My little cat Cinco has been sick for the past few days. She shows up every now and then, but she won't eat. (And usually, she was the biggest Hungry Hippo!) For the past few days, she's been hiding out, never appearing. She was kind of annoying to me over the past few months because she was constantly yowling while in heat (and I hadn't had her fixed). But now that I don't see her every day, especially in the morning/afternoon/evening feeding times----WHERE ARE YOU CINCO? I miss you.
Today (Saturday) was a very nice 78-degree day in Austin in December. In the midst of my 5-day vacation, I got off my butt and completely cleaned up all of the plants inside and outside: Dumped the old soil sitting around, re-planted a couple of plants, planted some "cat-grass" for my cats---in a planter that Cinco could not pee in!
In the midst of my 45-min-long outdoor work, my new neighbor was wandering around... I finally asked her: "What are you doing?" She was looking for an outlet for a hose because she wanted to plant and water grass in her backyard (adjacent to mine). In December. I said that there was a faucet in the FRONT of our apartments (not in the back), and she said she'd thought about that... (Really---stretching a hose from the front, thru your home, to the backyard...)
Our apartment yards are about 4 x 16 feet. In my yard, grass grows naturally in about half, and the other half is rocks. Is there REALLY a need to seek out a hose-outlet in December for watering potential grass??
The unattractive middle-aged neighbor seems basically harmless. But then, when she first moved in a few months ago, she'd spilled a big quantity of red wine on her front door --- loudly, after midnight! So loudly that I had to go out and ask if she was OK upon seeing the big red stain on her front step---and thinking it was blood!
Some people were meant for movie-like "meet-cute"! I, alas, am not.
You can stay up as late as you want!
It's now 4:46am---and I don't have to go to bed just yet, or at any time!
I'm in my 50s, and I've lived off-and-on in various apartment complexes (meaning, among poorer people) in my adult life. But it was only last year that I ever encountered fireworks on Christmas Eve. CHRISTMAS EVE!
In cities (and I've always lived in cities as an adult), there were always fireworks going off on July 4th and on New Year's Eve. As expected.
But just last year, on Christmas Eve, fireworks were going off for so long that I finally staggered out (after many beers) and went to look for the source of the fucking noise at 2am. Next door to my apartment complex was a bunch of Hispanics hanging out in the parking lot. I asked them if they could please not set off any more fireworks that late at night. One guy gave me a big hug and said, "Hey, it's my culture!"
Now, I'm in Austin, and I've been in Austin for most of my adult life, and I've been around Hispanics for most of my adult life, and I'd never heard of setting off fireworks on CHRISTMAS EVE!
Call me old-fashioned, call me Karen---but there is no fucking reason for setting off fireworks on Christmas Eve. It's an eve of peace, you idiots.
Tonight, on this Christmas Eve, I write this just after midnight, with fireworks again blasting all around. This is insane. And why did it all just start last year??
I'm currently reading the 2014 Beethoven bio by Jan Swafford. Well-researched and well-written. One thing that stood out about Beethoven's early years: His drunken father used to come home and wake him up as a kid and make him perform for guests. The exact same thing used to happen to George Jones.
No particular reason relative to today's events or anything (other than the hours-long headache-inducing leaf-blowing guys around my apartment complex). But for some reason, today's perfectly normal day led me to thoughts of past rejections.
I kept thinking of one teacher during my Senior year of high school. I was always in advanced English classes, and she taught basic English classes. But when I was the only student in the school to advance in statewide UIL (University Interscholastic League) competition for journalism, she was the sponsor for that group, and she and I had to travel together for the 3 hours from Azle in North Texas to Austin. And then we had to spend the night together in a hotel room in Austin. I don't remember her speaking one word to me. Not ONE WORD. (I'm sure there must have been a couple of pleasantries exchanged---how do you travel for 3 hours and then spend the night with someone without ANYTHING??)
I still to this day don't know why this adult refused to speak to me, a 17-year-old high-school kid. And a scholastically advanced kid representing the school, on their mutual way to a school event. You'd think the teacher might have had a few words of encouragement, some pleasantries, small talk, ANYTHING.
Back in 2020, all of these tech titans (aside from Musk) were banning any information that contradicted their Democrat/Marxist ideology. And now here they are, kissing the Trump ring. It's a pleasure to watch their hypocrisy come to the fore.
Let this be a lesson to anyone who ever believed Internet news sources were in any way "truthful." (And Bezos also owns the Washington Post, BTW, which once called Trump "a threat to democracy." If Trump is such a threat, why is Bezos now donating $1 million to his inauguration festivities?)
They were fuckin' phonies when they were AGAINST Trump. And they're fuckin' phonies now that they're FOR him. But I enjoy watching the current bowing and shuffling.
(Musk is 100% the exception: He stood up for the concept of "freedom of speech" back when none of his tech-billionaire cohorts did the same, when it was not politically popular to do so. I will always admire him for his bravery---and audacity for buying the corrupt Twitter and transforming it into the X that it should have been all along.)
My parents divorced in '77, I think it was (when I was 12), and after that my dad paid his $200 per month in child support. (Texas doesn't require alimony, just child support.)
My dad was violent during the marriage. And after the marriage, he kept showing up at our house, terrorizing ME at least with his after-midnight visits and phone-calls threatening suicide. (My mother was calm during all of this, but I'm sure she was terrorized, as well.)
Thankfully, he soon moved out of state, way up to South Dakota. Me and my younger brother went to visit him there for a week or so when I was 15. He was awful to me the whole time. Once I got home, I swore to my mother that I would never visit him again.
He came to my high-school graduation when I was 17: I was actually grateful for his presence, because my German mother wanted me to come home right after the graduation ceremony. (He had to explain to her that in the US, graduation was special and kids liked to GO OUT afterwards to celebrate.)
In the years after that, we had sporadic visits and communications. He'd come to Austin every now and then, we'd talk on the phone every now and then. (One memorable unpleasant conversation that we had when I was in San Francisco for grad school in the '90s, right after OJ Simpson had been found innocent: My father told me that Nicole Brown Simpson had been "bought and paid for." Oh---so that makes her murder OK, Daddy?)
We hadn't spoken for a few years when, a few years ago, he sent me a copy of a Certificate of Deposit for 50K that he'd put in my name. I sent him a thank-you note expressing gratitude, we exchanged Christmas cards that year, I sent him a birthday card the following January... Since then (maybe 3 years or more): Nothing.
I just heard via one grapevine or another that he was offended by a blog post that I'd written here. Who knows which one. (I've been writing about my life here for the past 17 years, and I've mentioned both my mother and father several times.) And so, apparently, the 50K CD is now no longer in my name. As he apparently put it: "That's the most expensive blog post that she ever made."
Ooooh! How financially threatening! Please. I'm not 20 years old, impressed by a 50K CD. As I expressed at the time, I was very grateful and appreciative of the generosity. Especially since my father had never made any other effort to try to help his two kids in any way. (Once I got to college and adulthood, I became aware that fathers helping their kids was a normal thing---not in my case. But so be it.) I was pleasantly surprised by the initial 50K gift, but I was also NOT shocked when said gift was taken away. Kind of par for his unstable course.
"The most expensive blog post that she ever made"---So I lost 50K? My honesty was worth every penny, asshole. Fuck you and your alleged $50,000.
