Saturday, July 28, 2007

Meet Taffi's Cat: Goodbye Kitty

Taffi doesn't have much time for living things, aside from the vegetables from her garden that she pickles like they're her liver. But if she had a cat it might well be this one.

Oscar the nursing home cat can sense death

His name is Oscar. He's not the friendliest cat. But he has an uncanny knack for predicting within hours when nursing home patients with whom he lives are about to die.

Perhaps, much like Taffi, Oscar enjoys feeding on the occasional soul.

Every day, Oscar makes his rounds among the patients, entering each room and giving each patient a sniff. When he senses that someone is near the end of his or life, he will hop onto their bed and curl up beside them. Within hours, without fail, the patient will die.

Same thing happens to the crowd at Changes when Taffi walks thru the door. Only it doesn't take hours for the crowd to die away, it's practically instantaneous.

Dr. David Dosa, a geriatrician from Brown University in Providence, tells Oscar's story, noting that the feline has never been wrong yet.

Unlike Oscar, for Taffi "Wrong" is her middle name.

"His mere presence at the bedside is viewed by physicians and nursing home staff as an almost absolute indicator of impending death," Dosa writes.

Seriously, I think this cat could give Taff some lessons. Sometimes her victims don't die, they're just afflicted with warm, salty, flat beer. But that's a whole other story!

A Few Notes

Apologies for the lack of entries lately; I've had plenty of material but very little time. I've been in Austin the last 2 weeks, very busy with work and almost as busy socializing. Yuki is here of course, but I also hunted down Chad Ballentine and ran into Brad the Bartender (now construction foreman) from Manray. James's old boyfriend Jacques is here for the summer, and my social circle is rounded out with their various friends and acquaintances. I've barely had a moment alone to sit down with my thoughts.

That said, I do have a few thoughts. First and foremost, has Little Adam completed his move? I haven't been able to find out and I've been holding back a barn-burner of a blog entry until he's completed his escape. Once I hear he's fully moved out and more or less safe from retaliation, I will publish.

Madge is in New York for James's birthday, but tales of her visit have been almost nonexistent. Has anyone heard anything? Let me know, we need to complete the trifect of Madge entries before I'm really comfortable moving on to torture someone else.

And if there's anything else going on, let me know. I'll be back in Seattle late Sunday night.

Wednesday, July 04, 2007

Austin Evengelicals and Madge Meets a Cougar

(Updates I and II below)

First off, happy 4th of July! This is a great holiday: we get a day off to blow stuff up and remember how our founders told the King to suck it, we were bailing. Sadly, no fireworks for me this year. I'm in Austin and it's raining like there's no tomorrow. Word has it, this is the 40 days and 40 nights of rain leading up to the flood that will wash clean the sins of Texas and open the way for the Rapture! Praise! Well, at least according to the woman with big hair who was testifying in line at the Austin Whole Foods the other day. Apparently, the impending Rapture didn't alleviate the nice lady's need for organic greens and designer sel de mer. The pierced, mohawked skater punk ringing her up was clearly disgusted by all of it, but I just stood there and revelled in what an odd place this town is.

In other news, our Madge has added an encounter with a cougar to her Florida adventures. Our heroine, seeking to make friends, ventured out to the Clinique counter at Macy's the other day to see if she could meet a friendly retail queen or a fag hag that would introduce her to the hairy tops of Jacksonville. Lo and behold, the nice 50-something lady (hereafter "Cliniquewa") behind the counter made fast friends with our girl while selling her $175 of moisturizing sunscreen and refreshing toner. Cliniquewa offered to take Madge out for a night she would never forget, and the date was set.

That night our heroine prepared for her Jacksonville debut. She washed and pressed her tightest jeans, and agonized over which t-shirt would look best hanging from her belt. She disco napped and then manscaped, shaved, showered, douched, gelled, and moisturized her entire body. After hours of anticipation, she was finally ready for her debut in Jacksonville gay society.

On cue, Cliniquewa rolled up in her '02 Mustang convertible (top up, so the girls' hair didn't get mussed) and Madge was whisked away to the club. In the parking lot, the pumping throb of the music filled Madge with longing and anticipation. She fairly skipped to the door, gave the bouncer her best Paris Hilton pose, and dropped the $20 cover like the money burned her fingers. Cliniquewa was right behind her, and the girls' hearts sang with anticipation. They burst through the door....

And Madge realized she'd been had. Cliniquewa had taken her to a straight club, full of fratboys drinking plastic cups of Bud Light and calling each other "bro." Cliniquewa spent the rest of the evening trying to devour the acres of young, testosterone-soaked male flesh laid out in front of her, stopping in occasionally to say to Madge, "isn't this great?" Meanwhile, our poor heroine sat at the bar nursing a $12 well Cosmo and tried to remember the last time before this that she'd worn a shirt for more than 5 minutes in a club.

Happy Fourth of July everyone!

UPDATE I: The one and only comment I've received in over a week was some guy advertising his internet book, MY INAUGURAL ADDRESS AT THE GREAT WHITE THRONE JUDGMENT OF THE DEAD. It's scary, so I'm not going to link to it. Apparently he has a 'bot that searches for words like "rapture" in blogs and then inserts an ad for his book as a comment. I deleted the comment, but just want to mention I'm considering way to compel comments. Since Paul is the only person in recent memory to leave a comment (see Sheetrock Goes Shopping) he'll be safe, but the rest of you are in mortal danger of a public shaming to force some comments. Just a friendly warning...

UPDATE II: The guy advertising his book was back. Sadly, we don't accept advertising on Bored at Work unless you have VERY deep pockets (think oil, pharmaceuticals, or cigarettes). But if your cashier's check clears, then I'll gleefully let you can advertise anything you like here. Thanks for stopping by!

And I know I shouldn't encourage the intellectual onanism of whackjobs like this guy, but in this case I can't seem to help myself.