TEETH.

Oh, goodie.

And now I've BROKEN a tooth.

What in hell is going on here?

FareStart

Last meal I ate in Seattle was at FareStart. It's a hotel/restaurant that gets homeless back on their feet by helping them to be chefs.

A pretty nice place. Cool, pleasant, sleek black furniture.

I had the Gypsy Soup and Sourdough Bread. Both very good.

The coffee was awful, but it was Starbuck's, and they'd donated it. So put up with the bad coffee, or order the tea.

Good prices, nice people. If you're going to be downtown, eat there.

If I hadn't had that tooth problem, I would have tried one of the scrumptious-looking deserts.

They feature Seattle-area gourmet chefs once very week -- reservations recommended. August 14, it will be David Bramer, from the 35th Street Bistro.

In Seattle, go to:

1902 2nd Avenue
Seattle, WA 98101

11 am to 2 pm, Monday through Friday. Clean kitchens and restrooms.

206 267 7601. And they do parties.

I'm HOME!

Yup, made it home on Olympic Van Lines. Oh, what a pleasure. A break on the Kingston Ferry, and 45 minutes between the dropoff and the Forks bus. Took me not a moment more of travel time, cost very little more than driving and all that gasoline and wear and tear on a car. From now on, I leave the area, I'm taking the bus.

Left the car at Bugmasters in Seattle. We're negotiating. I'm done with cars for a while. Seattle's bus system is stupendous, and the Clallam County system ain't half bad. I can do anything I want without owning my OPTMI (Own Personal Three-Mile Island, or car).

And let's face it, with oil prices going up, America will have to do what it always does -- face the music and improve. We always wait until the last minute, when it's much more expensive, but we always manage to do it.

Teeth are still horrible. I wasn't sure if it was an abcess or stress, but now I'm pretty sure it's the former. Had to get home and rest and sleep with my bite guard to make sure. Of course, the free or sliding-scale clinic in Port Angeles (What health insurance? I'm an artist -- and is this Canada?) is being renovated until September. We'll see if we can't hold off with pain-killers and antibiotics until then. I've done it before -- let a root rot for 8 months, and then just had the dentist flush out the clean cavity, with no intrusion or scraping, and nothing to heal. This was my last dentist's idea, and a good one. Doesn't work for kids, of course, but an obsessive adult (know any of those around here?) does it fine.

And we have a new fridge. A little mini apartment compact. About 4 feet high, 3 feet wide or so. The old one had a lot of wasted space. This one has room for ice and my cold packs and a few hot dogs. What else do we need? First thing we put in it was a 6-pack of beer and mussels off the beach.

I showed it to the neighbor: "Hey, look! Bait and beer! A fisherman's fridge!"

She thought that was pretty funny. And this thing does about $32.00 a year on power. Scaling down on everything.

Got Spuds to the vet for antibiotics and steroid shot, on the bus, just fine.

So, things are working out. Cross your fingers we won't have to cut off an arm for dental fees...

Goin' Home.

Well, I hope I am, soon. On the Olympic Bus Line.

Car's gas tank utterly blew. Peterson's Automotive had it ready to go Tuesday -- my flight day to San Diego.

Picked up the car ($500.00!!) and on the way it began to struggle on hills. Barely got it to a friend's condo, where I parked it while I was gone.

Got back (trip report will be on another site). Towed car (AAA) to Bugmasters in West Seattle. I'd asked Paul there to find me a truck.

Have not been able to contact Paul and my bug sitteth in Seattle.

I'm going to put it on Craig's list -- in hopes of finding an enthusiast who can take a basically sound bug and cherry her up.

I think I'm done with cars. Considering that the oil shortage will force us to develop our public transport, I'm doing busses and my bike. And occasionally giving somebody a few $$ to borrow their truck.

And a scooter. Anybody in Forks or Port Angeles with a scooter for sale?

Still stuck....

Still in Seattle, working on getting home.

Friend's slow MAC.

More horror stories latter.

Sneezers

Aw hell.

I knew I shouldn't have sat on the beach and watched the fireworks at Fun Days the other day.
Across Clallam Bay, you could see them in Sekiu.

But I was surrounded by kids. Nice kids. But - somebody had germs. Don't they always?

Now I have a bad head cold. Dan has offered to help me get the suitcase the 1/4 mile to the busstop.

The car is still in Port Angeles, but it's ready to go. So I ride the bus to get it.

At least I'm not trying to drive around Lake Crescent with a headcold. You want to be in good shape driving that road. http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/66547_car15.shtml Oh, and they did find fragments of Russell.

Lyndon Gets HIS.

What? Lyndon Larouche is back out of jail, huh?

Oh, I just had the greatest moment on the phone. You ever been wanting to chew somebody's ass and out of the blue a victim shows up?

Witness:

Phone rings. Dan picks it up.

Dan: "Hi. Well, she's kinda got her hands full right now."

Me: "I'm making salmon patties! Who is it?"

Dan: "Somebody political."

Me: "Tell 'em just a minute while I get these in the microwave."

By this time Dan has found out it's from the Lyndon Larouche gang. And you should understand I've got beer in me. So I put the patties in the 'wave, and wash my hands.

Me: "Hello! Whatcha need?"

Larouche Woman: "Hi, I'm calling from Larouche (something). Have you heard of us?"

Me: "Oh, yeah, I've heard of you."

LW: "Well, you know that for the last 30 years, LL has been warning everyone how our system will collapse, and now it is -- "

Me: "Well, d'uh! What do you expect, if you follow capitalism?"

LW: "Well, exactly --"

Me: "I mean, capitalism is based on cheap or free resources and cheap or free labor, and once you run out, it is goin' to China!"

LW: "Yes, and we've been talking to members of the senate -- "

Me: "The SENATE? I'm hoping everybody on this continent will dry up and turn to ashes and blow away."

LW: "Well, that's not very Christian of you."

Me: "Damn right it's not. Do NOT get me started on Christians!"

Pretty soon Missy Right-Wing Serf Twat is trying to get off the phone.

Me: "Yeah, you people think YOU're radical, you haven't met ME!"

Oh, there are just some days it feels GOOD!

Flu dee doo

Remember Penny came up here with the flu?

Now I have it. I've spent all day in bed, too weak to move, on a heating pad. And we're praying to kitty gods that Dan is well enough Monday to take Spuds to the vet. The steroids are holding off on the rodent ulcer, but it still looks ugly.

We SHOULD have the car by Tuesday -- or it's riding about 6 busses and the ferry to Sea-Tac for San Diego. 4-5 hour trip. Oh, well, it would be 4-5 hours with a car, anyway. And at least on buses I get to SLEEP all the way if I want.

I like buses. Sit and read and pay no attention to anything but the scenery. Earplugs are great against mouthy riders. Admittedly, one of my worst memories is riding from Arizona to Seattle on a Greyhound with a migraine most of the way -- but that wasn't The Dog's fault. And other than wanting to put my head through the window and PULL, it was a pretty good trip. It was also the trip where my meals consisted of coffee and pie -- I'd decided to sample pie at all the stops, and didn't feel like anything else. Huh. Migraines ARE supposed to be linked to diet, aren't they?

Does this column sometimes read like Life Of The Scarlet Idiot?

(But.... speaking of things as they stand....I've had proof again that my bestest friends in the world are my readers and colleagues.

Well, WOULDN't they be?)

HALLELUJAH!

The nice lady's husband said, ya know, we got 90K on that Subaru...

and she said, yup, can we split the costs on the clutch 50/50?

Somebody's prayers to Bastet must be working.

Holding up little paws over my head and saying many kitty thanks.

(No, MY little paws. It's not like I'm holding a cat over my head and using it as a prayer puppet or anything. Then I WOULD go to hell).

Gods On Steroids

Okay.

Chapter two (or is it 22?):

While surfing for "rodent ulcer" on the net and thinking, yup, that's what Spuds has, I saw the name of the steroid usually used.

And remembered Belle had needed a steroid for a mouth infection and we'd bought two syringes with dosages, but we hadn't needed to use the second shot...

And went and read it on the site and it was the same steroid...

And the still-useable steroid syringe was in the failing fridge...

The gods must be fucking bored today.

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.

Showin' Off Eagles and Gay Support

Over at www.straittalk.blogspot.com, one little comment or two has people pouring their hearts out all over the place. Man, you touch people and they just burst like pimples.

Eagles.

Okay, for those of you from Alaska, you probably won't see this: but on Bear Kill Ridge there's only room for so many eagles. One major nest. Mated couple. And one horny young male.

He's been flying around with headless greenling now and then, but nobody's noticed him, no matter how much he screams and shows off. Nobody's leaving any nests for dipweed.

Then.... he hit the water off Slip Point, and when he came up this time, what he had glinted silver in the sun.

About a five pound King salmon.

Oh, the screaming. Oh, the flying in circles around the nest. Then the crows' nest. Then dipped down to fly over OUR heads. He got the top eatin' fish in the area, and he wasn't too proud to show it.

You'd think he'd found diamonds.

But then, maybe he'd found the eagle equivalent.

Gay Bashing In Clallam Bay

I just want to throw up.

I thought Clallam Bay was above this. I expect such things in Port Angeles -- I've heard horrible racist things while sitting waiting to serve on a jury -- but HERE?

I heard this crap in the bar last night while the Seattle Gay Pride parade was on TV. Maybe I shouldn't have pointed it out, but I was missing it. I've ridden in cars sponsored by gay groups, doing the silly parade wave.

"Oh, look," I said in delight, sort of generally toward my husband and sort of just thinking out loud. "The Pride Parade!"

Two people at the end of the bar started up:"Oh, those people! That's just disgusting!"

Me: "What? Those are nice people! That parade is a lot of fun."

"Why don't they have a parade for the rapists and murderers? What if my kid saw that?"

I know these two nasty arguments. They come straight out of church pulpits.

Of course I shot off my mouth, too, and made everybody even more uncomfortable:

"What if your kid IS gay? Do you want to make him commit suicide? What if there are gay people in this bar?"

I don't understand it. Sit in public and say ugly things about race or gender, and expect everybody to agree with them. I mean, if I sit with my mouth shut, it means I agree with them. I'm free to excercise my free speech -- and I mean to use it to show that I am a MUCH nicer person and NOT ONE OF THEM. If they want to split people into groups, then they can be the Nasty People, and I can be the Nice People.

I know what I'm saying next time (I have to always think about these things):I'll point at the parade and say, "EVERY SINGLE PERSON in that parade has been persecuted or bullied or oppressed for being gay or having gay relatives. This is their declaration of freedom from the cruelty of their pasts.

"And they were oppressed and persecuted by PEOPLE LIKE YOU. So the next time you see a gay couple holding hands or kissing -- JUST LIKE STRAIGHT PEOPLE DO ALL THE TIME -- it's because people like you made them refuse to hide any more. So if you don't like it you can go home and look in the mirror and blame yourself."

And while we're at it -- nosing into what your children will ultimately do with their genitalia as sexual adults -- is just plain sick. What is WRONG with you?

Now I know why I've had to tell the kids on the beach that if they use the word "gay" as an insult they can't go fishing with me. I've also told them that they can't be with me and torment the fish, either -- "Those fish died so you could eat. Respect them. Kill them quick and don't pull their eyeballs out while they're alive."

Bullying gays. Tormenting fish. Bragging about using kittens for target practice.

Kids got this from adults in the community.

You know who you ARE. And yes, I resent you, because you make my world uglier and stupider and more cruel. YOU are the reason life can be brutal, nasty and short.

The next generation of kids in Clallam Bay are smart, kind, alert, talented, and thirsty to learn. Get out of their way. Don't infect them with your poison.

And why can I say this?Because someday they won't just be YOUR kids -- they'll be MY fellow citizens. And I don't want to have to deal with YOUR baggage.

Fishing....

Went to the beach to relax a bit, and throw bait at the fish.

Wild waters, throwing high waves, mist in the air. Didn't, of course, expect anything.

WHAM! they acted like food was gonna be banned tomorrow.

Before they figured out there was a hook out there, and got picky and started playing hook games (dragging the bait down the beach, wrapping it around kelp, all the stuff that makes me respect greenling as having a fish sense of humor) -- got two of the biggest girls I ever pulled off the beach. Couple pounds a piece. LOADS of beautiful white meat and a big meaty backbone. And bunches of scraped raw fish from the skins for the cats -- and big livers and roe sacks for the cats, too.

Greenling look like big golden-brown and bright yellow and orange versions of Mr. Limpet.

The males have pretty black-rimmed silver spots, too. Rarely catch males, and they're not very big. I don't think they're as daring as the big girls.

We got more meat than we know what to do with.

How to prepare greenling:

They're kind of mushy and grass-tasting fresh. So -- gut and rinse. Put in 'fridge overnight to firm and dry a bit. When you skin 'em out the next day, they peel easy and look like lingcod. Don't discard the backbones -- they got loads of meat on 'em. Freeze filets and backbones on trays to lose the grassy taste. Glaze 'em individually with cold water, don't freeze 'em in a lump.

Thaw, and dredge in cornmeal batter.

Fry up. Use the left-over batter for hush-puppies. Serve with cold beer.

Oh, Lawdy. Maybe there is a god.

Makah Clout

Okay.... Imagine this. Contentious, hairs-up library/funds meeting. County councilmen, leaders of Friends of Library and Library System and pissed-off citizens. Nearly over when --
Makah tribal representative introduced from the back of the room.

Medium-tall thin guy with iron-grey hair slicked back, in a brand new black/white/red Makah Whaling Commission t-shirt.

Total double-takes. Hair on end. Mouths fall open. Shock and awe.

You can practically hear it.... "The TRIBE!!! is here!"

Everybody is -- well, not scared of the TRIBE -- but the TRIBE might as well be our Mother. "What will the TRIBE say?" "Can we get the TRIBE in on that?" "What does the TRIBE want?"

When the spokesman said that the TRIBE sided with what the citizens and the FOL wanted, it was like -- well the Navy had hit the beach. In cedar conoes.

In the course of siding with us, he said, "I will take your words back to my council."

Twice.

So we are all doing this little white-eye war-dance, cuz the TRIBE is on OUR side. With alder-smoked salmon. "Here come the Indians!" is the line up here.

Everybody else can just take their nasty dried fish and go home.

KPLU

While living in Bremerton, didn't listen to KPLU.

Didn't like jazz. Grew up hard rock.

We moved to Clallam Bay. Couldn't get KPLU. Didn't care.

Then one day, it seemed to open up on that end of the band. They'd extended the transmission network.

And suddenly -- all we wanted to listen to was the cool jazz station. We were tired of rock, and tired of classical. But the jazz just fit everything we needed. It even calmed us down and made us feel better.

Do we get cool when we get old? Or was it a change of air?

Keep up the coolness, KPLU Tacoma (88. 5 or 6 or thereabouts...)

Babysit My Kids For Free

Okay, NOW I get it.

I've wondered for a long time why parents are so desperate to make sure that the rest of us be forced to act like the parents of their kids.

We're to have our books, our media, the internet, even our bedrooms and who we sleep with monitored so it doesn't infringe on the way they see their kids should be interacting with their environment.

I finally GET it -- and I have a family in Clallam Bay to thank for that!

Oh, awright, it's a family that was up here from Port Angeles for the Scholarship Auction.

There was this one woman doing the usual A Cat Attacked My Kid spiel.

You know the one -- the parent describes the baby grabbing the cat, or cornering the cat, and getting a quick slap around both sides of the head.

Then the cat is killed, or abandoned, or any of the other bullying nasty things a big omnivore can do to a small animal. Because we can, or some other reason we should be ashamed for.

But did you get it up there? "Grabbed the cat." "Cornered the cat."

That's right.

Mommy or daddy stood right there, brainless and starry-eyed, and let their soft, hairless, vulnerable, soft-eyed offspring crawl right up and grab --

A HEAVILY-BEWEAPONED PREDATOR WITH THE REACTION BUTTON OF A BIRD (Read: Therapod dinosaur niece).

Sat RIGHT there and let the kid crawl up to an animal that is on the constant alert NOT to be grabbed or harrassed -- that has buttons in its head that make the knives come out and the attack-arms flash out -- and then got all surprised when the cat popped the kid!

And they should be grateful that ALL the cat did was a little quick warning slap. That the cat spared the kid in ways the parents can't even begin to realize. That the cat exercised EXTREME self-control on a kitten.

A friend of mine once tried to rescue his two big Siamese from a raccoon they were backing off the yard. He picked them up. Did they hear him coming? Did they know they were about to be boosted? Did he even realize he'd set off the flash-attack switch in their heads and spinal columns?

42 stitches. 42 STITCHES. He looked like the mummy.
And those cats never meant to hurt him. That was just a defense mechanism. The guy did no more than step on a land-mine.

He didn't blame the cats. He knew it was his fault. He's the human -- he's the responsible one.

But parents who let their kids play with predators? That don't teach their kid not to torment animals?

Talk about lazy. Talk about irresponsible. Talk about self-absorbed. Talk about a kid in danger -- and not because of a little animal.

These are the same people who dump their kids off in libraries, and bookstores, and then patrol the freedoms of adults, because they've wandered off to do their thing, and left the rest of us to deal with their kids.

In their eyes, the rest of society is just a free baby-sitting service, and they can turn their backs on their kids any time they like, just dump them out there without supervision or care, because WE'll pick up the tab.

I get it.

GAG.

Fish

A reader just asked me how the fishing is going.

Well, a couple weeks ago, after the Hat boys -- three or four plump interchangeable kids with red hair you could read by -- and Richi (the Makah kid who lives with them) headed down to the beach and 20 minutes later came back with three nice big black rockrish, I decided I was going to have a try, too.

The boys told me that they'd used a salt-and-pepper jig - a plastic fake fish/squid whatsit - to catch 'em.

While at Neah Bay for the new Chamber of Commerce meeting, I picked up a clear plastic silver sparkly jig.

Yesterday, my extremely accurate horoscope, that I read in the Peninsula Daily News, told me to go do social things today. So, today, instead of packing up the last of the Diamond order -- Dan had begged for a break from bagging books and writing addresses on boxes -- I decided to obey the stars and go fishing.

I threw a bunch of jigs -- white, red, and that silver dude -- in an old plastic sour-cream plastic, and Dan and I headed out for low tide.

On the way, we ran into an old Japanese guy ("James" -- the name he uses so round-eyes can call him something), up from Tacoma, and he asked where to go for fish. So I said, c'mon along, I'm new on this beach too, let's see if we all get lucky.

We tromped out along the pebble beach, and then out to the end of the reef point. On the way, we ran into another Japanese guy ("Jim") and turned out they knew each other. Cool. So, with Dan tailing behind watching Eagles, we continued on to the point. J and J are nattering away in Japanese -- the old guy sounding like Takashi Shimura in the Kurasawa movies -- but I keep hearing a lot of "san" this and "san" that, so I figure they're Talking About Their Friends. Don't we all...

We found a nice deep hole amongst the kelp, and said hi to a big grizzled bull sea lion who came by to bark at us and wish us luck.

We rigged up some white jigs and started throwing them into the hole and reeling them back. My jig wasn't going very far. Jim said that I needed a heavier jig. The only hook I had was a big ol' weighted head, really too big for the little silver jig. But I threaded it on anyhoo.

I'd no sooner flipped that thing out there and was slowly reeling it back -- and I got a strike.

NICE fat black rockfish.

I pulled out the hook with my Leatherman and dropped him into a pool in the rocks behind me. Oh, I should mention here I was squealing like a little girl. My dad and the neighbor used to take me fishing, and they caught lots of black rockfish, but I always got skunked. Okay, except for one baby salmon that fought like six rockfish, pulling down the end of the pole and amazing us all when the dinky 9-inch thing came to the surface. We let it go, of course, but if it had been any bigger, it would have taken the boat down.

By this time the Hat boys and Richi show up (oh, hell, when I say the Hat boys, I mean the bunch -- and that includes the little plump Hat girl, although she's all of a sudden shooting up into this tall thing with long legs who the other day I saw WEARING HEELS, so she's officially no longer one of the Hat boys). They're as delighted with my fish as I am -- but that just means the fish are biting.

So now we got two Japanese guys and me and three kids flinging lines off the same rock, and Dan watching eagles behind us with the fancy binoculars they gave him when he retired. I doubt I'm going to catch any more, but with this many jigs, somebody's got to hit.

And I do.

I'm the one gets the next one!

Even bigger and nicer than the first. You've never seen anybody do the Little Tappidty Dance on the far end of a big slippery reef she could have fallen off of into a deep current-sucking hole.

About now Jim decides to go down to the FAR point to see if there are any more fishing holes. And the current turns and brushes the kelp into our hole, and all we start catching is sea-otter salad (Sea otters munch kelp because, like us, they can't produce vitamin C). The eldest Hat boy shows me how to cut the fishes' gills so they'll bleed out and die quickly. I string 'em on a piece of rope I found on the beach and always bring along. James and I leave the kids behind, waving at us from the point.

Dan offers to carry my fishing pole, which is a good idea, because you need a hand to brace yourself in case you slip on the rocks, and one of my hands is hauling fish. About 10 pounds of fish.

Two hours, and we get in a long hike, two fish and all cleaned, filleted and in the freezer. I'm collecting fish for a party I'm having in August, and burying fish fillets in ice. Except for the skeletons -- which always have so much meat on 'em I save 'em to fry. Which is what we're having for supper tonight, with homemade bread and kosher dill pickles. And maybe a nice glass of blush wine.



Beginner's luck, huh?

Now, I will admit something.... whenever you ask fisherguys what they're using for bait, they'll tell you. They'll show you where to fish. They'll tell you what sort of rigs and gear to bring. They'll teach you to cast.

But they won't tell you the Secret Trick they use to catch the fish. That the Hats and the J's didn't see me using while I was rigging the new jig.

And I'm not telling you, either.

Kitty Pretty

One step further into helping all these yard/wood/street cats.

I won't say how, but an act of very unexpected and great kindness has provided me with a brand-new Havaheart trap.

As soon as the vet gets back next week, it'll be kitties going down to see him and taken out of the gene pool. By fixing all these guys. They'll be much nicer without all the kittens.

It's not a population control -- up here, there's only one queen and a bunch of toms. If there aren't enough queens to form a kitten-protecting pride, the toms kill the kittens. So no kittens ever survive.

This is a normal population control with cats. But it's upsetting to humans who have to live next to it. We like our peace and quiet.

Pumpkin is healing nicely. Hopefully by next year he'll have lost enough hormones not to get his head crunched open by Goucho -- and Goucho won't feel any need to do it any more.

Cathead Puke Theater

Dan just told me that he'd found a pool of pus about 6 inches across in the driveway.

"Yeah, the cat was just sitting there with pus dripping down the side of his head into this green pool."

Dan did time in the infantry and as a doorgunner in Vietnam, and he said he just wanted to get away from looking at the cat.

He said that pus is toxic and dangerous, and it's just natural we don't want to be around it.

Again, the cat is just fine now. Nice clean dry wound.