Wha, Huh, FUH????

For the first time in a very long time--possibly ever--I am rendered completely speechless.

It's not often I open spam e-mails. Most of them are boring, for one thing; poorly-spelled, deliberately mispunctuated blocks of inanity meant to convince me of the need of enlarging the penis I don't have, or of taking out a mortgage loan even more predatory than the one I've already got.

But this one had an interesting subject line--"Take the gravity out of sex!"--and so I clicked. I was prepared to be disappointed, to find yet-another pitch for V1a*GG*ra or c!&1!S, cHeeP!!!

I was not prepared, however, for this.

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you: The GRAVITIZER!



Now, my girly-bits are not among the areas of my body upon which I would be willing to inflict a lack of gravity, no matter how temporary. The cleavage? Sure. The booty? Bring it on. But the thought of some magical anti-gravitational force field surrounding my stuff down there...um, no. Especially if the means by which that loss of gravity came about involved something that looks like a cheap rowing machine.

And that doesn't even begin to cover the possible objections from the GUYS. I mean, would any of you willingly put your reproductive organs in the path of a moving object? Can you imagine the possible outcome if something important got caught in the machinery?? I believe the word I'm searching for is "ouch."

Personally? Even though the drought has now reached seven months, I think I'll have to pass on this one.

Formal Introduction

Ladies and gentlemen, allow me to introduce the newest addition to the Story of Why family.

He is six weeks old--he was born on April Fool's Day--and in the two days with which we have been acquainted, he has been a perfect hellion. He yowls all night from his carrier (where he has to sleep, at least til he's a little bigger and has a little more sense) and often yowls with no reason at all. I think he likes the sound of his own voice.

He is also soft, cuddly, and--as you can see--adorable. And he has quite a purr, as well.

Whitey, though he's not thrilled about the new addition, is at least tolerating him fairly well. The prevailing attitude seems to be "You're too small to hurt me, but I still don't think I like the idea of you." I've been introducing them for short periods of time; the first one, if I'd had a video camera, would have easily netted me $10,000 from "America's Funniest Videos". Whitey walked into the room; Anonymous bopped right up to him and tried to sniff him. Whitey backed away; Anonymous advanced. The faster Whitey retreated, the faster the little guy came at him, til finally they were running laps around the bedroom, with Whitey casting disbelieving looks behind him and the little one tearing along after Whitey's tail. It was a beautiful moment....Whitey, the Thug Cat, being driven utterly to distraction by a tiny ball of fur.

Now if I could only think of a good name for him--rough-and-tumble, boyish, yet feline.





P.S. Firefly--was I lying?

Simultaneously Adorable and Disturbing

This morning, as I drove the Ghettomobile to work (Now people, you know I'm the least-likely individual in the world to refer to something as "ghetto" without cause...This car? Is GHET-TO. LJ and one of his friends went halfsies on it for $500 apiece, figuring they could share it and use it as an emergency spare car. It's got all the wiring for television and huge monster stereo and all kinds of gadgets...but the regular old radio? Doesn't work. It's got cruise control and power this-and-that...but the cover on the passenger airbag? Is about half pried-off. Same with the drivers' door--someone must have forgot their keys long ago, because the doorframe has dings all along the top edge, and the rubber gasket around the door is compromised. Plus it's rusty on the outside and grimy on the inside and drives like a buffalo, even though it's a small car. Anyway, LJ is going out of town this weekend (thank heavens!) and he's taking the truck (booo) so I got to drive the Ghettomobile to work for the first time today. And I have no qualms, after that, referring to this car as "ghetto".)

Anyway, as I was driving down Cicero Avenue--a major thoroughfare, for you non-Chicagoans; three lanes in each direction, 40-mph speed limit, lots of retail on all sides--I came to the Target parking lot. And there, walking along the sidewalk near the newly-landscaped shrubs, I saw two very big Canada geese. Now, geese are becoming common enough in the city and suburbs as to constitute a very big problem--mainly because they insist upon dropping their gigantic goose-doots in every open field--and plus they have a well-deserved reputation as being some nasty little buggers. (I am still emotionally scarred by a childhood contre-temps with a petting-zoo goose. Don't they check those animals out for temperament before they throw them in the petting zoo? A VICIOUS little bastard, he was.)

So geese, as such, even walking down Cicero Avenue, are at best a minor novelty. But what really messed me up was this: behind them, there followed a string of six small, fluffy yellow goslings. I mean, it was like something straight out of a storybook--leading the way, the proud momma goose (or daddy; I don't know whether geese are patriarchical, but in the mood I've been in lately it wouldn't surprise me) followed by the fluffy babies and then the other parent, bringing up the rear. It was absolutely adorable...

...except that it was on Cicero Avenue, and since I drive that street every day, I know how people drive there. And the people who drive on Cicero with me? Are even bigger jerks than that long-ago petting-zoo goose. I would imagine that at least a couple of them, faced with a storybook parade of geese and goslings trying to cross a busy thoroughfare, would think "Hey! Fifty points for each baby!" and aim their SUV's accordingly. And I really didn't want to think about that--it's bad enough facing the carnage in my neighborhood, a crossing of paths between people who don't keep their cats indoors and people who drive like maniacs. I would hate to see that fate befall those little balls of yellow fuzz. (And yes, I know---those fluff-balls will grow up into hissing, doot-dropping, human-pecking bastards someday. But I am wired incorrectly when it comes to baby animals. You can confront me with all the logic in the world, and I will acknowledge your logic and condemn my own hypocrisy--but any appeal to reason will be drowned out by that vestigial "awwwwwww...." that bubbles up when faced with small adorable animals. I know it's girly and stupid and in many cases contrary to logic, but I can't help it. They're CUTE, dammit.)

When I got to work I called the Bedford Park police department, who told me there was really nothing they could do except send out a unit to stop traffic if the geese decided they wanted to cross the road. I was hoping for a solution more along the lines of "pick them up and take them somewhere safe", but apparently that's not the correct protocol--too many geese, for one thing, and not enough places to take them.

So if you were driving along Cicero Avenue in Bedford Park this morning, and you got caught in a goose-related traffic jam, I apologize; I just didn't want anything to happen to them while they were still little and cute. And if you were the Bedford Park officer detailed with waiting around all morning to see if the geese were going to want to cross Cicero Avenue...well, I'm sorry for putting you in that position--but it was probably a better way to spend a Friday morning in May than sitting at a desk doing paperwork, now wasn't it?