Fly Away, Boomer

Well, Friday was the day that the Patches-Ray household became a one cat-one person household. Boomer has gone on to his forever home. Part of me is very sad to see him go, but I'm also delighted that he's going to someone who will love him just as much as I did.

I decided to make a picture and video montage in remembrance of the good times we have had over the past 4.5 months, which required a disturbing revisiting of all the videos I've made for this blog. What you don't know is that there are actually a fairly large number of unaired episodes or unaired footage that was deemed by me to be too humiliating to air. FOR INSTANCE. The 6.5 minute video of Boomer laying on my lap, me tickling his belly and whispering "belly tickles belly tickles belly tickles!"Siiiiiiiiigh.

Patches and I will resume our regular postings of adventures, just so long as my computer does not explode. Which, unfortunately, I can't guarantee. The Balkans have not been kind to Mac Book who now makes sounds as if it is trying to take flight. Only 76 more days Mac Book.... then you shall rest forever.

Also fun fact: did you know that male kittens become fertile somewhere between 4-6 months and that they can impregnate their mother? Yeah. Stew on that for a while.

We're Back

Sorry about the absence. I was gone for most of early July doing a project and have spent the past week sleeping and watching new TV. And by "new tv" I mean to imply tv that is new to me from someone else's hard drive. Some of what I've been watching:

-Dexter: started off thinking this show was weird, but now I'm pretty into it.

-The Wire: Everyone tells me this is the best show on tv ever, but I have to say I wasn't as blown away as I thought I'd be. It's very literary, I'll give it that, but it seems like a show conceptualized around theme rather than plot and then the plot was added as sort of an after thought. From an anthropological/sociological angle, it's fascinating but I wish more happened for the amount of philosophical musings in the background.

-Eastbound and Down: THIS is the best show on TV ever. Ever. In the history of ever.

-The Boondocks: The perfect mixture of hilarious and thought provoking. I like the animation style too. I'd never watched this show, but my friend Jordan suggested I give it a shot and now I'm hooked. Praise White Jesus!

Now that my big project is over, my time is mostly spent putting the pieces together for my return. I've written a few resumes and plan on sending them out in early September. I look for jobs, look for apartments, look for things to spend my readjustment allowance on. It's 1/2 nerve wracking, 1/2 exciting. Gordana helped me figure out all the paperwork I need for Patches to come back with me. Patches is busy studying for the citizenship test.

Mr. Boomer is going to be here with me and Patches for another month or so before sailing off to a new life with his new daddy. I'm happy he's found a wonderful home, but I will miss him very much.

Summer Boredom

For the first 6 weeks of Boomer's life I lived in constant fear that he was going to drop dead. But he is survivor cat! Now that he's old and still not dead ,I like to play games with Boomer. Some of my favorites are:

-Boomer Bowling (only when I have 6 empty Dobra Voda bottles though)
-Sheet Spelunking. He likes this one. When Boomer is napping on my bed, I stealthily wrap him up in the blankets so he is in a blanket cave. I then watch him try to figure out how to escape.
-Cat Massage. This is only a vague reference to this eerie prediction of my future, but on Mose Pijade Ulica it refers to when Patches is sleeping and I use Boomer as belly rub tool. (Side note: how often do I find myself singing "Who's the best cat in Vi ni ca? It's YOU, Boomer baby! It's YOU!" as per Champ from that video. Sigh. -2 dateability.)
-Prison Break. This is when I create box structures for Boomer to escape from.

In today's episode, I give you a harrowing glimpse into what my life has become in the summer months.

Edit: I don't need your judgment about my sweatpants (HANNA BERGER). You are looking at 25% of my pants wardrobe.

Story of my life, Boomer

Weeeeeelp it's been a long vast week of nothingness here in the Wild East, so today I am making an impromptu visit to Elizabeth's porch. I made sure to take a piece of that plastic binding stuff that comes around packages and stick it out of a box.... Boomer's been occupied by that for about 5 hours and will probably be until I get home.

I Have Marketable-ish Skills I Think

So for 24/24 years of my life I've expected I will make money without any effort. Effort is hard for me. This is part of the reason why I started reaching out to the unicorn community with my art because I hoped that they would support me by leaving chests of treasure beneath my doorstep.

As my service comes to an end though, I have to ponder the harsh reality that apparently surviving in this cruel world requires "work" and "endurance" and "ambition." UGHHHH. Why did God bless me with so very many unmarketable skills? I've been thinking about centering my resume around my talent of having small fingers and narrow wrists that enable me to retrieve objects that have been dropped in tight places. There's a lot of fat people in America = a lot of fat fingers = a lot of people who can't retrieve their belongings that have been dropped in tight spaces.

I've been working to "tenderize" Booomer lately. He likes chewing fingers too much and needs to start liking snuggling. He's coming along very well. He doesn't chew my fingers much anymore and he likes to crawl onto my chest and sleep there while breathing his meat paste breath into my face.

So anyway, if anyone wants to hire me, let me know.

Boomer Has A New Job

So anyway, Boomer is at PRIME lol-cat age. He's fluffy, sleepy, adorable. I've been putting together a series of Non-LOL cats that reflect the hard realities of life working for this undisclosed organization. They are called Non-LOL cats because, even though they make me laugh, apparently most other volunteers view them and go "ooooh.... that's too true." Glad he's a naturally depressed looking kitten!!

I stroke this kitten with my salad fingers

Well it is summertime, which means yet another year of tense peace treaties between the spider families and myself. Last year at this time we reached an agreement on the bathroom territories, but summer 2010 has started with an aggressive campaign by the spider families to retake their control of the bedroom territories. They seem particularly interested in a coveted piece of land-- the "My Bed" state-- but I've sent the finest diplomat in my cabinet (Mr. Broom) to eliminate their illegally built homes until a treaty can be negotiated.

Week 6-8 are a very important time in a baby cat's life. While he is no longer dependent on his negligent mother for food, Baby Cat spends his 6th-8th week learning social skills from his socially awkward mother (who, in turn, has learned many of her social skills from me). That means the following things:
1) Boomer has weird baby cat B.O. He's a very pungent baby cat.
2) Patches tries to teach him how to wrestle but she seems uncaring of the fact that he is 1/8 her size. Could this be a result of how I sometimes used to tackle Patches when she was sleeping?
3) When they wrestle, Boomer sounds like a goose being squeezed.
4) Patches has taught Boomer that if you stand on the armchair behind me and squeal I will eventually get so annoyed that I will pick you up and give you your daily cuddles.
5) Boomer chases my toes and the only reason I don't mind this is because he's a ball of fluff and is really cute when he runs because his butt bounces really high.

In other news, I ate 1/2 kilo of cherries yesterday.

Also, this: someone recently brought the weird and creepy video series Salad Fingers to my attention and I watched all 9 episodes and caught myself musing over how similar my living situation is to Salad Fingers'. Constant isolation, projecting friendship onto inanimate/cat objects, the only living beings around you make absolutely no sense. I find it very disturbing that my reaction to this horror series was "yeah that dude is legit. I get it."