Friday Cat Blogging: Still Life with Mowgli
A few weeks ago we spent a few hours moving a lot of things around in the apartment. When we were done, Mowgli had gone missing and we looked everywhere trying to find him. After a few minutes of impending panic that he had gotten lose, there he was, calm, cool and collected, but in an unorthodox cat location on top of a bookcase in the corner. Panic averted, commence amusement.
Weekend Political Geek-Out
I bring home a lot of periodicals every week. The problem is that I have never had a system. Every Monday I get home after the post-work magazine run and flip through the haul, announcing the notable articles, contributors and developments from each magazine to S. Then the magazines disappear into the spreading sea ice of piled periodicals in my reading nook.
At the instigation of S. we are developing a system of displaying and archiving periodicals. The first step is display of the first few weeks of each title on a rack in the hallway (pictured above, requisite cat lower right). We spent all weekend building the damn thing, and we even had some consultation and tool loan from the upstairs neighbor who works in set construction for some area theatres. At one point S. stamped her feet and exclaimed, "How can it be this hard to nail two boards together!?"
Anyway, it's pretty sweet. It's pretty damn geeky too. It's like I live in my own favorite coffee shop now.
Heat Misery
Every year about this time a make a post about the weather here in D.C. I consider it a wearisome subject, but that I've done it every year is also the measure of just how shocking the return of the worst of summer truly is.
It happens all at once every year too. It has been really nice for all of June so far. It was even a little cool and rainy over the weekend, but then whamo! Monday is a scorcher.
Yesterday I left work and it was like a really low-hanging cloud had drifted into the intersection outside the office door. I could see the humidity in the air and in the scant distance across Fourteenth Street it was dense enough to register a white hazy color.
I was going to Politics and Prose so I took the subway up to U.D.C. / Van Ness and transferred to a bus. The wait was probably only ten minutes, but by the time the bus arrived I was a wreck. I had sweat through my clothes everyplace they made contact with my body: the cuff of my shirt, splotches mid-arm, at my elbows, where the strap of my bag pressed my shirt to me, the knees of my pants, the streams running down my back was like the Chinese water torture. After I left Politics and Prose it had cooled to the point where it was tolerable to be outside, but by then the heat had just sapped all the energy out of me. When I got home, I was completely useless. I stripped, threw myself into bed and writhed in restless exhaustion and self-pity until the Daily Show came on, chuckled a little, took a cold shower and went to bed.
One of the disturbing things about the heat in D.C. is that it doesn't adequately cool off at night so the next day's heat has a head start over the previous day. It was a full 90 degrees at 9:30 this morning. My morning commute is pretty easy: three blocks to the bus stop, ride the bus down Sixteenth, five block walk to the office. In this heat even the five blocks is unbearable. After maybe two blocks I had already perspired enough that my clothes began to cling and constrict about my body. I was like a piston in a cylinder: too snug and well lubricated. My cube is by a window and I can feel the heat differentials between my cube and the rest of the office. They cannot run the air conditioning enough. The back of my neck stays damp all day.
It is time to install the air conditioner. S. hates it. My efforts to fatten her up not withstanding, she is one of those tiny little girls who is cold all the time and doesn't even notice it when it's 90 out. Fortunately I think that the cat is already on my side and eager to sacrifice one oh his few window perches if it means not having to hide from the heat all day in the shade under the furniture.
I don't know how people who live places where it gets really hot handle it.
Not a god
I'm not usually one to post the results of those "What X are you" quizzes — I'm not above taking them, mind you, just above posting the results — but this one is just to perfect:
| Which God or Goddess are you like? Your Result: You are your own God or Goddess Sorry to say, i have no answer that fits you. You are your very own person, and you like to do things your own way. You have stumped me this time, but i will soon make a quiz that will have your answer, just you wait... |
| Satan | |
| Goddess Bast | |
| God Zeus | |
| Goddess Sekhemet | |
| Budha | |
| Jesus | |
| The Christian God | |
Which God or Goddess are you like?
Make Your Own Quiz |
Exactly as it should be. I'm a secular humanist!
As Matthew Yglesias says of his results ("Paganism Rules!," 12 May 2007), "I think anyone whose satan-to-Jesus ratio is this high doesn't have much of a future in American electoral politics."
A Choir of Amphibious Pigs
Over at the National Arboretum they have a budget urban goldfish pond. The pond is nothing to look at, but the fish are out of this world. They're like one of those Middle Ages maps of the oceans with all the leviathans drawn in, only alive. For a quarter you get a handful of fish food and it is open season with Neptune's bastards. They're like a choir of amphibious pigs. I swear they snort and sing hymns as they cajole one another for fish pellets.