July 2013 – Like I Say…

They Found Me

This is how I feel right now, but instead of Libyans, it’s drag queens believe it or not.

Now, I don’t have a problem with drag queens. Live and let live. They’re not hurting anybody. I just have a problem with being lied to.

You see, I’m not that terrible of a seamstress, and I work on bridal gowns when I have the time. I love working in bridal. Despite the common consensus that all soon-to-be-married girls are total bridezillas, I seldom have a problem with them. And I love contributing to someone’s very special day. But on the other hand, I’ve had several men contact me about working on drag outfits. And this would be fine, too – if they actually said that. But instead they’ve lied to me, spam called me, randomly shown up at my home, and generally harassed me. And that just isn’t cool.

Of course I know not all drag queens are lying, harassing dill-holes, and I’m guessing their behavior is related to how they are treated in this oh so opened-minded state of Utah. I get it – one has to be careful here. But after my past experiences, I’m a little wary. So when I woke up today to find several emails through my website from “women with male friends,” I was a little wary. The Drag Queen Siege of 2009 is not something I’d like to go through again. Just saying.

Sock Mating

Just like any other piece of clothing, socks have to be washed unless you wish to be ostracized by all those around you. It’s a simple process:

1) You take off said dirty socks and toss them in the clothes hamper or some other random place, preferably where they can be found easily – like right in the middle of the living room floor.

2) When you’ve nothing clean left to wear besides old swimsuits and ugly Christmas sweaters, you, or the person who does your laundry for you if you’re a lucky bastard like Giant Husband, do the laundry.

3) Once the clothes are clean and dry (I’m not going to explain to you how to wash laundry) you mate the socks into pairs. These can be either matched or mismatched pairs, whichever is your preference. *Note: If you have more or less than two feet, or wear a different number of socks at a time for any other reason, please disregard this step.

4) You put the socks away in your drawer or wherever else it is that you keep clean socks.

See? It’s pretty damn easy. Unless, that is, the socks are inside-out.

Now on occasion I understand if a sock or two get turned wrong-side-out by the wearer in the action of pulling them off the feet. A couple socks to right per load of laundry = no harm done. But nearly every sock? Almost every stinking, disgusting, filthy sock?

I guess if you don’t mind whether your socks are wrong-side-out or right-side-in there really isn’t a problem. But around here we wear them the old-fashioned way. And if they don’t come out of the wash like that, then someone has to turn them so – and that someone is me. And I don’t like it.

The typical sock has a ribbed knit leg portion and a fuzzy inside foot portion. I don’t like the fuzzy portion, inside or outside. It gets… weird, and I don’t like to touch it. But in order to turn a sock right-side-in I have to touch it. I can handle one or two socks. Maybe even three. But ask me to stick my hand into more than that and I’m not going to be pleased. It’s a gross, fuzzy-yet-somehow-kind-of-stiff-and-not-at-all-enjoyable-like-other-fuzzy-things-feeling.

I don’t know why most of Giant Husband’s dirty socks have been wrong-side-out lately. I don’t think he’s changed the way he takes them off, and I don’t believe he’d purposely turn them that way just to annoy me. But I’ve told him I will not, cannot, mate his socks any more if he continues to leave them in such a horrifying state. A basket of clean, giant-sized inside-out socks has been sitting in the bedroom for over a week.

Vindictive Vomiting

I was making myself a sandwich when my cat started retching on the floor. I don’t like cat vomit. I mean – does anyone? And I really don’t like cleaning it up off of the carpet. Yetch. So I started chasing the darn animal around the house with a paper plate for which to catch the offending was-food-a-second-ago that my cat wanted out of his system. He stopped at the front door, and two things happened: 1) The cat simply decided not to hurl as he wasn’t over carpet anymore, and 2) I heard someone on the other side of the door. Apparently the FedEx guy had come by to drop off a package right at the moment I was loudly informing my cat that he was a little asshole, and if he puked on my floor I wasn’t going to give him tuna ever again.

I wonder if FedEx Dude realized I was talking to a cat, or if he assumed it was a mother yelling at her kid or something.

Now some would tell me not to get mad at my cat for upchucking in the house because no one likes to vomit and it’s not his fault. In general, I think that’s right. Well, except for bulimic humans, of course, and that’s a different issue (please seek help if you need it). But I’m not talking generally; I’m speaking about my cat. And this cat would vomit on purpose. He really would.

You see, my cat is a vindictive little jerk. Oh, cats can’t be vindictive or vengeful, you say? They don’t understand, you say? Catty Whampuss does.

Case in point:

Someone accidently trips Catty as he or she is walking by. Or, even yet, Catty, not being the smartest of the litter (at least I assume so – I didn’t really get to know any of his littermates), runs himself into a wall. This annoys him. And whether or not someone actually slighted him in any way, he accidently injured himself, or the universe decided to send gusts of air-conditioning right at his face just to piss him off because the universe it like that, Catty has to get revenge.

Now usually Catty will determine in his runaway little mind that it was one of the humans that contributed to his hurt or undoing. But at times he seems to know that it was his own fault, or he decides that he doesn’t want to bother with the two-leggers at the moment. When this is the case, Catty takes to one of his scratching posts, and feverishly tears it up. He has an angry, and he must get it out. When, however, he believes the humans are at fault, he has to take out his anger on them.

When this is the case, whether we’ve done anything to annoy him or not (and especially in the instances where he gets caught doing something he knows he shouldn’t and gets yelled at), Catty feels the need to maim us to teach us a lesson for questioning his cat-authority. This is usually in the form of trying to run past us soon after he has been provoked, and reaching out a claw (or four) to slash across our ankles as he rushes by. If the offending human happens to be sitting at the time, Catty will often scratch the person’s back through the slats in the chair, and even cling to him or her with his claws for a moment while giving a most satisfied meowl. (A meowl is a cross between a meow and a yowl. I just made it up. I should patent it.)

So yes, I do believe a cat can be vindictive – that he can feel put-off by someone or something and feel the need to seek revenge. I think animals have feelings too, and will act upon them. And I also believe that my cat can puke at will.

Here is a picture of said cat trying to attack me through the stair banisters. I hope you like it. I got my finger ripped open for this.

Onions

Every day holds an opportunity to learn something new. It doesn’t matter how old you are, what work you do, your position in life – you have the ability to learn, grow, and adapt. You CAN teach an old dog new tricks, you CAN overcome great odds, and you CAN learn from your mistakes. Every single day is what you make of it.

And today I learned that putting chopped onion in the microwave will start a fire.