i’ve got the knack!

yesterday when i got my phat slip.net paycheck, i had to drive out to the east bay to cash my it (long story), and since it was Friday and it was getting later in the afternoon, I got caught in early commuter traffic. What would normally take me 15 minutes to drive, took me nearly 1/2 hour.
I don’t like other drivers (other than myself, of course). Primarily those who drive bee-em-double u’s, jag’s, mercedes, volvo’s and any other expensive cars. They always think they have the right away, solely based on the fact that they think they own a better car. these same people always tend to be the worst drivers i’ve come across in ages (ie: they should be allowed to cut in front of me during heavy traffic).
Thursday night was such an example. Justin and I were attempting to drive home after work. for the most part, traffic isn’t that bad after 5pm, however that night it seemed worse than usual. a simple drive around the block turned into the nightmare.
there are several on-ramps for the bridge within a general mile radius, however, people would cut over from other lanes to get into the almost snails pace lane that lead onto the bridge. after being cut off several times by the offending cars listed above, i finally put my foot down (as it were) and stopped letting these assholes in front of me. it got to the point, where one car had to drive up on the curb because i wouldn’t let him in. If i had to suffer for x amount of minutes fucking waiting to get on the bridge, why should i let some jerk get my rightful spot? justin was amused. he always thinks my driving is death defying, but it isn’t. truly. i call it ‘defensive driving, 101’.
in other news, justin got the job at PBI (pacific bell internet), my old alma matter. he’s going to be making nearly twice what i make now! he’s doing simple tech support, while I’m theoretically IS (information systems). It’s sickening to know that he’s making more money than i, however, it is extremely exciting to not be rolling fucking pennies to survive. mayhap that is the extreme, but you do get my point.
i was amazingly not as uptight about traffic as i usually am. karena once commented that i was unusually patient whilst driving. she noted that she probably would have gotten quite upset with traffic or been overly irrational. i do get that way sometimes, but just being patient with traffic does help. you are obviously not going to get any further yelling and screaming. plus i have a ton of new cd’s and always available pack of cigarettes to help with the time.
which brings me up to something interesting.
on my so-called lunch hour the other day (Friday), I ran into the The Wherehouse (a record store in Berkeley) looking for cake’s new cd. while browsing for it, i found that everlast has a new cd out called Whitey Ford Sings the Blues. I remember Everlast from before he was in House of Pain, when he released his debut album Forever Everlasting. god, he is just so damn hot. 😉
Anyway, instinct told me to purchase the album, which i did. and damnit, if it doesn’t just rock! very spiritual, upbeat, hip-hop, and just plain rocking. for a white boy, he does have soul 😉
however, the problem i’m having is finding a copy of his first release Forever Everlasting. It was released by Warner Brother Records in 1990, and according to some sources, is still in print, however I can’t find it anywhere. I have searched cd now, cd universe, amazon.com, musicblvd, and a host of other speciality stores to no avail. this plain just sucks. so if you or anyone else knows of where i can get a copy, please email me and lets hook something up! but don’t email me to tell me to try WB, because i’ve already done that 😉
new edition
one of the precepts of moving into our place was that cathleen be responsible for her pets. at that time, she had two cats and three fish. now we are up to four cats and one fish. 😉 no… the cat’s didn’t eat the other two fish. one of the fish is a catfish, and he is really vicious. if he’s not fed a x time everyday, he attacks the gold fish. now we just have a cat fish.
the inheritance of the other two cat’s came when christine lived in an area that was over run with cats, and had adopted a litter of stray kittens to make sure they weren’t going to go feral. since my cat merlin had gotten wild and my other cat sammy had gotten hit by a car, christine thought it would be a good idea to give me one of these kittens for my own.
this is how we inherited killer.
killer is one of those cats that you would literally think about taking to the pound. when we first got her, we trained her to use the litter box, but within a week of that training, she would get so upset with us that she would start shitting in my bedroom. and she had this tendency to jump and claw people for no reason. she gets along fine with cathleen to an extent, but justin and i can’t stand her. Justin calls her the personification of evil. She’s not friendly, loveable or even remotely cuddly. she just whines, hisses and shits all over the place.
when christine was moving in with fran, she had to make sure her two dogs, BadDog and Jennie, were going to be taken care of. That wasn’t a big issue since we have a large backyard and could easily do it. what became an issue was that cathleen opted to have us take the stray kitten left over from the litter and adopt it as our own.
this pissed me off, because while two of the cats, Muffin and BC, are outdoors for most of the time and can fend for themselves, they do get moods where they want to be indoors, which means more litter and also means food. which, for some periods, we don’t have. lack of money (and laziness on cathleen’s part 😉 meant no food for three cats for several days. killer needs her shots and needs to be spade, and we haven’t even attempted to do that! getting another cat, albeit killer’s sister, isn’t something we could afford.
i lost the argument.
so please welcome, into our nuthouse family, Zinfandel.
She’s the most amazing kitty i’ve had since Sebastian.
I’ve had my share of crazy cats: Chester (who still lives with my mom), who hates men and only comes to me and my mom. Simmy: twin sister to Merlin. She was fruitier than phil. Merlin went feral as soon as I moved to California. Sammy had the sweetest personality, but became the neighborhood cat, and was killed by a car. So the prospect of having another kitten, after all that trouble, wasn’t a huge hit with me.
But i’m falling in love with her.
Christine said that Zinny was a total outdoors cat. Since she was used to BadDog and Jennie, that wasn’t going to be an issue (unlike the other three who have been seriously freaking out since the dogs arrival less than a week ago). She said that Zinny was a bit standoffish and not cuddly.
Boy, was she wrong!
Zinny has taken over both Justin and I’s heart. She has a very good natured temperament, and is very cuddly and loveable. She loves to be petted and she’s so down to earth! Right now as we speak, she’s lying between my arms on my desk with her paws against my thumbs. 🙂 her favorite position seems to be on top of my monitor, on which she lies there watching me work. if i ever move from here, she’s definitely going with me. we just are bonding so.
Since the issue of money is now finally laid to rest, Justin and I went shopping Friday night and bought a 25lb bag of each: cat food, dog food and litter. Now I won’t feel so damn guilty with having four cats because now we can afford them. As soon as she’s old enough, we are taking both killer and Zinny to get spade. no more cats!
which brings up a funny incident…
today we decided to go grocery shopping. usually a chore i don’t mind doing, but justin hates it. since he is the bread winner in the family, he’s going to start paying for majority of the groceries. we get to lucky, and spend about 2 hours grabbing items and bickering about everything (what couple doesn’t do that?). after getting everything rung up, the bill comes to $166 dollars and change. We had bought -a lot- of stuff due to the fact that the outlet for the major appliances (fridge, stove, washer/dryer) had been down for a few days. so we had lost a lot of our regular food items that had spoiled. justin runs his debit card through. denied. justin runs it through again. denied. i run to the atm machine, and the most i can an pull out is 60 bucks! justin starts freaking out, and i calmly tell him that while he may have deposited his check, it hasn’t been processed. bank of america will allow up to $100 dollars taken out of the account till the deposit is processed. usually not a problem, but in an instance that you deposit it after 5pm on Friday then it’s a problem. so we had to do the ultimately white trashy thing and walk -away- after the clerk had rung up all those groceries.
god, how embarrassing.
the irony of that, was that i had left my money, in cash, at home. i had enough to cover for the food, and didn’t think twice about bringing it along with me. geez.
since we now had no groceries, we ran to taco bell for dinner. heh. and since we had a bit of money, we partook in a movie, Pleasantville, which was really good. The 60 bucks we had was blown after we got home. it’s amazing how much money you spend on a ‘date’
it was nice being with justin on an actual ‘date’ for once. we caught the movie and then spent some time in a bookstore afterwards. we looked around, checking out different topics while we sipped our hot cocoas and triple mocha iced lattes.
i miss doing stuff like that. now that money isn’t an issue anymore, i can’t wait till we start just doing -stuff-.