I finished reading Find Me by Carol O’Connell Friday night around midnight, and promptly burst into tears. Then I dreamed about Kathleen Mallory. I don’t know that I’ve ever cried so hard over the ending to a book. I’ve read all of Carol O’Connell’s Mallory books and I’m sure I’ve said in the past that I’m a little in love with the character. I’ve re-read the last three pages of the book probably six or seven times since that first time, and every time it gets me right there.
The book itself was probably not one of my favorite Mallory books, though it did make me want to go out and drive what’s left of Route 66, but the ending made up for any flaw in the book.
I don’t know if the ending of the book means that the Mallory series is coming to an end or not, but if it is, I couldn’t have imagined a better ending.
Although, I’d really like to see Mallory and Andrew Vachss’ Burke team up. It might be a total shark-jumping moment, but it would be fabulous while it lasted!
I think I’m in the market for a sewing machine. I want a simple, fairly inexpensive one, I don’t need it to do anything fancy, just sew a straight line. Got any suggestions?
Friday night after we finished watching Rendition (not a bad movie), I got up off the couch.
“Where’re you going?” Fred asked.
“To the bathroom.”
“Oh, then I’ll watch one of these episodes of How It’s Made,” he said gleefully. He adores the hell out of that show. I find it interesting, kind of, but he’s a man obsessed.
When I came out of the bathroom a few minutes later, he paused the show.
“I’m going to tell you something that’ll make you happy!” he said.
I glanced at the TV. “I don’t want to watch that goddamn show.”
“It’ll make you so happy you might dance!” he said.
“I DON’T want to watch that goddamn show,” I whined, and sat down.
“Miss Elle and Miss Skittles,” Fred began.
“DID THEY GET ADOPTED?!”
“They did. And she wants you to bring Miss Punki and Miss Felicia to the pet store tomorrow morning.”
I was so happy that Elle and Skittles had been adopted that I did, indeed, get up and do a little dance o’ joy.
Saturday morning I left the house around 11, and got to the store right after the woman who’d adopted Elle and Skittles left. I chatted with the adoption counselor for a few minutes while she cleaned the cage they’d been in, and then it was time for Punki and Felicia to go into the cage.
“Look,” I whispered into Punki’s ear. She flicked her ear and meowed her husky little meow. “You know I want to keep you, but I don’t want no damn 10 cats in the house. Try your very best to get adopted today so I won’t have my heart broken tomorrow morning, would you?” She meowed again. I kissed her on top of her head and handed her off to the adoption counselor. I petted Felicia, talked to the adoption counselor a few more minutes, and then left.
Two hours later, the shelter manager told me via email that Punki had been adopted.
That’s three of the four, adopted in a 24-hour time period! I couldn’t be happier, but I’ve gotta say, I really am missing Punki a whole lot. She’s such a sweet thing, and before I went to the pet store to take the two cats Saturday morning, Fred and I decided that if she hadn’t been adopted within two weeks, we’d talk seriously about keeping her.
I hope she’s happy in her new home!
I was going outside to do something yesterday (I don’t remember what), and as I looked out the side door, I saw a grackle land on the feeder nearest the door, and then he pecked several times at a goldfinch sitting there.
“Hey, you fucker!” I said, opening the door. “Cut that out!” The grackle flew off, but the goldfinch stayed where he was, flapping his wings. I knew immediately that he’d gotten stuck in the feeder. It had been a while since I’d cleaned out the feeder, and after a few months the food builds up in the feeders, especially when it’s been rainy, and the finch had stuck his head through one of the holes on the feeder, and gotten his little head stuck against a pile of bird food.
I’m explaining the whole thing poorly, but all you need to understand is that his little head was stuck and he couldn’t pull it out of the feeder.
Fred was in the garden shed, so I carried the whole feeder over there to ask what we should do. I thought if I had a screwdriver, I could kind of scrape the food away from his head and he could free himself. Fred wanted to try taking the feeder apart first, though, so we walked over to his workshed.
(On a side note, there are entirely too goddamn many sheds on our property now. The garden shed, the wood shed, the workshop (shed), the pig shed. And I suspect we are not done with the shedding of the property.)
He came out with some tool and tried taking the bottom off, but was unsuccessful because the feeder was, I was informed, “Some piece of shit from China.”
Every now and then the finch would flap his wings and squawk indignantly.
“Just go get me something to scrape the food away,” I finally said. He came out with something that looked like the tool the dental hygienist delights in torturing me with, you know the pointy thing that they scrape the crap off your teeth around the gumlines with?
Gently, carefully, I started digging the food away from the finch, and he squawked in fear and flapped his wings and tried his best to pull his head out. Finally, I scraped under his head, and he was able to pop his head out and he flew away, squawking angrily in our direction.
“Well,” I said. “That’s gratitude for you.”
(flickr)
I looked out the window this morning to find McLovin in a place I hadn’t seen him before.
(flickr) (Look on the roof over the truck)
He stayed out there for about 10 minutes. He’d crow, then I’d hear the rooster down the road crow, then McLovin would crow again. I think the gist of the conversation was the McLovin is THE MAN, because he flew down from the rooftop and proceeded to have sex with every hen he could get his greasy little talons on.
(flickr)
(pic) Joe Bob is an outdoorsy kind of cat. He loves to sit outside all day long and watch the birds…
(flickr) Even when it’s not particularly comfortable.
(flickr) All afternoon long. He’s a bird-watching motherfucker.
Previously
2007: No entry.
2006: I hate spoiled rotten princesses.
2005: “4.2 billion,” he said suddenly. “Not 4.7. Because a regular signed 32-bit integer only goes up just over 2.1 billion – that’s 2 to the 31st power – and an unsigned would be one more power of two onto that, so–”
2004: Is it easier to write bad poetry, or am I just naturally a bad poet (and didn’t know it)?
2003: Let’s see whether or not I can give Lisa what she wants!
2002: No entry.
2001: No entry.
2000: Have you noticed that I feel like an idiot a lot?