expect my cat holds for me. Despite, it seems, a post-vacation affection she also seems to be displaying.
Like, we’re talking daily cuddles versus the pre-vacation quarterly allotment I was afforded. It could be a throwback reflex to her early childhood abandonment issues.
I was, after all, her fourth home when I adopted her at a year and a half of age.
Still, if that were the case – gratitude at my tolerance for her return-to-the-pound-worthy behaviors, why not have graced me with these cuddly rewards earlier in our going-on-six-year relationship?
The answer?
Tortitude.
That’s like catitude on steroids.
Torties are notoriously and viciously psychotic.
Psycatic, if you will.
So I’m reveling in this abandonment-flashback-induced post-vacation affection that I’m receiving.
To wit:
<End photo dump>
Mind you, this is against the backdrop of the Silver Fox’s caretaking. He seemed proud that my dire warnings of Myrtle’s Protest Poops seemed unfounded. A smug security that lasted only until Day 5 of his sentence tenure feeding my lil beast. Then he contritely provided photographic evidence of his dethroning as a special human in Myrtle’s estimation.
Ironically, in a post-vacation conversation, he also divulged his slight concern that she only peed once while I was gone. I was all, “No, Boomer, she peed. She peed…” knowing that this damn cat of mine prefers peeing in carpets versus in her box.
Specifically, area rugs. I’ve gone through three area rugs, a hallway runner, my neighbor’s doormat, a bathroom rug and a bath mat. Having removed all common area rugs from my condo and kept the bathroom door consistently closed, I had foolishly thought myself out of the woods.
Alas, the rubber-ish sweat mat under my Peloton seems to work just fine for her in whatever she perceived as a pinch. I’m a crazy twist, her litter box in a foot away from my exercise bike.
But, to let me know that I’m still at the top of her disdain list, she gifted me this little Myrtle Bomb 30 hours after I returned.
And, yes…she bothered to do this while I was home.
And I mean, again. Of course, there’s the OG puberty. However, I’ve joked throughout my adult life about countless other random puberties – like the ear, nose or back hair growth puberties.
Well, with the return to indoor mask wearing a month ago, I’ve got another puberty to report. My old friend, oily skin puberty.
This is no joke. It goes beyond the casual maskne that many of us have complained about over the past 18 months.
My face is, at best, an oily swamp after wearing a mask for a couple hours.
Oily. Shiny. Tacky to the touch. It’s disgusting. I actually bought some facial cleansing wipes to give myself a lil refresh while I’m out doing a driving shift. Truth be told, though, by the time I use one, the oily mess my face creates has started to wick into my mask, so that feels gross when I put it back on – effectively negating my attempt to give myself a refresh.
Needless to say, I’ve tried to start carrying a spare mask with me when I know I’ll be out on the road for a bit.
When my scruff gets too long, it’s even worse.
You know I’m a talker, right? Well, all the hot air I expel creates even a more intense swampy feeling – my face feels like the inside of a car window with two teens going at it inside up on Lovers Lane.
It’s been enough to make me regret what I’ve been putting “The Boys” through all these years by wearing briefs instead of boxers.
Sorry, Boys.
And: sorry, Readers…that imagery will have you waking up screaming. Or moaning, ya bunch of pervs.
This maskne on steroids puberty has swelled my pores and created those gross, dense underground pimples that have all the “benefits” of visible pimples but never break through.
I try to resist picking at them – with mixed success. If I pick at them, I end up with a swollen and visibly irritated area of skin on my face. If I don’t, the pimple is eventually reabsorbed, but the skin over it dries out and becomes a bit crusty in the process, so then I’ve got some sort of soggy, oily pizza crust kind of thing happening on my face.
It’s great. No…really. So great.
I can’t forget those oversized pores, either. They put Portland’s potholes to shame, size-wise. I survey the damage in my mirror when I get home and see patches of black dotting my face, especially on my nose as it takes most of the contact brunt from masking up.
To amuse myself, I imagine planting some weed in the larger pores and starting a little grow op. Y’know, putting that hothouse effect from my mask to good use.
It’s a thought that bore some semi-therapeutic fruit yesterday while I was buying cat food. I ended up walking out of the store with this haul…
So, yesterday afternoon was a cathartic – and mask-free! – plantathon here at Chez Galby. It needed to happen, the balcony pots had never really recovered from our hottest-temperature-on-the-planet heat dome days from earlier in the summer. I’m trying to grow that Rosemary you can barely see in the pic above indoors…we’ll see how that grows goes.
I could get a better pic, and a snap of that third plant, but Myrtle is being uncharacteristically sweet and snoozing on my lap at the moment, so you only get underexposed evidence. Sorry, not sorry.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, writing this has given me the urge to give myself a facial mask.
I dunno, maybe it’s more of a torpor…but I couldn’t come up with anything to play off of that, so here we are, stuck with a lane riff off of “It’s kind of a funny story”.
A quick backstory:
My first “good” boyfriend died back in…late ‘96 – Jesus, he’s been dead nearly 25 years, that’ll take some time to absorb – anyway, we were separated by more than half a country by then. It’d probably been a good four years since our relationship had ended, too, which was a pretty good percentage of my 28 years.
Naturally, having a dream about him was unusual at that point. Nothing compared to the actual dream., though!
It was one of those moments where you know you’re just about to drift off, then suddenly there he was, floating near the ceiling of my bedroom. He’s gesturing toward me, as if to get me to somehow move closer to him, and I’m all, “Sorry, buddy…me no floaty” without registering that it’s weird that he could and was. Then he starts telling me to come with him, but without telling me where he was off to. Naturally, I was all, “Nah, I gotta, like…work in the morning”.
It was the next evening that a friend called to tell me he’d died. I knew why he was calling the second I heard his voice and preemptively announced the reason.
One of the more surreal moments in my life – for sure – because who am I kidding, saying that was a dream?
Present Day:
It happened again a couple nights ago. I can’t tell you who it was beckoning to me. I just remember the disembodied, plaintive invitation. So far, no news on any deaths in my present or past circle of friends and intimates. As far as I know, I never met Charlie Watts, so I’m pretty sure it wasn’t him, despite the timing.
What struck me this time was my response.
What can I say, it’s been a rough couple weeks.
Really, though…a “Meh, why not?” attitude from a seemingly non-corporeal invitation? It’s a wonder I haven’t been abducted by now.
What bugs me isn’t the potential surprise of waking up dead the next day. No…it’s the resignation of the situation.
I joke often about the randomness of death. How an accident or sudden illness can take any one of us unexpectedly. Usually, I’m pretty blithe about it with some response along the lines of, “I don’t really have any plans, so…”
But this felt different. Like if ghost grandma showed up one night and offered her hand, I’d just toddle off alongside her into the great unknown.
Like I said, it’s been a rough couple of weeks. Making headway (or not, as the recent results show) on my condo savings goal and trying to wreckoncile – Chrisism – the Black Sheep Bro situation (and failing) are taking a cumulative toll on me. But…I’m actively counting the number of days I consecutively leave the house now, so I take that as a good sign that I’m coming out of this torpor or ennui or tailspin or whatever you want to call it.
Maybe if the voice comes back anytime soon, I’ll send Myrtle off with it.
Which, of course, means figuratively as well as literally in the English language these days, but actually perfectly describes how I’m feeling.
Figuratively
With the chasm between common sense and willful ignorance widening daily, it seems like America – if not all of humanity – is doomed.
People are eagerly and proudly choosing to embrace behaviors and ideologies that are not simply personally risky to them (mask and vaccine deniers) but also threaten the future of living on our planet for very near, if not already present generations.
I truly cannot understand those people. Say it with me, “Stupid Americans”.
Literally
Two things here. The first is that the smoke from our fires in central and southern Oregon has finally rolled back in to Portland. The rest of the country has been getting our smoke – as far away as Minnesota from what people have shared with me personally, but I’ve heard NYC has even seen some.
It’s nowhere near the literal worst air quality on the planet we had last year, but it’s still a climate crisis in progress. But when you can see literal ash debris on your car after it’s been parked on the street a few hours, I’d say that qualifies as “falling skies”, no?
The second is even more heartbreaking to me as a native Portlander. I love our greenery here. Both the actual forests and our urban green spaces. I live on a street named Park that borders five city blocks of park space called the North Park Blocks. Many of the trees on these blocks are as old as our state, if not older in some cases. And they are called “North” because they are in the northwest quadrant of town and there is an even longer string of blocks on the same street running through the southwest quadrant of town. I’ll let you figure out what we call those blocks on your own.
Go ahead, now…intuit.
Anyway, over the summer, I know of four instances in my string of blocks where trees have just dropped branches.
Massive branches.
…and some not too massive. The above pic is not as big around as a small car, but it was a good 25 feet length of branch. There was one that fell right in front of me early in the summer late one night as I turned onto Park after driving all night. It blocked a two lane road from the base of its trunk to almost the opposite curb.
There’s no wind storm happening. And I expect branches to fall during our increasingly common winter ice events.
But in still skies?!?
My thought on this is that the trees are just so dry from our lack of rain – and it’s a drought condition that has been going on since our February snow storm. April ‘21 was the driest on record by one-third with only a half inch of rain for the month – that these trees have become too dry and brittle to even resist gravity.
How sad. Tragic.
But, Portland being weird and still trying to be green, puts a decidedly Portland spin on the situation by creating…a seating nook!
Here’s the branch that fell, about one-third of the tree’s canopy.
And here’s what Portland does…makes it cozy. Not that I know these will be left here long term. Although I wouldn’t blame Portland Parks & Rec if they did decide to leave them. Branches like this become breeding grounds for all sorts of other flora, so it would essentially be a public science exhibit.
But on a less pithy and optimistic note, check out the tree that had to be completely removed after losing part of itself to nothing more than the pull of gravity.
It was taller than the historic five story brick building across from it. Probably older, too.
Now it’s nothing more than a stump that’s basically the size of a BMW.
So sad.
Of course, maybe I have this all wrong. Just because I’ve never seen anything like this in my lifetime doesn’t mean it isn’t perfectly natural. Maybe trees randomly fall apart every 50 years or so.
Or…maybe it’s due to climate change.
Ooooor…maybe there’s a giant cat roaming around town at night that no one has seen yet. I certainly have something similar – albeit on a much smaller scale – happening in my home.
Some have infamously noted that I possess the palate of a seven year old.
I might say I’m simply a victim of my own lack of planning, spontaneity and the resulting impatience that the hunger those qualities engender.
Let’s ease you into this…
Gross Out:
Because I don’t know when I shop on Tuesday what I’m going to want on Friday, I’ve learned to just shop more frequently. Odds are, if it sounds good Tuesday, I’ll probably still have a taste for it Wednesday. No guarantees beyond that.
Therefore, I’ll shop Grocery Outlet for staples like wine shelf stable pantry items. That way, they are there when I have a hangry moment and don’t have time to spare to run to Freddy’s, Safeway or the lil Brodega across the street.
Nonetheless, since being urged to eat more veggies and fiber, I’ve been making an effort to have a salad several times a week. Gross Out has the same salad kits as the big chains, usually for a buck less (we’re talking $3 versus $4 at the chains), so I’ll pick up three or four when I pop in for wine other supplies.
The other day, though, I went specifically to grab a couple bottles of wine Caesar salad kits to go with my pizza leftovers from Wednesday night. I’d gotten a Caesar with the pizza, but ate it all, worried that the concoction wouldn’t age well once the dressing was on…and I’m a weird one with leftovers, so just accept that was my logic and be happy I’m eating salad.
I pop back to produce, breaking the Gross Out rule of hitting every aisle so you don’t miss a deal, avoiding the wine department temptation and intent on my mission.
Plus, it was past Myrtle’s dinner time.
When I hit the produce corner, I see that I’ve also hit the jackpot. There are several “Reduced For Quick Sale” options. But, hey…I made a point of stopping here to save a literal buck, so I decided I could do a chop salad instead on a Caesar and save another literal buck.
Right?
Save $2 on two salads: good
Save $4 on two salads: great!
I’m beating feet back up front and my inner seven year old palate demon steers me down the pasta aisle.
Maybe there’s Mac & Cheeeeese!
Ugh.
Fine.
Luckily, the Velveeta Deluxe that was 2/$1 were long gone, which made me sad but happy. A good deal is a good deal, but I’m not paying for my eventual coronary by saving $4.49 on a box of food I shouldn’t be eating anyway…Plus, I still had a dollar’s worth at home. Plus-plus a box of some strange broccoli added version that I’d picked up last time…
Proud of my situationally forced ability to resist temptation, I remained on mission. Until…
Look, I’m just a man with a child’s tastes, ok? I haven’t had Velveeta in probably 20 years. And it’s not like I’m going to eat this like a college kid would – by peeling it like a banana and going to town.
I’m getting some damn crackers and a good bottle of wine. Because adults compensate.
Speaking of college kids…
GoPuff:
These bastards.
They are my new Stoner Cafe.
And they most certainly have my number are out to get me.
Usually I can ignore their marketing emails. Generally, they are either of the “redeem points and save” variety or the “Ben & Jerry’s BOGO” variety.
Admittedly, that last type is harder to ignore.
But then I saw one that was too intriguing to resist.
Something like, “Try Something New For A Nickel”. Let’s be honest, I think we can all agree that my seven year old palate is not adventurous. But for a nickel, I could explore.
Especially when the “something new” ends up being spiked seltzers! I’m not sure how they got this promotion past the iron fisted OLCC, but I jumped on $.20 worth of a new seltzer called Basic. The flavors sounded…safe fine.
Not wanting to look like a cheapskate, I figured I should order something else. Since it was right there in my “Buy It Again”, I added a 12-pack of White Claw.
New problem: now I just look like a booze hound.
So I added in some energy drinks. Since they didn’t have my go-to brand/flavors in stock, I – wait for it – tried a new drink called G.O.A.T.
I could live with the delivery person assuming I was on a liquid diet.
Now, a Pro-Tip: when putting away your “groceries” do not put energy drinks between alcoholic beverages.
That was a close fucking call this morning.
So, despite the opening assertion, I’d dare say that I’ve somehow refined this seven year old palate that I seemingly possess.
Crackers and wine with my cheap cheese?
Boutique spiked seltzers and energy drinks?
I should have a Pinterest page for my culinary embarrassments…
Living with her is about as awesome as squeezing said lemon into one of the wounds she inflicts.
But when she’s not busy inflicting bodily harm, she usually divides her time between sleeping and watching the hummingbirds come and go to her newly hung bird feeder that someone installed for her viewing pleasure.
And how does the ingrate repay me?
Yes, yes…bloodlettings to free me from the evil spirits in my system, sure.
But, other than those hostilities, usually she sleeps all day. Then, when I decide to go sit in the cold wind, protected only by a tent from a rainy evening in the gutter or perhaps go out and give a few rides to earn some money to keep her in the style to which she is accustomed…I suddenly am met with this psychotic bullshit.
Really, Corn Kitty?
Oh, yes…really.
You want to know how I know?
She’s vacated the position in the picture above and left only a poop marking her space. Yet, when I come home and discover the gift, I’m met with a neutral stare that innocently suggests,
You know me…every day is just another opportunity for me to put my affairs – not that kind, Diezel – in order before I die alone.
Today was no exception.
It was a day that started out strangely well, considering a night of whack sleep. I’d fallen asleep for <30 minutes last night on the couch around 8, but was then completely wide awake. I didn’t take my new favorite weed syrup sleep aid before bed because I was meeting my parents at 10 this morning to go look at bathroom fixtures and entry lights for a few projects they have going on at Galby Acres and I didn’t want to oversleep.
Naturally, I woke up at 730. <eyeroll>
No matter, I had errands that I could run before meeting up with M&D at 10 and actually managed to overcome my usual morning torpor and get to it. Of course, my parents surprised me with an en auto breakfast – restaurants are closed to dine in customers here in Portland, so we got take out and ate in the car like hippies – and after we hit the kitchen/bath/lighting shop, they re-surprised me by letting me tag along to watch them car shop.
It was a good morning.
When they dropped me back home, mom admonished me to take the rest of the day off, like spending my morning with them had been some sort of chore. I fully intended to comply, but then decided to just pop out for a couple hours.
Mistake.
I was out for just under three hours and only had six rides. Most of my time was spent sitting on the 5 northbound since it was after 230, and even in a pandemic under lockdown orders, the idiots that live across the river in Washington – with its lower property taxes and no income tax – but come to town for our higher paying jobs and sales tax free shopping have found a way to make a three mile drive take 15+ minutes. I had one ride that took me to the second to last freeway exit before the state line and the next two hours were spent with me getting almost back to the city core before being called back to one of the last two exits before entering Vantucky.
Actually, my third ride was to pick up my second passenger, because he got nauseous being that close to Washington completed his errand quickly and I was still the closest driver. That was a first: a back to back repeat rider.
After yo-yoing between almost downtown and the state line for the next two rides, I decided to put my app on Home Mode and call it quits. Earnings were crap, since I’d spent most of my time sitting in traffic…and none of those apparently entitled bastards understood how gratuities work. Or their sense of entitlement made me driving 15-20 minutes to fetch them for a 6 minute ride seem equitable.
I’d roll my eyes, but they are still sprained from the last epic eyeroll…
I got one ride on the way home.
In true Portland style, this is my passenger’s avatar.
Well, that looks like it is gonna be an entertaining ride. If it was a cis-woman, I was prepared to be hyper aware of how easily she could snap me in half. But I suspected it was merely another queer youth expressing his gender-fluidity.
I was right.
Still, we had a nice and amiable chat during our 8 minutes together. I learned he was going to his boyfriend’s for an at home date night, which sounded super sweet. They started dating just after lockdown 1.0 and have been together a little over six months.
I don’t know why I was surprised to pull up to his boyfriend’s house and think “I’ve picked someone up here before…”
Imagine my surprise when my passenger replied.
Oops.
I vamped and said that I thought I’d given his BF a ride before. I immediately called up a mental picture of the guy – like a stoned out, slightly-too-old-for-it skater boy who was newly missing a front tooth when I picked him up. He awkwardly came out to me during our ride after bitching about how picking up an extra shift at work was better than hanging out at home with his bitch ex-wife, who he also worked with so it was not easy to manage time apart.
His words.
He talked a little about the guy he was seeing before I dropped him off at a dispensary a few blocks away.
Imagine my surprise as I sat in the driveway trying to decide whether to head left or right and a call came in, taking me to the left. A right and a couple of miles had me pulling up to my next ride…at the sister store for Mr Nice Guy.
Only me…
I think it’s because something weird like that would only happen to me, but it might also be because I’m one of the few who would notice that type of coincidence.
Still, if I dropped the woman I picked up at the second shop at the house where I’d just picked up my previous ride, I was fully prepared to laugh all the way home. Luckily, that did not happen.
Back to tonight, though, I tell the guy that I think I’d given his boyfriend a ride before and asked if he worked at a weed shop.
Me? No, I work at a pizza joint.
Okaaaay.
Clarifying I had meant his BF, while thinking that even with his tendency to capture makeover moments on film – he was not wearing any overt makeup tonight – that he should be able to do better than the guy inside that house, my young, gender-fluid passenger laughs awkwardly and gets out of the car.
Affording me the opportunity to see the Mr Nice Guy logo on the hoodie he was wearing.
Fuck my life.
Luckily, I’d ordered a beer delivery from Big Legrowlski whilst sitting in traffic on the 5 and it was presently waiting for me at home. A Pallet Jack or two oughta set me just right, allowing me to forget that a burnout type guy missing a front tooth can get a boyfriend and I’m sitting at home drinking alone with the ever disdainful Mistress Myrtle.
Because, with Myrtle around, you’re always alone. I hope she ends this game of cat and Xtopher she’s playing soon and puts me out of my misanthropy…
Plus, I still had a dollar’s worth at home. Plus-plus a box of some strange broccoli added version that I’d picked up last time…
atleastihaveafrigginglass 