Attack!

Ever since we adopted our feisty, little kitten, Frankie Pandora Pickles Henderson-Webber, the word “feral” is on my mind. Frankie is not entirely untamed: She snuggles when she wants to. She has a natural curiosity about the toilet bowl. She eats and drinks out of the dish. She poops in the poop box. And on rare occasions, she even leaves our older, lazy cat, Mr. Leo, alone.
But other than that... I think she is merely one level of refinement above an alley cat with ruffled fur and a lust for blood. I have scratches covering my ams. To avoid catching anything from my massage clients, I have taken to whitewashing my arms with New Skin. New Skin is awesome, but when a person washes her hands as often as I do in my line of work, New Skin starts to flake off, and then I really look like I have something wrong with me.
But in any case, I've been analyzing what it would mean to be a feral person. Wild. Ravenous.
On a quasi-related note, I saw this one YouTube video where a crack addict was tethered to a post (he complied completely at the time). His crack stash was placed just out of the man's reach. The video was edited to make the hours look like moments. I watched as this man came down. He did everything but chew his own leg off in attempts to get the drugs. He begged and pleaded and stretched himself as far as his limbs would allow until he was laying with his belly flat on the pavement. This video was suggested to me by a friend who thought I'd think it was funny since the tethered man was reminiscent of a more hyper-active Chris Tucker. And believe me, I love Chris Tucker. But this just wasn't an amusing video. I felt really sad afterward. I couldn't figure out if this person was feral or just ill. In any case, I hope what you young and impressionable readers take away from this anecdote is steal cars, get in bar fights, cheat on your significant other with his or her best friend if you have to, but please don't do any of the scary drugs. Nancy Reagan will step off her soap box now and continue with her fluff article about feral cats. But seriously, don't do crack.
If I was left to my own devices, without technology, companionship, civilization or domestication... No coffee, no TV, not a single luxury... How would I live my life? Certainly I would learn how to build a decent fire for the first time, despite the years of being a camp councilor and the youngest sibling to two Eagle scouts. But let's just assume that building an iPod out of coconuts is out of my realm of capabilities.
I suppose all the time I used to spend grooming myself, doing laundry, scooping cat poop, procrastinating exercise, microwaving my dinners and working would be freed up. Although, that same amount of time would more than likely be redistributed to killing stuff, finding berries and fashioning shoes out of tree bark and my own hair. Oh, yes, and continuously smearing myself with mud so that my hair-free hide wouldn't become sunburned. Evolution. Puh. I have too much hair to fit in with the human females, but not enough to do any sort of animalistic good. I'm in a fuzziness limbo.
Feral people would not get excited about the idea of owning a heated foot spa to replace Ol' Bessy (my former foot spa, who desperately wants to retire). Feral people chew off their toenails with their tartar-stained teeth. Grrr. Snort, snort.
However, feral people don't have to eat as many Tums as I do to ward off the indigestion caused by the anxiety caused by the awkward conversations at parties and restless people in line behind me at the grocery store. Feral people may have to worry about getting eaten by predators, but they don't have to worry about romantic rival bank tellers or inevitable future colonoscopies or getting cornered at a bar and aggressively badgered about politics. Feral people might have to worry about hoof and mouth, but we regular people have to worry about delicate matters such as foot in mouth.
But the long and short of it is, no matter how miserable or enjoyable being a wild woman would be, I can't run off to the wilderness to find my inner Nell. I have just adopted a kitten, who needs a lot of attention, discipline, cuddling so that she turns out well. So she will stop destroying everything in our apartment from my apple-slice window garland to Brian's decorative beer stein collection to Mr. Leo's fragile self-image. Who knows what manic mischief she could be up to right now?

Mmmm.... Post-It Notes...

Well, I made it a whole week without soda. Okay, that's a lie. I was eating a piece of bread a couple days ago. A piece got lodged in my throat all goofy. In my panic, I took a sip of the nearest beverage, which was a paper cup of old and flat Diet Coke that had been sitting on the kitchen counter for Zues knows how long. I can truthfully say that I didn't enjoy any soda this week.
Giving up an unhealthy diet is the opposite of giving up any other addiction. With smoking for example, the first week is the hardest. I once saw a new non-smoker who was trying desperately to “catch his nic-fit” apply multiple nicotine patches all at once. This guy was quite inebriated and had to be sent to the emergency room, but hey, I guess that's the college experience for some folks. In any case, I assume it's difficult to say the least.
Conversely, dieting is easiest in the first week for a lot of people. It's exciting imagining yourself all foxified. All eyes are on you. Nobody puts baby in a corner. The Baywatch theme is your background music and the world is your naturally-delicious and nutritious tomato! You're motivated to keep track of your caloric intake or points or whatever your strategy is. You buy hand weights and one of those cheesy sweat bands so that sweat doesn't drip in your eyes. Maybe I don't sweat enough, but I have never had the need to take precautions against scalp sweat getting in my eyes. That's what my Groucho Marx eyebrows are for. What can I say? Genetics were good to me.
But it's the second week. The third week. The forth week. Then it gets hard. In earlier attempts of mine to get healthy, the excitement tapered off so much, I eventually forgot that I was on a diet in the first place. That is, until the next time I had to go swimsuit shopping. Who knows how many times I vowed to starve myself until I looked like Kate Moss. I'm too young to have to wear a swimsuit with the ruffle skirt! Those who own ruffle-skirted swimsuits: please do not be offended. Unless you were around for the American Civil War, you're too young too.
I'm hoping that for me, this new attempt at giving up unhealthy foods is not a diet, but a change in my lifestyle. And maybe since I am consciously giving something up each week (whether it's as broad as red meat of as specific as Twinkies), I won't forget that I'm on a diet.
Also, I intend to be forgiving of myself. If I fall off the wagon and start eating sticks of butter like Snickers bars and begin keg standing corn syrup, I need to assess my situation, avoid guilt and simply amend the bad behavior.
Although I have never had a problem with adjusting the menus at any of my home events for guests who have special dietary needs, some people seem to seethe genuine hatred for those who “just need to be difficult.” That's just not very hospitable, is it Emily Post? Just kidding. I realize it's hard to be accommodating for Gluten-Free Susie, Nut Allergy Joe, Vegan Billy, No Artificial Coloring Carl and Diabetic Phyllis. It's difficult, true. But that's part of the fun and challenge in being a good host or hostess. Deal with it. *Snaps fingers with attitude*
I realize others probably don't share my enthusiasm to be all-accommodating. I also realize a good portion of my friends and family have seen me eat like a sumo wrestler with a death wish in the past. They've seen me pick my scabs, sit in smoke-filled bars, listen to my music too loud, drive my vehicles into snowbanks, chemically process my hair, chew on my germy fingernails, accidentally roller skate into traffic on several occasions, absentmindedly eat Post-It notes and a million other unhealthy things that range in scale of repulsion. These people might be upset if I suddenly want to make special requests because what they want to prepare at their house for dinner isn't healthy enough for my fancy-pants standards.
So, I intend to eat healthy, yes. But within the parameters of my lifestyle. I'm giving up things each week out of my regular diet, but if I'm at my parent's house and she's serving roast beef, well, I'm going to eat some damned roast beef... And like it! I'm not aiming to make changes to be a rebel. That's what the nose ring is for. I just want to feel better and invest in something. Since I don't have funds to invest in the stock market, I'll invest in my health.

The Phatness

Never have I denied that I. Love. Food. The streets of heaven are not paved in gold, folks, they are paved with bacon-wrapped cheese curds with Raisinette sprinkles and a shoulder made out of warm peach pie. The rivers in heaven rush with chocolate syrup-infused Coca-Cola. The skies precipitate fluffy popcorn with movie theater butter and mocha latte frappe rain drops. And the cherry Jell-O is so good in heaven, even the horses love it.
But back on Earth... There are consequences to living the lifestyle of the fried and the sugary. I am realizing the importance of not sending this body to my glucose-laden heaven too quickly. The whole sad truth of the situation is that people of my generation and younger will be the first group of people who will simply not live as long of a life as our parents. Like, uh... Considering my parents' environments in which they were raised, that is a pretty drastic statement. For my parents' generation, smoking really was cool. Like, super-cool. Like, I dare you to find a man today who looks as attractive in a pair of dirty pants as the Marlboro Man did. My parents' generation were raised pre-Nancy Reagan's “Just Say No” campaign, which most of us admittedly outwardly mock, but probably secretly are appreciative for. My parents' generation were not born into a culture that was seriously conscious about things like AIDS and other communicable diseases. They have lived through more wars. They thought mercury was a fun thing to play with, you know, with their bare hands. And as children, they gleefully ran behind the pesticide-spraying vehicles.
And they are expected to live longer lifespans than my generation. My generation: the supposed organic food-pushing, McDonald's bashing, gym class advocating, D.A.R.E. students are not projected to live as long as our parents. Because of what we do and don't do to our bodies. That is completely horrifying to me.
I'm not saying that it's completely our fault, although most of it probably is. The things they do to our food before the grocers even see it is quite simply one of the most terrifying subjects I have ever been made aware of. Padre is probably rolling his eyes right about here. He tends to write off most conspiracy theories as coming from either hippies or people who wear tin foil hats to keep the government out of their thoughts. But I subscribe wholeheartedly. Not to the tin foil hat part, but the part about our food being progressively less good for us. I believe it, because people are in a position to make money. The processes our food goes through is a problem that needs to find a solution. I use a passive sentence here, because I am not sure how to fix this problem. The politics of food processing is far beyond my intellect.
The only way I can conceive is to express my hope for healthier foods by means of boycott. It is my new goal that every week, I am going to eliminate one unhealthy thing out of my diet. Right about here I should reiterate my compassion for a world made out bacon. I have no desire to become that emaciated girl at the party who stinks like garlic and clove oil and hasn't eaten anything besides her personal garden's asparagus since 1994.
I don't want to be that person, no. But I don't want to be a statistic either. I don't want to develop some horrible ailment that will affect my whole life. Eating the wrong things and living what those pesky gym teachers refer to as a “sedentary lifestyle” has made me feel less than what I can. I am not just talking about adverse affects on my appearance and self-esteem either. Yes, my body type has kept me out of a sting bikini thus far, but there is no reason for me to be walking around with a burlap sack over my head. I have good physical attributes: a pretty symmetrical face, decent hygiene and let's just say that I've never had any trouble holding up a tube top. But I want to feel better. I want my body to work better. I want to be able to survive this zombie apocalypse my friends keep talking about.
So, I am sitting here typing. Drinking my very last chocolate syrup-infused Coca-Cola (until I get to heaven). This week I am forever giving up all soda except for club. Next week, red meat. :( I'm sure there will be times I fall off the wagon. Hopefully the wagon is something I can get back on with ease, knowing that the wagon drives on roads not yet made of bacon.

Dear Alex,
As I am writing you this letter, it is the week before Halloween, 2010. I imagine right now you are probably in the “jumbo shrimp with exaggerated Muppet eyes” phase of your gestational development. It's okay. We all start out shrimpy.
You are very lucky, dear Jumbo Shrimp Alex, because not only are you young enough to have all of the world's splendor and excitement ahead of you (Harry Potter, ice cream, sex and REO Speedwagon among many, many other things), but you are also about to be born into a family that will love and cherish you more than Lucy wants to sing at Ricky's club.
They will love you when you are at your worst. When you are at your best. When you are at your most in-between of behavior. These are the people who will scold you for flushing an entire roll of toilet paper down the toilet, causing the whole bathroom to flood with malodorous TP soup. These are the people who will obsessively tell their friends how wonderful it is that you moved away from formula (Because Alex likes his big boy food. Yes he does. Oh yes he does!). They'll gush about how you got your first pair of training underwear, ate your first crayon, got chewed on by your first goat at the petting zoo, watched your first movie in the theater, lost your first tooth, tied your first lace, stuck your tongue out at your first crush, went on your first school bus ride. These will be the people who will grin with pride when you walk down the aisle of the high school gym to accept your diploma. These will be the people who will help you paint your first single-serving apartment. They will cry when they take you toaster shopping for said apartment.
There is no doubt in my mind that you will have a happy childhood.
True, I do not know your father's side of the family very well. I went to high school with your dad, but other than my trying to embarrass him from time to time by telling fart jokes and other such instances of immaturity, we did not have a tremendous exchange of dialogue.
However, your mom and her side of the family have made a very significant and positive impact on my life, as I'm sure it will on yours—and on a much larger scale. You are a very lucky fetus.
I want you to know that your mother is a wonderful lady. Unfortunately, it took me a while to realize that my mother was a fantastic lady as well. You see, in my case, I saw my mom as my soda pop rationer, my homework slave driver, my own personal disciplinarian and the wiper of my butt. It wasn't until I got a little older that I realized my mom was her own person with her own talents and interests, only one of which is mothering my sorry ass.
Our moms are both multifaceted people. I want you to understand that, because your mother is one of my closest friends. I know how amazing she is. But I know how easily one can lose touch with that concept when that amazing person is using a turkey baster to suction snot out of your nostrils.
I met your mother the summer before we went into sixth grade. That's, like, an eternity if fetus years. We have been friends ever since. We've had millions of slumber parties. We prank called boys together. We went through our ugly scrunchy, Winnie the Pooh, bibbed overall phases together. We've gotten to travel together. Drink together. Get kicked out of Mr. Lewis' class together. Snicker at my father's “horny toad” and flatulent iguanas together. Drive down Main Street blasting opera music with the windows rolled down together. Your mother is a weirdo. However, she is also a whole lot of fun. She has one of the biggest hearts I have ever encountered. She is a wonderful person.
Your mother chose to be your mother. Other than drawing hilariously misshapen airplanes, I've never known her to do anything halfheartedly once she decided that was what she wanted to do. Her heart is all in it. And her heart is with you. Please be good to her, my shrimpy, little Alex. You have a whole lot of awesome to get done.

I sincerely hope I get to be a part of your life.
Love and best wishes,

Trish

Awk Toe Bur

I get disproportionately excited about Halloween and fall and, well, just about anything that fits into the month of October. Sure, it's sad to see summer end, but that's what we have September for: to be depressed as we nail the coffin shut on sunshine, general happiness, campfires, swimming and being able to walk around without wool socks inside of one's apartment because her Illinois resident landlord controls the heat.

But by October, I get over all that. Because. Ah. I start thinking about what I'm going to get people for Christmas, but I'm not yet stressed out about it, because I have a quarter of a year left before the Santa ho ho ho's me into a full-fledged panic attack. (“What if someone just shows up at my house with a present for me? Maybe I don't consider them a gift-giving friend, but they're ready to put me in their will? I should buy a few gifts to have around the house just in case so I don't make anyone feel bad. Like a couple bottles of wine from the local winery. Reasonably priced, but still trendy because it's all local and stuff. I have trendy friends. They'll like that and love me for being so darn, stinkin' considerate. But what if I have a bottle of wine laying around for this... And someone comes over with a beautiful fruit and cheese platter for me... And I run to grab their custom gift... And he or she is a recovering alcoholic or under the age of 21 or pregnant or Mormon? Or maybe his or her mother was stomped to death in one of those giant grape-mashing barrels and the thought of wine brings him or her to tears? Scratch that off the list, Trisha, you insensitive boob! Do you want everyone to hate you?!) But, like I said, I'm not going to stress out about Christmas until later. Now is the fun part of Christmas shopping, which is window shopping. It's free!

Pumpkin carving is another pinnacle of October enjoyment for me. I'm twenty three years old and I don't think I've ever missed a year of carving. Mind you, I'm not very good at it. Moreover, I have to use the kiddie pumpkin carving tools with the rounded edges because otherwise I'd most certainly lose a finger. But I have fun. It's so liberating thrusting your hand down into an ice-cold cavern of squishy pumpkin goo and yanking out its guts, imagining I am performing some sort of odd pumpkin-sacrificing ceremony to appease the pumpkin gods.

I love the apples. I'm dehydrating a whole bunch right now in my Ronco As Seen on TV dehydrator, which I was teased for purchasing. Jokes on them, because they're still spending fortunes on store dehydrated fruit!

October makes me feel homey as well. It's hard to explain, but I imagine it's the feeling pregnant ladies get when they're nesting. Suddenly, I want to do strange things like regrout my shower tiles and stay in my pajamas while making rice pudding on the stove and crocheting scarves that I will probably never wear.
But the all-time most enjoyable and important part of October, of course, is at the end. Halloween is a lifestyle. Once a year I can look around the room at people dressed up like ghouls, monsters and zombies and think, “these people aren't half bad.”

I usually get stoked about picking out a costume. However, I went a little over my budget last year with my Carmen Miranda costume, so... I will probably be Carmen until I either die or change weight too much to fit into it. Whatever comes first. Hopefully the fruit hat will hold up. Without the costume to make, I still find myself especially gleeful to know the holiday is approaching. I want to throw a party and serve peeled grapes and call them eyeballs. Most people can only get away with that once a year. This is it. Also, I have to redeem myself for the party I threw last year. I accidentally and forcefully threw a Kit Kat bar into a girl's drink who I didn't know so well. It splashed all over her. Yeah... That was sort of unfortunate. I was trying to make sure the candy was evenly distributed. Throwing Kit Kat bars across my jam-packed living room seemed like a good idea at the time... This year I will only throw eyeballs while inebriated from "spooky punch."

Fall used to be something I really, truly despised. It was synonymous with homework and getting cooped up inside. Now that I'm out of school and can leave the house after dark, it's rapidly turning into one of my favorite seasons. Now to go pick out a pumpkin and buy a green bunch of eyeballs.

Cool

I steal candy from babies
I rob liquor stores
I pickpocket old ladies
I short-change my whores

I sneer at the pigs
With a glare none-plainer
As I take a few swigs
From my open container

I loiter on Main Street
I snort a few lines
Guns talk pretty sweet
To evade parking fines

You think
I’m bound for the Joint
I’ll be in for a while
Let me get to my point
Baby, cuffs ain’t my style


**Note: I wrote this poem in high school. It is my favorite poem I have ever written. And it's TOTALLY autobiographical.

Salvador, Dolly, Pandora and Pip

Padre will be turning 65 in a couple of days. I don't know of too much that I've inherited from my father in a physical sense, other than ghost-white skin that peels like the outer layer of an onion every time it sees ten minutes of sunshine. And good fingernail beds. Padre and I both have really good fingernail beds. Padre always sternly reminds me to stop chewing on my fingernails. I think it grosses him out. But he cuts his fingernails with a box cutting razor. That makes me probably equally as squeamish because he is only one sneeze away from the nickname Thumbs Only Ronald.

Everybody has their habits, though. Nobody licks the outside of the jelly or anything... That would be gross. Nope. Nobody does that. Especially not me. But if somebody did lick the outside of the jelly, it would be completely understandable. Jelly wasting is the truly disgusting act in that scenario.

One very important nonphysical trait I did inherit from Padre though is his love of animals. He has always been my encyclopedia to wildlife. “I saw this big, fat thing with an orange face, a mop top and flippers run across the road! What was it?” Padre always knows. He has a degree in zoology.

These days Padre finds more than enough fuzzy companionship with our one old pooch, Oreo. But over the years, he's been the “food man” to iguanas, tarantulas, hermit crabs, horned toads, a multitude of fish, cats, dogs, a gray squirrel named Buckles, frogs, turtles, and his own wild and unruly offspring. Maybe more. Rats? Snakes? Who knows. I know he passed on a three-foot alligator that was offered to him a few years ago... “I did that for your mother. Plus the little guy probably wouldn't be too happy in the bathtub all the time and we'd never get him back if we put him in the lake.”

My personal pet list is not as impressive since a lot of the pets on Padre's list were family pets that I, too, loved. Especially Oreo and Bandit, the adorable pooches of my life so far. But since I've been on my own, I've had sea monkeys, a red squirrel named Buckles II (not quite as easy to domesticate a red squirrel as one would think... I did not succeed... But he still counts), a dozen individually-named earth worms (I dabbled briefly in composting my own garbage... until I accidentally killed my earthworms and developed a terrible fear of raccoons.) and last, but certainly not least, Leo the Siamese-obese kitty. He is on a diet. Brian insists he's just fluffy. Leo is the the awesomest.

Oh yeah... And right now I have a bathtub full of kittens! There's Pip, Pandora, Salvador and Dolly. (Get it? Salvador Dahli? I got to name them... Can you tell?). And the momma cat. I am taking care of them for one of my boyfriend Brian's friends who didn't get the concept that if ya let your non-spayed cat roam around town, the best case scenario is a preggo cat. Which is what happened. Long story short, the cat owner needed to move into a different apartment in a hurry—an apartment that didn't allow any cats, let alone a cat with four adorable kittens. So... Trish with a bathtub full of cats for the next three months until the owner's lease is up on the new apartment and a cat-friendly apartment can be found! Don't tell my landlord though... He wasn't pleased that Leo was in the picture, let alone five other cats... four of which who are new to the concept of pooping in a box and not behind the bookshelf. Or in my shoes.

The kittens are still nursing right now, but after that, they will be given to people I deem suitable cat owners. No, Mom and Padre, this doesn't mean I am keeping all of the kittens. In fact, I think I have homes for all of the kittens if the prospects pan out. I still need to check the CCAPS website to make sure nobody was arrested for, you know, criminal acts to cats.

Speaking of owners... After deciding Leo might be chubby because he doesn't have a companion to play with, Brian and I decided to take the next step in our relationship. Marriage? Nah. Kitten? Okay! It makes perfect sense to me to celebrate the birthday of the man who taught me to love animals by adopting Pandora. And also eating cake. Happy Birthday Padre. I hope your birthday is warm and fuzzy. I love you.