I am screaming and punching myself

Black (Kitty) power!

There's a house on the corner that we always drive by to get into or out of our little suburban subdivision. And there's a cat who lives in that house that we see fairly frequently, as the little critter likes to hang out on the front porch or driveway.

This little critter.

Seeing the cat reminded me of a column I'd read in college about a student adopting a black kitten. She had seen the sign proclaiming "Free Black Kitty" and had briefly misread it as a political slogan. (You know, Free Leonard Peltier! Free the Chicago Seven! Free Black Kitty!)

So I started chanting "Free Black Kitty!" whenever I saw the little furball. Then I began to chant it when the weather was nice but I couldn't see the cat outside. But then I came to realize: sometimes, freedom isn't a good thing for a kitty. So on days when the weather is crappy, the rallying cry becomes "Enclose Black Kitty!"

(I do hope Black Kitty's humans enclose him or her on Saturday, 'cause I've heard horror stories about stuff done to black cats on Halloween.)

Every so often, J and I ponder going up to Black Kitty's house when the humans were in the front yard and asking to pet Black Kitty. We figure it would be best to leave out the rather elaborate inner life we've developed around the cat.

Prior to last night, I had only admired Black Kitty from afar. Then, on my way to class, I spotted a familiar furry silhouette on the driveway of the house. I stopped the car, put the hazards on, grabbed my phone (hence the crap picture quality) and walked up to Black Kitty, hoping he or she wouldn't bolt before I could snap a pic.

I needn't have worried. Black Kitty trotted up to me, meowing a greeting and nudging my hand. In fact, I couldn't get him or her to stop moving long enough to get a shot that looked like anything other than a vaguely cat-shaped black blur.

And I was very relieved that Black Kitty's humans were nowhere near the house, otherwise they would have seen a car stopped as if for an emergency and a clearly deranged lady holding out a camera phone while telling their cat "Okay, okay--no, back--easy--back it--sit. Sit. Stay. Hold on. Dammit!"

I'm still unsure of Black Kitty's gender and also of his or her name. For Black Kitty wears no collar. So I have a request for Black Kitty's owners, if by some odd chance they're reading this. Free Black Kitty when it's nice out. Enclose Black Kitty when it's raining or it's Halloween. But most of all, Clothe Black Kitty.

MST3K: Red Zone Cuba

Every MSTie has an episode that they can only watch once, The One That Broke Them. This is that episode for my friend Galen; when he loaned me his DVD, he said, "I'm not even sure I want it back."

And to be sure, Red Zone Cuba took its toll on Mike and the bots. As Crow put it, "I want to hurt this movie, but I can never hurt it the way it hurt me."

Personally? I kinda dig it! You could say I find it entertainingly appalling.

See, what you have to understand about Red Zone Cuba is that it's part of the Coleman Francis trio (along with Skydivers and The Beast of Yucca Flats, both of which have also been MST-ified), which means it's going to have no redeeming features whatsoever. 

From the moment you hear the theme song, you know you're in for hard time. I mean, after all, it was sung by...

...John Carradine!

As Mike (I think) notes in the clip, Coleman Francis looked a lot like Curly Howard of the Three Stooges. In fact, perhaps he was mistaken for Curly too often, as Francis seemed to work overtime to create a story and a character that were the opposite of the goofy, happy-go-lucky Stooge's image.

Woo woo-woo-woo-woo? I don't think so.

The story begins with Curly—er, Coleman breaking out of jail and joining two itinerant ex-con migrant workers. "We follow da harvest," one of them bleats, and you know that Francis was going for a Steinbeck/Hemingway vibe with that, but instead it just sounds kinda stupid. 

The three decide to join up with a force that's planning to invade Cuba, since they're supposed to receive "a t'ousand bucks ta join, and a t'ousand bucks when it's over." The guys don't really take to the training, and who can blame them when their invasion map looks like this?

Nonetheless, they do some activities on a hillside and eventually shove off for Cuba. (To my delight, the constant MST3K response to the movie's use of "shove off" is a cry of "You shove off!")

This, apparently, is Cuba. (Its resemblance to New Mexico is completely coincidental.)

And this, apparently, is Castro! Hee!

After some skirmishes that appear to take place in someone's front yard, Coleman and compadres are captured and imprisoned.

See? Cuba!

They escape and flee by way of...

... the Cuban Air Force!

They land somewhere (we're never told where), and find the restaurant of the damned.

I think this clip really summarizes Red Zone Cuba: the mindless violence, the lack of explanation for anything, the relentless unattractiveness of settings and characters and the total disconnect to what passes for the rest of the plot.

From there, they hop a train and visit the presumed widow of one of their fellow invaders. Back in "prison" in "Cuba," Sargeant Chastain had made the mistake of telling them there was a fortune in pitchblende in a mountain he owned.

Mrs. Chastain is agreeable to the plan.

Now, you see that expression on Mrs. Chastain's face? That's the closest to happy anybody gets in this film—but you wouldn't know it from the music! Red Zone Cuba has the most inexplicably perky incidental music I've ever seen. Here's a montage:

But, of course, such lighthearted shenanigans can never last in a Coleman Francis film, and before long, everyone is arrested, wounded or just plain gunned down.

And on horrible film stock, too.

Is there a moral to the story? Not really, unless you want to count "Don't invade Cuba with only 7 guys." But perhaps a greater lesson can be learned from the works of Coleman Francis as a whole, and that lesson can be taken from a character in City Slickers:

"Lord, we give you Curly. Try not to piss 'im off."

Alternate uses for a cat: Timer

It's a well-established fact that cats make excellent alarm clocks, albeit ones that tend to go off well before you want them to. But I have recently become aware that Emily has a uniquely well-honed sense of both how much time has elapsed and how much time should be allotted to a particular function.

Especially when that function takes place in the bathroom. I haven't sat there with a stopwatch or anything, but Emily does seem to enter the Throne Room at regular intervals.

You'll be sitting there, performing a necessary chore, maybe reading something (possibly playing Video Poker on your iPod touch), and suddenly a cat pushes the door open, walks right up to you and gives you this look that clearly says, "You're still here? Really?"

Oddly, she seems to respond to an impatient "Okay, okay, I'll get a move on," and exits the bathroom. But five minutes later, she's back. This time, she not only gives you that look, she usually bites you on the side of the thigh, knowing full well you can't exactly get up and chase her with any hope of success.

By the third visit (hey, the book was good!), she'll just give you the "Get off the thunderbucket!" glare, then go out into the bedroom and make a bunch of loud noise on the metal closet door. That's usually enough to propel you off the john, and as you waddle furiously into the bedroom, she's back on the bed, looking at you coolly, as if to say "Finally, you're out."

I like to think that Emily believes she's helping us save water and electricity, but I know her too well. She just does it for the evil lulz.

Stars, friends, champagne and doughnuts: our New York anniversary trip

J and I went to New York to celebrate our one-year wedding anniversary week before last. Traditionally, the first year is the paper anniversary, and as it turned out, that was quite appropriate, because we both got each other tickets for stuff.

The impetus to go to NYC in the first place was, as I mentioned earlier, the historic appearance of Kylie Minogue on American soil, right around our anniversary date! (I got the Kylie tickets.)

And what a show it was! It's not often I use the word "extravaganza" unironically, but Kylie's Monday show on Oct. 12 was a freaking extravaganza. Kylie performed 24 songs in a little under two hours with barely a break. There were eight dancers, a live band with a horn section, impressive sets and a group of movable LED screens that augmented the sets and the atmosphere, and kept the spectacle going whenever Kylie and the dancers had to slip offstage for one of six costume changes.

Kylie came into our world as she was lowered on a big shiny skull with an apparent fire in it (?) doing the classic countdown intro to "Light Years." I'm not sure what the deal with the skull was; maybe giving death the finger after surviving breast cancer?

Apparently, the first costume change didn't work properly, so in what I consider to be a typical Kylie move, she came back onstage in her "space goddess" costume and her dancers handed her a big flouncy robe to sing in. So cute. Honestly, though, that might have been part of the show. I'm not sure; I couldn't hear or understand a lot of what she said between songs.

But I heard what she sang just fine, and she sounded lovely. The voice that seems a little nasal in the studio came out as a beautiful, rich soprano in concert, and only seemed to get stronger as the show went on. Before the finale of "Love At First Sight," she led the audience in a soaring a capella singalong of "Your Disco Needs You."

J took a picture of me watching the show and later told me, "You looked like it was Christmas morning." I couldn't believe I was actually watching someone whose music I've loved for years, and who's been something of a personal inspiration, and that I was so close to her. The dazzling spectacle of Kylie's show was appreciated, to be sure, but what mattered most to me was the honor, if you will, of watching a master do what she does.

I still don't get the flaming skull, though.

J had bought us some tickets as well: two fourth-row seats at "A Steady Rain," starring Hugh Jackman and Daniel Craig. Talk about watching masters do what they do!

The play itself was kinda meh; it would have made a pretty good episode of Law & Order. Two childhood friends grow up to become Chicago cops, and during the course of the play, the role of alpha dog subtly shifts. But, as my friend Gabriel wisely pointed out, people weren't there to see the play itself.

One of my favorite aspects of the play was the casting: it would have been so easy to have Daniel Craig play the bully and Hugh Jackman play the more sensitive lost soul, but they flipped the roles. The result is a Jackman whose showman energy makes him a bad guy you almost hate to hate, and a Craig who seems almost to apologize for his presence. It's fantastic work on both their parts.

Like the Kylie show, seeing Jackman and Craig in person was something of a once-in-a-lifetime event. Now that I think of it, so was our first anniversary.

(When we arrived home, I learned my unemployment benefits would be running out that week, and two days later I got a major case of the flu. But for that five-day weekend, all was lovely.)

Let me know if I start oinking

I've got... something. Something kinda flu-ish, with some impressive chest congestion to boot. The thing is, I don't know if what I have is swine flu or just regular (heifer?) flu.

I actually checked the CDC website earlier today and read: "The symptoms of 2009 H1N1 flu virus in people include fever, cough, sore throat, runny or stuffy nose, body aches, headache, chills and fatigue. Some people may have vomiting and diarrhea." But that doesn't really help me out.

Apparently, the achiness and diarrhea/vomiting are what really set swine flu apart. Unfortunately, they're also both fairly common aspects of my life. As a 38-year-old behemoth who does Muay Thai kickboxing 3 times a week with the ferocity of a teenager, I'm in a near-constant state of achiness and mild fatigue. And as a woman with PCOS who takes Metformin twice a day to help with the insulin resistance... well, let's just say that my lower intestinal tract could reasonably be called "tempestuous."

Fever-wise, my internal thermometer is going from one extreme to the other. I'll feel cold, so I'll snuggle into something fleecy I got at Target, but then I get over-hot so I'll turn on the fan or open a window and before long the cycle repeats itself. The cats are clearly losing patience with me. Just not enough to move to another room.

I've also got my most telltale symptom of illness: the overwhelming desire to snuggle everyone around me (and maybe cry a little as I do so). My mom used to theorize that this behavior was some sneaky evolutionary trick developed by whatever virus I had to ensure its spread throughout the population.

So that's me today: sneezing on the regular, coughing up some truly unsettling stuff, coated with a mild sweat from my last temperature cycle (special to my mom: no, these are not hot flashes), and having my usual achy muscles and tetchy GI tract. And demanding a hug.

It might as well be swine flu, 'cause I'm wallowing in it.

Worshipping at The Church of Kylie

By the time you read this, J and I will be on our way home from New York, where we spent a 5-day weekend celebrating our 1-year anniversary, the dear friends we have in the area, the fact that Daniel Craig and Hugh Jackman are on Broadway and the show I never thought I'd be able to see: Kylie Minogue in North America!

The video quality is about what you'd expect for a concert, but dude! She sang while dancers were holding her above their heads in a split! That's a level of showmanship (and athleticism!) that I can only genuflect before.

I've been a Kylie fan for years now, but I came to The Church of Kylie relatively late in Our Lady of The Insured Kiester's career. My first Kylie album was Fever; I had to go into the back catalog to discover the wonder that was Light Years.

J and I went to the Monday night show, while my beloved friend Gabriel caught Sunday's show. Since we heard of her tour in early summer, Gabriel and I have been "squee!"ing to each other over Facebook. He posted a set list from her Oakland show last week, so I was able to put together an iTunes playlist for concert preparation.

And as I listened to her signature brand of dance-pop, I realized part of what makes Kylie so special: there's a fundamental sweetness to her musical persona. Even when she's singing about sex, there's nothing sleazy about it; it's all vague wantings and desirings. She'll lick her lips, but it's with a smile rather than a pornulated pout.

Plus, you get the sense from listening to her songs that she'd be so much fun to be around, that she'd make as good a friend as a lover, if not better (Kylie's musical persona has a history of broken relationships, I'm afraid). 

Now, I realize that all of this is part of her job as an international pop star and gay icon. But Her Holiness does that job better than just about anyone else on the planet. That's what makes her divine.

What's better than owning one puppy?

Owning one puppy and having a neighbor acquire another puppy! 

For a few weeks now, J's been agitating about getting Peach a little brother or sister. No matter how many times I wearily tell him, "Baby, we are barely holding it together with one small dog and two elderly cats," the notion of having a playmate for Peach has enchanted him.

But we've dodged the new-puppy bullet! The family whose backyard abuts onto ours recently adopted a tiny beagle named Dixie, so now Peach has a new playmate ... that we don't have to feed, clean up after, spay/neuter, vaccinate, etc.

They get along smashingly. Little Dixie is only 10 weeks old, so right now she's smaller than Peach, but she'll eventually get to be about twice Peach's size. Since she doesn't have the advantage of mass, she uses her breed's signature sound (and the element of surprise) to get the jump on Peach:

I love the very beginning, when Peach is clearly startled by the noise coming out of Dixie. (I apologize for the volume of the noise coming out of me on that video clip, but hey, a $150 video camera don't come with a boom mike.)

Now, don't get me wrong, Peach is no slouch in the cuteness department, but Dixie is working her own brand of magic here.

Awwwww.

And here's a scene to melt your heart...

...until you realize, as we did, that what they're sniffing is a pile of poo left by an itinerant neighbor cat. (Puppy kisses were sharply curtailed at that point.)

On that note, have a great weekend!

Furry. Wobbly. Deadly.

Who doesn't love a raccoon? They've got those little masks and those little hand-like paws... and those little sharp teeth and an uncanny ability to organize into packs. Just ask an elderly Floridian woman:

I've had my own run-ins with raccoons, too. When I was living in Austin, I kept a dish of cat food on the outside landing of my second-floor apartment for the two strays I dubbed "The General" and "Little Red." (I had hoped to befriend, trap, neuter and find homes for them, but they never even got close enough for phase 1 of that plan.)

Of course, a dish of cat food is like a flare in the sky to a raccoon, and one night I opened my door to find not a rusty tortoiseshell nor a bedraggled Russian Blue but a big, round raccoon nibbling at the Iams. It and I were both startled, and it wobbled off down the stairs.

However, when I looked down to the first floor, I saw the critter walking past the ground floor apartments toward the other stairs, and I realized that it was just going to make an approach from another direction. The little bastard. I had to be more intimidating. But how?

At this moment, a conversation that I'd had with a downstairs neighbor came into my head; she'd talked about her concern over our local pack of raccoons, noting "One of them chased my husband!" I promised myself that I wouldn't run from a mammal that didn't even come up to my knee (reptiles, as always, are another matter altogether).

I also recollected snippets of information from my best friend, who'd taken a class on camping to satisfy a phys-ed credit requirement. According to her professor, the best way to scare away a bear was to raise your hands above your head, make yourself as big as possible and intone in a booming voice: "Get away, bear!" (Someday, I hope to try this out on annoying co-workers to see if it works in an office setting.)

So as the raccoon bumbled up the stairs, I walked towards it, stood on the landing and spread my limbs out (in what I believe is known as the Voltron position). Rather than using words, I decided to use that weird space alien noise Mojo makes when he's had about all he can take. It's like an agitated meow with some throaty noises and some high-pitched spikes in it, and it is freaky.

There I stood, limbs splayed (with a spatula in one hand, if I recall correctly) and howling like a demented tabby. The raccoon paused, looked past me to the cat food, looked up at me (I had redoubled the yowling) and decided that even premium cat food wasn't worth messing with the crazy spatula-bearing giant housecat. It shot me one last look of pure resentment, then went back down the stairs, and never came near the dish again.

Then my neighbor Camille flung open her door and asked "What the hell was that?!"

Overall, we got off very easy in that apartment building: one chased husband, one temporarily freaked-out neighbor and one moment of utter absurdity. Of course, we only had the one raccoon to deal with. If they'd been in a pack, I'm sure I'd have fared no better than that poor woman in Florida.

Let's talk raccoons. Tell me your tales of masked woodland creatures in the comments. (Seriously, if you ever want to get creeped out, check out an apartment dumpster the night after Thanksgiving. Just don't get too close.)

A bicycle built for two(ish)*

In his role as Ultimate Doggie Dad, J recently acquired a nylon carrier that can be mounted to the handlebars of a bike, creating a high-tech version of Toto's basket in The Wizard of Oz. We hoped Peach would like it, and we're pretty sure she did.

Based on our (admittedly biased) interpretation of her expressions, she was concerned at first, but grew more reassured as time went on and she didn't fall out.

We took her around the block, and she was thrilled to be interacting with her neighborhood fan club at face level. I'm not kidding about the fan club, either: a group of four tween girls ran up to us breathlessly asking "Is that Peach?" while nearby tween boys looked on enviously.

Next up, we decided to try Emily, knowing her to be the more malleable of the two cats (at first, anyway). 

Emily's reaction seemed a little muted, though; she did that meow quite a few times as we took her around the block.

We also thought she'd enjoy interacting with folks in the neighborhood, because to Emily, every stranger is just a minion you haven't met yet. But there weren't any kids out this time and all we got were a few looks of utter confusion from passing cars (we think we saw someone ask "Is that a cat?!").

Finally, we were down to one remaining pet. When I said, "Come on, let's get the Moj," J's response was: "Wait—you're serious about that? I thought you were kidding!" Oh, honey. I never kid about alarming and humiliating our big boy cat.

We were expecting a replay of what happens every time Mojo goes to the vet: puffiness, hissing, urinating out of sheer terror and a yowl of purest rage. Instead we got:

As with Emily's neighborhood tour, we didn't see any people out (but did startle a few drivers). And as we rode, instead of biting J's hand as we had feared he might, Mojo gently nudged it with his nose, a sign of what passes for happiness with our strange little dude.

Well, he's really not so "little." Mojo was outside the 13-lb. weight rating of the basket, and J said he could actually feel the carrier creaking a bit. Still, I doubt that will be the Moj's last bike ride.

It might be Emily's last ride, though: later that evening, she peed on the bathmat as J was in the shower, then overnight, she threw up in the middle of the kitchen floor. (It's her ability to visualize consequences and plan accordingly that really scares me.)

But in terms of positive pet experiences, two out of three ain't bad.

*You can't really count a small dog as an extra person (although Mojo comes close).