Angel meets his guardian angel, bites hand that feeds him

Angel, the ebony ball of feline fur I'm kitty sitting until his relocation paperwork is all figured out, had to move into temporary housing last week while I attended a conference up north. His vet offers basic yet practical accommodations, plus they know him and really, who is better at caring for pets than the vet, right?

I opened the door just a few minutes before they closed for the weekend and the place seemed deserted. I heard some music way coming from the back of the office so I just waited patiently and give Angel a little more time to acclimate to being back at the vet. Before long, he emerged from the rear. Gabriel. I wasn't expecting a really cute latin guy to walk through the door, but I kept my surprise in check.

After explaining why I was there, he prepped Angel's equivalent to the hotel room I would soon be living in for a week and we talked about Angel's dietary needs general disposition. The conversation flowed easily, as it should for what it was. Soon it was time to move Angle from carrier to cage. This proved to be a bigger challenge than either of us expected. Angel pinned himself in his carrier good and Gabriel and I had to carefully coax him out. Angel's efforts to remain in the carrier were simply not meant to be and we convinced him to finally exit his transport.

As Angel explored his new 2-foot x 2-foot world, Gabriel and I continued our conversation, drifting away from talking about Angel and moving on to more less specific topics. Normally I have a hard time talking to an even half-way attractive guy, but it was different talking with him. If my timing was better I could have stayed and talked with him for hours, or at least until he had to lock up and head home, but I had still had to run to the office and pick up conference supplies and finish some last minute work before running home to pack and begin my drive north. When I realized this I suddenly became very self aware that I was going to have to find a graceful exit. In the blink of an eye, I went from someone who might actually be confused with a suave guy to someone who clammed up and started what would be just another awkward silence in my dating (and non-dating) life.

I looked at the watch that wasn't on my wrist — I'm pretty sure he noticed I wasn't wearing one — and said I had to head out. I'm sure it sounded more like an excuse than an actual reason, but he smiled anyway and my heart skipped a beat at the already building anticipation that if I hadn't just blown it with the awkward silence and "gotta run" moment, that I would get to see him again when I returned to take Angel back home. My next three hours on the road found me over analyzing my chance meeting with Angel's guardian angel, Gabriel. To be honest, I'm not even sure he's on my team, but there's no ring, and there was the tiniest blimp on my GAYDAR. This is where I should point out that my GAYDAR is often more wishful than accurate. So, really, no point in getting my hopes up.

****

One week later…

I'm back in my own county, driving up to the vet's office, secretly hoping that Gabriel would be there to greet me. I pause, take a deep breath, and walk through the door. "And you are…?" a cold voice asks. Damn, it's the vet. She always has this look on her face like she doesn't trust me, which I don't understand. I look over to the reception desk and see another woman, not Gabriel. I was both disappointed and secretly relieved. I explain who I'm picking up and as I'm saying Angel's name, lo and behold, Gabriel rounds the corner, our eyes meet, and smiles appeared on both of our faces. He said he'd get him and the bitchy vet retired to her office.

Standing side by side, assuming our positions from a week ago, it all felt so natural again. As he gathered Angel's food and carrier, we made small talk about Angel's stay. Turns out that not more than 10 minutes after I left the previous week, Angel had a bit of a panic attach that lasted the entire week. He wouldn't let anyone near him, howling and hissing at anyone within visual range. I sighed, as that's exactly what he did when he first took up lodging with me. He remembered that from our talk the week prior. Promising!

Less promising was the chances of getting Angel to calm down and get into his carrier. He was reacting as though we were trying to kill him, rather than to take him back to familiar surroundings. To make a very long story just a little less long, it took 15 minutes, a net, and Angel peeing on us three times, to get him safely into his carrier. Gabriel was so kind and compassionate — swoon! — during the ordeal he earned major bonus points. At this point there was three of us standing around Angel's carrier as he howled his protest, Gabriel, myself, and the lady from reception. This made talking with Gabriel, let alone the possibility of asking him out, less than realistic. So instead I settled the bill (a fraction of the cost of my own conference lodging), apologized again for Angel's "problem child" behavior, and made my way to the car.

Within seconds of leaving the vet's office Angel's howls had transformed into quiet meows, the same kind that he makes whenever I've had him in my car. But at that moment I could care less about his happiness as I wondered how I might be able to find an excuse to ask Gabriel out with Angel about to board a plane bound for his actual mommy and daddy.

Without a doubt, such thoughts will preoccupy my weekend and possibly even my upcoming vacation. But before I can think that far ahead, I must tend to one pee-soak kitty cat before he sits on my bodily fluid-free (feline or otherwise) sofa. As on Angel takes flight, with another soon take his place to snuggle up with at home? Stay tuned…

****

I just realized it's been more than a month between updates. Now that the nightmare work hours are behind me, I'll have more free time to, for better or worse, write. Fear not, this blog is by no means dead.

Bedtime story

Angel has been especially needy when it comes to constant attention recently. I don't know if it's the season, or the weather, or just his part of his cycle of feline moods, but whatever it is it can be a bit of a challenge as he seems to always be underfoot, literally. And if I'm sitting then he must, of course, be sitting on me. Usually he restrains himself to sitting on my lap, but sometimes he likes to mix it up and attempt cozy up on my stomach, or chest, and once, my face (don't ask). It usually cute and I like to cuddle with him when watching TV and such, but when I'm trying to eat dinner after a 10 hour work day, it can also be a nuisance. Especially when it comes to cat fur ending up in my mojito salmon with brown rice. Ack!

Last night was warm here in the valley, and as such we were both restless. TV was worthless — nothing good on — and I wasn't in the mood for the commitment a DVD would certainly require. I also wasn't in the mood to contend with a cat that could not be satisfied with any amount of petting, scratching, stroking, or massaging. I turned on the air conditioning (a rarity as I'm a bit of an energy miser these days) and decided to finally crack opened the newest David Sedaris book, When You are Engulfed in Flames, I had picked up at my favorite Target over the weekend. I started to read, the familiarity of his writing immediately filling the void that was causing my mental restlessness. Meow? I keep reading. Meeeoow. I turn the page. Meeooooow! My concentration starts to shift. MEEEEEEOOOOOW! Right in my ear! With the book in my lap there was no room for Angel which was none to his liking. It was too hot to have 15 pounds of hot fur heating up my bare legs so I set him on the ground and proceed to read out loud in an attempt to regain my focus. Angel, apparently a closet Sedaris fan, immediately settled down, stretched out on the carpet and soaked in the first two chapters I read to him, quietly purring to himself into a peaceful slumber. Who knew all we both needed was a bedtime story.

Five of a kind…a shitty hand indeed

Angel is a cheater. How do I know? He played a fifth deuce card tonight on the area shag. My gut instinct is to just roll up the carpet and put it in storage until Angel gets shipped to the land down under. What's keeping me from doing just that? The fear that he'll turn his pooper on my very white furniture and I have a sneaking suspicion that concealing skid marks from a kitty — or skitty marks, as only I would actually refer to them as — would be rather difficult if not impossible. Maybe that answers my question about whether or not to get a pet after Angel leaves.

Oh great and wise blogowebospherenet…what's a guy gotta do to correct this recent recurring behavior and keep kitty from krapping on the karpet? I need your help!

He dealt me another deuce.

Apparently my friends are the only ones thinking that my last few posts have been a bit on the overly "deep thoughts" side. And not the funny "Deep Thoughts by Jack Handy" kind. Angel, the feline I'm kitty sitting has taken it upon himself to provide me with new "content." Unfortunately this content is in the form of a deuce on my carpet. While I haven't been keeping an official tally of how many deuces this makes—I'm not exactly a card counter from MIT—I'm pretty sure we're at +4. I'm baffled by his fondness of playing the deuce on the shag carpet, as it would seem to be the exact opposite of his litter box, but maybe that in and of itself answers the question. I've been very good about making sure his litter is as clean as a litter box can be checking it before I leave the house in the morning and then immediately upon returning home and once more before going to bed. But tonight baffles me because he had minutes before used his litter box to tinkle in, so why, moments later would he decide that he should dump a massive deuce on the carpet? And why does he seem so damn proud of his action? Needless to say the moniker Angel is once again proving to be anything but. Hopefully we're now out of deuces in the poop deck. You're not going to hear me say shuffle up and deal, that for sure. Here's hoping he'll only be playing high cards from here on out.

Does anyone have any suggestions, short of sewing up his poop shute, on how to reverse this increasing pattern? I'm getting worried that he's going to start pooping elsewhere, like my hard-to-clean furniture.

Home. Alone.

It's been two weeks since Angel got his wings and he flew off to be reunited with his mommy and daddy. I really thought that I would miss his furry presence more than I do. But as it turns out I am really enjoying coming home and not having to immediately turn my attention to his special brand of "pay attention to me, and only me, you live to serve me" thinking.

Every day at work, countless times during the day, I'm called on by my peers to help answer their questions, troubleshoot their issues, and make their work a little bit easier. The trade off is that it tends to make my own work day a little more challenging. So after providing personal attention to everyone but myself during the day, it's nice to come home and not have to worry about anyone, or anything else, and finally be able to take care of myself.

I've noticed that I'm getting more and more aware about how much time I have for myself. Kenny-time. I've lived with more than a dozen roommates in the past 10 years and while it can be nice to have someone around the house — especially to be there when I'm changing a lightbulb just in case I fall off the ladder — I'm willing to take my chances for the relief and relaxation that comes with knowing that my homelife is on my terms.

While I've contemplated getting a pet of my own after Angel took flight, a beagle perhaps, I'm really not sure I'm ready for that, at least not until I'm able to reclaim my own time at work. Or get married. Oh, wait…scratch that last one.

Better understand cats through the eyes of an engineer

Suddenly, it's all becoming so clear! Angel is no longer such a mystery. I just needed a reference I can relate to. But sadly from my own experience "corporal cuddling" is a no-go and "cat yodeling" will ultimately result in the very shredded face of yours truly. Angel is quite good at generating static electricity so maybe that's something worth pursuing, balloons or not. The only thing that I'm really missing now is a video showing how to get engineer TJ to curl up in my lap for some heavy petting, or vice versa… me-ow!

I'm sorry, I thought I would be able to let this go, but I just can't. Bear with me… The decor in the house in the video is going to give me night terrors for at least a month. I hope they somehow make enough money off of that video to afford a complete living room makeover. TJ, you can stay at my place while the makeover is in progress.

He held my stripped nuts in his hand…

Today really didn't end up exactly as planned. I got up this morning and on a whim took a quick shower in order to skeedaddle over to the movies to catch up on my must-see summer movie list which I had been a little slacking on. Caught up with "The Incredible Hulk." After that I picked up a sandwich and headed over to a different park than yesterdays outing, a better park with better grass and a better water feature, for an impromptu picnic and to continue reading When You Are Engulfed in Flames. The gentle breeze and steady white noise of the fountain in front of me made it easy to get totally lost in the pages or wonderful stories. The comfortable folding canvas chair I picked up at a drug store helped my body relax as well. Before I knew it, more than 3 hours had zoomed by and it was time to start my Sunday routine of Target and Trader Joes. Blissfully relaxed I merged into freeway traffic. Barely minutes later, BANG! Whap! Whap! Whap! Whap! "Oh shit!" was the only thing that I could exclaim as I frantically tried to get my car over to the shoulder amidst the Sunday drivers who had apparently never heard the term before and rather than drive a sane speed instead chose to believe they were on the Autobahn. There goes anything even remotely resembling "blissful" and/or "relaxed."

I'm not the complete nancy boy others might mistake me for, I'm not afraid to get my hands dirty under the hood with simple routine maintenance or changing a flat — I've even changed a tire on the 101 by SFO on the median shoulder (it's really more of a suggestion of a shoulder than a real shoulder) with cars whipping by at breakneck speeds (not unlike today) — but so help me, I couldn't get the bolts loose to get the bad tire off. Seriously! They were on way too tight and even putting my full weight into it had wouldn't get them to budge. Worried that I might cause the car to fall off the child's toy they call a jack and crush my foot trying to get the bolts loose, I had no other option but to call for roadside assistance. To his credit he showed up sooner than originally estimated and while I filled out paperwork, he took his chances with the tire swap. While he worked his mechanical magic (with the aid of some real tools), I stood out of the way and out of the hot afternoon sun wondering why the universe feels compelled to balance things out like that.

Couldn't I just have a nice relaxing day or weekend? Must it be cut short with a potentially life threatening predicament? Yes, I realize that I'm being a bit melodramatic, and yes, it's really more a coincidence than part of the universe's doing, but it feels good to be able to put the blame on something outside my control. I didn't notice that my roadside guardian angel (whose name was actually Angel, go figure) had come up to me while I was lost in thought. When I finally became aware of his presence I realized that he was apologizing for stripping my nuts. That's funny, I didn't know I had gotten lucky. Then I looked down to see a pair of horribly mangled orbs of metal. My lug nuts! And they were practically unrecognizable. I was a little surprised when he asked me if I wanted him to put them back on and let the next mechanic battle with removing them or simply leave them off. "Um, you're probably more an expert on these things than I am, but wouldn't it be unsafe to drive with only half of the lug nuts holding the wheel on?" I quizzed? He sheepishly agreed and turned to put them back on the car. When he was done he reminded me not to exceed 40 miles per hour and not to drive further than 50 miles on the Radio Flyer wagon wheel of a spare. Thank goodness it's Sunday and absolutely no tire shops or auto repair places are open because heaven forbid people who work 10 hour days Monday through Friday ever want to get some work done on a freaking weekend. Now I can go straight home without the distraction of buying new tires, or picking up the week's worth of groceries that are part of my Sunday ritual.

I have a habit of dwelling on the negative rather than the positive and so it was no surprise that I began to get down about having to take surface streets to and from work, which more than doubles my commute time. Plus with issues at work the next couple of days, I wasn't sure I'd be able to get my tire replaced within 50 miles because I live just far enough from work that one full commute would meet or surpass the quota and I'm not sure I can take any time away from work to get this fixed. While I'm sure things will work out, right now it doesn't seem possible. But, then again, at least I'm not dead. I should be happy to be alive and a stranger's help in getting my nuts off, even if they were a bit too manhandled in the process. Better manhandled than not handled at all, or say the saying goes, right?

Angel gets the gold medal

Too bad cock-blocking (the visual kind, not the While you were ordering drinks I told that hot guy you were talking to that your rash is probably not contagious anymore…Hey! Where did he go? kind) isn't a recognized event, or Angel would be a world-class cathlete.

Here he is sticking the tricky off-axis back horizontal double block. Even with a difficulty rating of 4.6 and the obviously biased German judge, his flawless ear to speedo synchronization could easily win more medals than Michael Phelps. If, of course, censoring speedos during the men's synchronized diving finals with your ears was a medaling sport; it's still just an exhibition sport I believe.

GKR revealed...in 100 Questions (21-40)

Did you miss any part of the series? Catch up here with this link.

There are only two simple rules to follow if you care to follow along at home:

1. You can only answer "yes" or "no"

2. You aren't allowed to explain anything in your answer. Just "yes" or "no." Of course, if someone asks for more details about an answer, all bets are off.

Let's continue…

21. Kissed a picture? YES


22. Slept in until 3 pm? YES


23. Love someone or miss someone right now? NO


24. Laid on your back and watched cloud shapes go by? NO


25. Made a snow angel? YES


26. Played dress up? YES


27. Cheated while playing a game? YES


28. Fallen asleep at work/school? YES


29. Yelled at a friend? YES


30. Felt an earthquake? YES


31. Touched a snake? YES


32. Ran a red light? YES


33. Been suspended from school? NO


34. Had detention? NO


35. Been in a car accident? YES


36. Hated the way you look? YES


37. Witnessed a crime? YES


38. Pole danced? NO


39. Been lost? YES


40. Been to the opposite side of the country? YES

Stay tuned…