Turns out, I locked Steely Dan in the attic all night, so I’m feeling pretty good about my cat mothering skills.
I went up there for some paperwork, which I FOUND, by the way, and then I took it downstairs (there I go again, calling the attic “upstairs” like a giant nutbar) and pored over it obsessively. (I was trying to see how old my roof is. Let’s say it’s, oh, 21. Not only can your roof drink, but also your roof might need replacing, right?) (Crap.)
I didn’t think about how that gray ass GOES UP THERE, goes upstairs, every chance he gets.
Last night, before bed, I opened the front door and tried calling him in, a fruitless effort I make nightly. Well, he’s with his other family, I thought, shutting the door and giving up.
That’s why it alarmed me when I heard him meowing this morning. Usually when I get up, he’s staring at me through some window, with the intensity of a thousand suns. But he never meows to come in. That would be undignified. Unseemly.
“Steely Daaaan!” I called out my front door this morning, a reprise of last night’s siren song. Am certain the neighbors can’t get enough of me. “Who’s she gonna call next, Kajagoogoo?”
I was really worried. Why was he meowing so loudly? Was my gray prince of a kitten hurt? Don’t tell him I said that.
“Steely Daaaan! Kitty!?” I called out the back door, which is not a euphemism.
And then I saw the papers on my table. And right then I knew.
He wasn’t even that huffy about it, till he discovered I’m also out of canned food. After spending a night in an attic like a bat, he was rewarded with dry GIRL food that he only eats to annoy Iris and Lily. He enjoys sticking his head in their bowls when they’re eating, just to be an asshole.
The reason I’m out of cat food is I’m on a very strict $16-a-day budget till next Friday. I’m having a crown put on, and I think we can all agree I’ve deserved one of those for years. But it’s going to cost me $750 out of pocket–not that I ever put money in my pockets because look what happened to my ATM card when I put IT in my pocket on whiskey sour night–so in order to pay for it, I have to live small this pay period.
So far, I’ve failed terribly at living on $16 a day. On Monday I managed till I filled a prescription at $22.
Then on Tuesday I ran out of gas. I don’t mean you saw me on the side of the highway carrying a can, but I was on the last dot of m’gage. So I pulled in to the dodgy gas station that’s on my way home from work, a gas station I almost never go to because they let some random dude run over and offer to fill your tank for you, a guy who doesn’t work there. And then I always tip him because he filled my tank for me and I know that’s how he’s eeking out a living, but the whole thing makes me uncomfortable, and it ends up costing me more.
But of course on Tuesday he wasn’t there. I guess he felt he’s earned vacation time. And this was the ONE TIME I coulda used that guy, because I put my card in, and it asked me if it was credit or debit, and then it said, “Card rejected. Please see cashier.”
Once, this friend of mine in LA asked me to take her to this event, and she lived seriously far from me, and driving to take a friend somewhere is no small task in LA. We’re talking this will be an extra hour both there and back. But I didn’t want to seem like a giant bitch (oh, June…), so I said okay. I drove an hour home from work, ate whatever standing up, then got BACK in the car to pick up HER ass so we could go to our event.
I ran out of gas that day, too, and had to go to this really dodgy gas station in Hollywood, and the next day my identity was stolen. There’s someone going around right now saying, “No, I’M June Gardens!”
So I’m suspicious of gas pumps in general, and I’m REALLY suspicious when it says, “Please see cashier.” So what I did Tuesday was, I got in the car and left.
With guess what. The flappy thing open on my car and the gas cap on my roof.
I drove about a block before it dawned on me I’d done that, so I pulled into a parking lot and walked along the gutter back to the dodgy gas station, looking for that cap.
I found it. It had been run over already.
So I took what’s left of my gas cap and went to the gas station I’ve always resented because they shut off my gas one time when I looked at my phone while pumping. Oh fuck you, explosion police.
So Tuesday cost me gas and a gas cap.
Yesterday I managed to spend nothing, but I did also manage to close my cat in an attic for 12 hours, so.
Just seven more days till I get paid again, but I still have to live small, because crown. I have to pay for this crown. On the 18th. The 18th is crown day. Oooo, what if the royal baby is born on my crown day? That’ll mean I’m royalty.
Oh, June. Delusional June.
Tonight, with my allotted $16, my pal Jo and I are possibly painting the town. Her brother died, which is really sad. I met him, and he was cool. The visitation is tonight, and I’m going to that, and then if there’s time, afterward we’re going to go to the First Friday stuff downtown so she can kind of have a break. We might even pop in on Kit, who of course has to work the First Friday stuff downtown, as she owns a, you know, store there.
Also, someone has moved into Peg’s. They’re busy unpacking and I think building something in the back, there. I’d introduce myself but every time I’ve seen them they look busy or I’m in a robe, so.
I’d better get to work. I have so much to do there that I forget to go pee. By the end of the day lately, my eyes are exhausted. They’re like, no to make us see to drive home. We done seeing.
Eye talk. I don’t know why eyes talk like cats. Especially 52-year-old eyes.
See you. BAH.
Joob
I leave you with this. The latest work of Steely Dan, and you know, I thought my robe was safe. He’d seemed disinterested in eating it, but I guess he had a change of heart. Well. “Heart.”
For, you know, like a second.
Six cats. Pfft. Amateur.
When we left each other yesterday, saying, “No, YOU hang up,” Gus had been doing tricks in my mother’s yard, fmr., and then I might have kissed him with my red lipstick. I remember back in the ’90s, kissing my mother’s fluffy white Samoyed with my then-fushia lipstick, and my poor beleaguered stepfather in the kitchen, patiently washing it off that dog’s head.
Oh, look! A book about how we shouldn’t consume, that if we click on it takes us to Amazon so we can consume. Oh, June, you’re so ironic. Don’tcha think. A little too ironic. Yeah, I really do think.
Some families form a conga line. We form a taco line. [Insert taco/Katie-the-lesbian joke here]
My Aunt Kathy, who is a Virgo, had already decorated for Christmas. Like, that day. She started the day with no Christmas, and by the end of the day she was swinging on her North Pole.
After dinner, my cousin Big June and her husband Hill came to surprise me, and it was so cute to see them. She gets migraines, too. Is plagued by them, actually.
I returned home without incident, late Saturday night. It was too late to get Edsel from daycare, so I slept with Lily, who was beside herself that I’d returned, and if you look carefully, you can see an extremely indifferent Steely Dan down the hall.
The other, more normal, cats were happy to see me, in their cat way. “wee not say hi, but we sleep on you a lots.”
Here’s the annoying part: I’ve already let him in today. But there he is, mysteriously on the other side of the door, as he is wont to be. And yet, he still wishes for me to get up and let him in the traditional way right now. Sneak out whatever way he’s figured out? Sure. But inconveniencing me to come back in? Oh, HELL, sure. So many sures.
And he wasn’t hungry; he’d already eaten. He wasn’t sleepy. Evil rarely sleeps. He just wanted to be sure to remind me that my coffee repels him. My coffee should be stopped. As soon as he can gather funds, he’s going to bribe a lobbyist to get coffee outlawed.
Asshole. Why do I love him so? This sums up all my relationships.
I had a migraine (thanks, world), so he spent the entire day with his snout up on my berobed self. No, seriously. THE ENTIRE DAY.
Steely Dan made barf sounds from across the room and rolled his orange cat eyes.
