Just Shoot Me In The Head

Tuesday I have a plane to catch from Sea-Tac, to make it to San Diego Comicon. ONLY 80,000 people in one room for a week. ONLY the biggest convention of any sort in the western hemisphere (2 years ago we topped the Republican convention). A booth to run. My books to turn over to the San Diego State University. People to see, signings to make, face to put on and KEEP on.

So this week, the car's gas tank collapses like its water broke. The 2-hand refrigerator's freon unit failed. Spuds, the oldest cat, gets a rodent ulcer on his nose, from baking his pink nose in the sun for years -- hell, the damn grey cat bleaches BLOND every summer. The nice lady who does the kite-flying says at the last minute she needs a guest room (NOT a huge problem but... we have a newly-spayed wild cat, "Iki," in the guest bathroom, and you can imagine she thinks people are out to gut her, because we nearly did.).

It's not quite a Sherman Alexie novel, but I just emailed his site www.fallsapart.com and hoped the Indians would not only not stop dancing now they'd started again but that they would KEEP DANCING REAL HARD. Which you have to read Indian Killer to get the reference.

Let's just say that between treating this like I was fighting snakes and refusing to lay back and be patient, I managed to end up wasting two whole days on the bus system AND blowing the clutch out of somebody else's car.

Which is weird, because I've been driving automatics and sticks and loaners and trucks and tractors all over the country for the past 5 years and not having any problem. But trying to sneak around the Fun Days parade up a steep hill and having an excited cop trying to talk to me through my window while I tried to find the gear in a Suburu Outback kind of blew my concentration...

And I admitted what I did to the nice lady who trusted me with her car (Oh, the kind and foolish people among us), so when the smartass drunk I drove 400 round trip miles to Seattle for biopses last month began to get on my case, I buttonholed him and said, "You got about 500 laughs on me you don't get to have after what I did for you last month. You OWE me."

But -- I only had a few minute's cursing stomping fit across one non-populated parking area and one crying jag after I got home. Which is pretty good for me.

So....

Dan says he's taking the cat to the vet Monday on the bus (poor Spuds!), because if I do it the day before the Seattle trip -- which may or may not be on a series of six buses and a ferry -- I will get shell-shock in somebody else's living room in San Diego AGAIN. Just a fact of life. Sometime in my life I blew out my lymbic system, and it barely takes being glanced at, let alone pushed. So we're praying the car is at least something I can pick up by next Tuesday.

We've cleaned out the fridge and we're just going to turn it off and buy a new one, because it will cost about the same anyway. I swear, when I get older I'm just eating out of cans. If I want ice cream, I'll pick up a cone. I do now, anyway.

The spayed cat is getting used to people. All that fish we had to thaw and feed raw to cats -- well, that didn't hurt any feline feelings, Spuds's and Iki's included.

My kite-flying friend got the flu and had to go home. Which is probably just as well, I was ready to beat my head against a few walls. I hope she's feeling better, in her own bed -- you don't want to be sick in somebody else's, lemme tell you.

Okay, okay, so everybody else here is dealing with funerals and I'm not -- I don't care, I was still looking to do some short-term cradle-head-flattening.

I'll pay for the damn clutch. And if it blew it's because it was about to blow anyway. So she gets a new clutch anyway. I'D be happy....

AGH. And now they're blowing up London. Well, like my mom used to say, "And what did you do to the CAT?"

Oh. That's right. Iki says she nearly got gutted. So she's been sitting in that bathroom for a week HATING US.

Very mad cat magic.

That explains THAT.