Calidrin, Korgoth, and Gardening

The house now has a single cat and a single dog. I convinced Tom that he would be happier with a cat, and so, Korgoth was adopted. He’s a gorgeous little grey-and-white, fluffy kitten with green eyes.

Initially, I was afraid that they wouldn’t get along. More than a few people told me that since Calidrin was a pitbull/mastiff mix (it made me unbelievably angry when they heard “pitbull” and wrote him off immediately as a bad choice of dog, or as stupid or vicious) he would probably try to kill the kitten. At first, he was definitely over-eager to play, but not once did Tom or I notice a hint of viciousness. Really, we were more worried about the cat being nasty to him. More than a few times Korgoth would hiss and attack Calidrin’s face. After a few weeks, however, Korgoth started to play with Calidrin, and learned that if he was done playing all he had to do was jump up high somewhere until the puppy calmed down. Calidrin, in turn, learned to “pull his punches” and treat the kitten as something smaller than he is. He goes at the kitten with an open mouth, but never bites down, and in fact seems overjoyed when the kitten “boxes” him. He is actually more likely to lick Korgoth to death than trample or bite him.

The other day I started to notice the two of them curling up together to sleep. It’s adorable. Tom calls them “butt buddies”…both a comment on their male-to-male affection for one another, and the penchant they have for licking each other clean. *shudders*

For a little bit, I toyed with the idea of getting a second puppy or kitten. But watching the two of them now, I really don’t think it’s neccessary. They’re all the company they need, apart from Tom and I. Besides which, I just don’t see how we’d have the time, money or energy to take care of a third animal. This was really driven home when I found a puppy in the highway a few days ago.

This puppy was clearly a full pitbull, and was about as small as Calidrin had been when we first brought him home. He had almost no hair, being totally overrun with mange, but what little he still had was a cute mix of white with brown spots. It was so sad, you could see every one of his bones, and he cried when he was picked up. He had gorgeous golden eyes, but they had a thick discharge coming from them. I knew he was way beyond my ability to care for. I did, however, take him home and give him lots of food and water, as well as the back yard (a safe place to sleep). Tom took him to an animal shelter the next day.

Calidrin is getting huge (he’s 5 months, and almost the size of a lab), so he’ll probably be eating a bag of dog food a week soon. Thankfully the kitten consumes much less.

I am considering getting fish in the future, after the floors are levelled and redone, but I don’t really regard those as pets for some reason. More like art that needs to be fed and cleaned. I like the idea of simple, brilliantly colored goldfish in a pale, sandy tank. They’re not high-maintenance, are attractive, and tend to be tolerant of colder conditions, which is great because I prefer it cool in the house.

I don’t know why I enjoy pets so much. I guess I always like to have movement and life in a place where I live. I even enjoy plants, but it’s hard to find a plant that thrives in a cool, artificially lit place that won’t kill your pets when they gnaw on it.

My dad was given one of those home-garden kits, though, with the artificial light that allows you to grow tomatoes and whatnot indoors, so maybe I’ll try growing something simple like peppers or catnip for starters.

On the subject of plants, fall is here, and when the leaves finally get around to falling I’m going to take stock of the back and front yard, and see about removing some clutter. I’ll be much less worried about snakes and spiders, then, and can probably get rid of a lot of dead limbs. When spring comes back around, hopefully I can work up the courage to try and plant some bulbs, and maybe even a crepe myrtle or a pomegranate tree. Crepes are nice for color, but I really enjoy a tree that has both form and function, such as fruit and nut trees. There’s something called a strawberry tree that I wouldn’t mind trying.

Finally, on a completely separate ending note…why does it seem like so many of my friends, past and present, are aspiring writers? Some express it in MUDs, others in poems, some in stories, and even a few in rather heated letters to editors. I can’t think of a single person I’ve ever talked to more than a few times, though, that didn’t have a gift for words.

Neil Gaiman Reads a Bedtime Story

Since I was young, I have preferred to read to myself.  I was not fond of the times people would read aloud in class (mostly because students today are borderline illiterate), I did not like people reading funny e-mails to me when it was just as easy to look over their shoulder…to this day I can barely tolerate having the GPS read me directions.

Neil Gaiman is altogether different. If you haven’t already listened to him read The Graveyard book aloud on his website, I hope you’ll do so now. Turn it on in the background while you play video games, listen to it while you go to sleep (he has a terribly “soothing” voice), or just do what I did and stare at the screen in awe while the man spins his tale.

He is the reason I want to write and the reason I am afraid to. My heartfelt, tardy thanks to Kinsey for introducing him to me.

http://www.mousecircus.com/videotour.aspx?VideoID=16

Vampire Love is Not Pure

I heavily suspect that one very large reason why so many people are infatuated with vampires is because they do not use the restroom. In not one vampire mythos have I ever heard of a vampire politely excusing themselves so that they can slip off to tinkle, or complaining that a hobo they ate the night before gave them explosive shits. Not even in the Blade or Underworld movies, and those vampires were just supposed to be genetically enhanced humans. The Underworld vampires could even GIVE BIRTH, but no mention of them needing to use a restroom (or chamber pot, depending on the movie).

No, I take that back. Anne Rice’s vampires seemed to have explosive shits right after they were turned. I think it was described as “flushing out your humanity”, but even then it was presented as a temporary thing.

I’m sure people are in it for the immortality, too. But it must be nice not to have to stand in line at Kroger’s and have people judge you based on how much toilet paper you buy (too much? too little? Is there any such thing as too little?! Not like you can wipe with something else! Maybe….? No, definitely not.).

Spring…Err…Fall Cleaning

Tom started his new security guard job last night at Christian Brothers University College, the same place where I work. It’s great for gas, and he works nights towards the end of the week. Just a part time job, but more than enough for us to get by.

It’s Sunday, immediately following the rush that precedes fall classes. I’m going to be working hard, late hours, and from last year I remember coming home and collapsing almost immediately into sleep. In preparation for this, I’m going to try and give the house a deep cleaning today. We’re none of us very tidy, so it’s needed, and it should give me less to worry about later on.

Since Tom is out cold all day, I’ll wait until he wakes up to vacuum, but I’ll be heading off to the store to get some air fresheners and Swiffer supplies. Sadly, my dreams of repainting the furniture will have to wait. I don’t regret it, though, not really. Got a great new purse that was marked down from $200 to just over $20, the absolute last of its kind in the store, and developed a passion for oatmeal cookie body lotion.

Hopefully we’ll be able to get HBO soon. I miss my True Blood with a passion. First, though, it’s time Calidrin got fixed.

Cheap Drunks and Suicidal Pets

Last night the White Devil made his final appearance…under my sister’s bed. He’d jumped his tank (when, I wasn’t certain, but he hadn’t made it into the new house) and I was certain he’d never be seen again.

In his prime, the White Devil consumed an entire tank of neon tetras, several pineapple mollies, and copious amounts of my money as I struggled to replace the fish. Now he’s down the toilet, swimming in the remains of his victims. Justice, I think. Still, he will be missed.

Maybe now I can buy fish and keep them longer than a week...

My mom, after laughing about the circumstances of the White Devils death, asked if Tom and I would swing over early EARLY in the morning and help clean up my grandma’s backyard. Apparently the local hookers and drug dealers have been using it as their own private hang-out since it’s one of the properties that people are rarely over at.

One would not think picking up trash and cutting/hauling limbs would be tiring work, but Tom is currently passed out on the couch. I would be, too, but my urge to watch the Sex and the City seasons before my sister heads back to Conway urges me to stay awake.

Ordinarily, a little yard work would not be enough to send two twenty-somethings looking for a nap. Last night, though, Tom got a great idea: pizza. So, off we went to Little Cesars, home of the $5 pizza that is perfect for people on a budget with the late-night munchies. About halfway there I discovered that I was having a buzz from my single drink (I’m such a cheap drunk), so Tom shooed me out of the drivers seat once we got there and drove us home.

He insisted on showing me the “correct” way to drive, which, amusingly, looks exactly like my way. We even drove on the same side of the road, imagine!

Tom and I are both minimal drinkers, I’ve discovered. Just a few and we’re laughing and feeling great. Tom was even kind enough to model some of my things for me…only my Aspire slipcover, sadly, but we’ll work our way up from there!

Tom decided to take his own picture after we discovered I make satirical comments during poses that send him into giggle fits.

Men, Women, and Beasts

The world is simple when we’re young and still clutching the skirts (jeans, these days) of our mothers, entering into preschool and gradeschool wide-eyed and hesitant. Naptimes are mandatory, our needs are provided for by our parents, and the most challenging thing we have to worry about is a test. Boys/girls, as everyone knew, had cooties and were not to be trusted.

Around twelve or thirteen, the cooties tended to clear up, and we entered the tumultuous world of teenage dating. We were in love with a different person every other week, and dances were suitable occasions to show off our catches to our envious peers.

Entering into adulthood, we discovered, much to our surprise, that the opposite sex (or same, as your preference goes) had thoughts, feelings, and goals of their own quite separate from being seen in our company at a party or out around town. Some of them even made us genuinely smile. If we were lucky, we kept them around and called them “friends”, and in our minds filed them away in sections a few drawers down from “sex” and “marriage”.

So why is it that when we’ve laughed off or accepted the idea that a relationship is never going to happen with this friend, we feel twinges of jealousy when they attract the attention of others? Suddenly we go from sane, rational people to feral jungle cats, marking our territory and clawing out the eyes of anyone that gets too close. We become moody, prone to violent outbursts, and overtly critical of the “intruder”.

This has happened to me. I become irrationally jealous, plot ways to wreak “vengeance” upon both parties, and say things I regret. Twenty minutes later sanity slips back in through a cracked window and I’m desperately trying to patch up a friendship.

How do we let this happen to ourselves? How do we so mix and muddle our friends and lovers that we have trouble differentiating the two? Can we ever really be friends with someone of the opposite sex?

Buying My Cars Love

Saturn called back to say what was wrong with the car.

Apparently the thermostat had went out, and the car had gotten confused, thinking it was hot. It flooded my car in a desperate attempt to cool, went dry (but didn’t inform me of any of this because it, much like its owner, was determined to fix the problem itself), and got a cracked radiator.

Repairs are going to cost me close to $700. I think, until I find a car I want enough to trade this one in for, I’m going to start taking my car for frequent “check-ups” to try and nip some of these problems in the bud.

So, I’m making plans to put four new tires on the car, get new spark plugs, get the oil changed, and check my brakes when I bring it in for its next check up. Hopefully this will save me some worry later on.

If it acts sweet to me when I pick it up today, I might even get it some air freshener.

My Car Decides to Take a Break

Woke up early today to take Tom and Cassey to a meeting concerning the last week they’ll be working at a mentoring program for Memphis city school kids. When we hit the freeway, my car started the ominous rumbling that, last time, had signalled the death of my map system and other car parts that ran me about $200 in repairs.

The rumblings were minor, I was already in heavy traffic, and I thought “Surely I’ll be able to at least make it to where I’m going. I just won’t let the car idle so it can cut off”. My car anticipated this, however, and decided to stop listening to my gas pedal entirely. We coasted to a stop on the side of the freeway, and my car refused to start again. No engine turning, no noise…save for the cheerful tunes on the radio informing me all was well with my battery.

I went to call my mother to ask for help. I’m not used to my car breaking down on the side of the road. I was delighted to find my cell battery was about to die.

She came to pick us up, and called Saturn to tell them to go and grab my car and fix it. I’m now waiting to see how much this is going to set me back. Really, the credit card company has to be loving me right now. Popular theory is that my timing chain needs to be repaired, but we’re waiting to see what the dealership says. At least this happened BEFORE I started to Conway.

When I got to work (only a half-hour late), I learned that they had shut the air conditioner off (for the third time) for repairs. It’s going to be off all day. I also had to put stickers on 450 + items because their barcodes no longer work. Great fun.

Bringing Home Calidrin

Following our first real fight (in which I insinuated Tom was a bum, he insinuated I was a bitch, he threatened to leave, I threatened to cry), Tom and I were rather pleased with ourselves. We had successfully overcome the first hurdle of having a roommate.

Establishing personal boundaries.

To celebrate, we went out and got a puppy. It wasn’t a spur-of-the-moment sort of thing, as we’d been wanting one for awhile, but it just felt right that night. I am aware, at this point, that it parallels the “we just got over a huge fight and decided to have a baby” gush that some women go on, which makes me cringe. Even so, we decided to get a puppy.

We adopted the puppy from a teenage couple who had never bothered to get their dogs fixed, and after trying to adopt out the puppies to people willing to pay an adoption fee of $75, had decided things might progress quicker if they were given up for free. They were pitbull/mastiff mixes, and Tom and I decided to swing by and take a look.

Calidrin with his former owner, Sidni

We took home a boy. He’s black with a white blaze on his chest and brindle legs. While trying to come up with a name, Tom jokingly suggested Calidrin, and it delighted me so much that I promptly went out and got him a tag made with that name.

He’s not housebroken, so that’s something we have to work on. Luckily it doesn’t particularly bother me if the carpet is damaged, as I intend to rip it all up and replace it with bamboo wood. So I suppose it’s a good thing we’re doing this now.

He’s already really great about sleeping through most of the night. He only starts whining around 7am, when I’m getting up anyways. He still has accidents, or tries to slink around a corner and piddle, but he goes outside most of the time now (because we have become paranoid, hovering people attuned to our dog’s squatting patterns).

Sam

On July 29^th at about 3:30 am, Samuel Butler went out in his powered canoe. He never came back.

His canoe has since been recovered. Sam has not. Somewhat ironically, his gas can and life jacket were still in the canoe when it was found. Had he been wearing his jacket, he might still be here. He might have logged on to his messengers this morning, and told me all about how horrible the weather was in Alaska, or some new project he was working on. There would have been the sort of playful, teasing flirtation that occurs between friends who are comfortable with one another, and perhaps talk of him coming down for a visit so he could help me with my house, discuss all things Illindir, and roam the streets of Memphis with me.

To my dismay, I never actually met Sam in person. He was introduced to me by Ryan Hull, a former Cities of M’dhoria player that was a mutual friend, as a prospective player, builder, and player tester. Delightfully, he was a joy to talk to outside of the game. We talked about friends, family, past life experiences, and the multitude of creatures that could be consumed in Alaska (because of him, I yearn to try bear sausage).

Sam had, as I recall, a great love of the water. He wanted, very much, to have a boat of his own that he could sail on whenever and wherever he chose. I think, if he could have picked a way to leave us, it would have been by water. It is very, very close to his desire for a Viking funeral, albeit without the flames. He wanted to play a pirate on Illindir, and was eager to have a ship that he could use to explore the world of the game.

Sam never did get to play Illindir. He was kind enough to take a look when we had our 1^st anniversary, and was helping me build several things for the game, but he never actually got to make a character. He never got to play his pirate, or any other wonderful character he was capable of creating. It is my hope that we will be able to honor him on Illindir, and keep his memory alive for friends and future players.

They have not yet found Sam, but I am not an optimist. I wish I could say that I was keeping hopeful that he was alive. In my heart, however, I already mourn for a player and a friend. Not because I think he no longer exists (I believe in ghosts, and life after death), but because I do not think I will ever be able to enjoy his company again in this life. I don’t think he’s coming back, and I don’t think he has any reason to haunt me. It’s selfish, I know. The feeling I have isn’t so much “My friend is dead and gone”, but more “My friend has moved, I have no forwarding address, I’ve lost his phone number and e-mail address, and there are THOUSANDS of people with his name…I’ll never talk to him again”. It is a frustrating feeling of having no contact information for a person that is roaming around somewhere, and you want desperately to ask them how things have been going.

I talked to Sam a few hours before he disappeared, and a day before as well. I am luckier than some, I know. It is very, very easy to put off talking to a friend, secure in the knowledge that you can do it at any time. It is possible he had unresolved conflicts with some people, or meant to talk to them about things, but never got the chance. It is left for those of us still here to think of what we wished we could have said to him, and, through our memories of him, try to piece together what he would have said or thought of it. In some ways, though, I think people KNOW. I don’t think the essence of things are left unsaid. I never told Sam that he was a big source of inspiration for me concerning Illindir…but if you were able to tell him that right now, I think he’d smirk and say he knew. I never told him I had grown very fond of him since we first began speaking in February…but I think he knew that, too. So I am comforted that the things left unsaid were expressed, or felt. I do not have regrets regarding Sam.

It has been a habit of mine, since that day Sam left, to talk to his messenger. I have never considered myself gifted at reaching out to the dead. I cannot claim I believe that he somehow reads those messages. It is very likely I am doing this as a way of clinging on to his memory, but I think Sam would find it amusing, and encourage me to keep doing it if it makes me feel better. I still cry for him, sometimes. The grief is not as hard or as real for me as it is for his family and close friends, and in all probability has more of the feel of a child crying because they have lost their toy. They are selfish tears, but when it comes to the dead (or anything in our lives) there is probably very little that is not selfish. And I think Sam would be okay with that, too.