Barely Surviving

On my own for these past three weeks.

As soon as I get up in the morning, the cats are threading their large bodies through my legs and circling me like small sharks. Flux is usually bleating like a sick duck. After feeding them, I walk the dog. Then go to work (a mile uphill both ways in the driving rain). Then come home and repeat the same process. Of course, the evening is livened up by giving Lucy her liquid medication. This generally resembles a scene from the exorcist. Lucy's head swivels 180 degrees and liquid and foam fly out. The vet assured me that the medication was "fish flavored" and Lucy would LOVE it. So far, Lucy hasn't.

I think that the year of the rat should be the year of reproduction. We had one friend just have a baby, have another friend that is having a baby in April, and another friend from Redding just told us that she was having one in October--oh, and a co-worker from my time in the District of Oregon is having a baby sometime soon as well. We're pretty booked up with babies for this year, so make your reproductive plans accordingly. All these babies are starting to make Laura nervous though. She takes care to remind me every chance she gets that she really dislikes babies.

This week has been filled with protests in downtown Portland. Yesterday, a group of protesters prevented me from getting to my bank (wells fargo) which is apparently a capitalist criminal. I had a nice view of the protesters gathering on the steps of the bank from my office window. My plans for going to the bank to get some $$$ to repay the co-worker who covered my $5 dollar soccer fee were thwarted. Today, my plans for a coke were thwarted by the protesters surrounding City Hall. I suppose that the City of Portland is somehow a capitalist war criminal?? I think the protesters were just trying to antagonize the police, which has seemed to be their point all along.

They're an odd bunch those protesters. A group of young to middle age white people with some homeless people picked up along their "parade" route. That's one thing that white people sure do love to do--protest things! How lucky that none of them seem to have jobs that interfere with their protest schedules. And its really amazing how they seem to be able to maintain a constant state of outrage about everything. Maintaining a constant state of outrage is really time consuming, and I would know because I have been maintaining a constant state of outrage against REI for not taking back my 15 year old vest last year (if you have not yet heard this scintillating tale of corporate fraud and want the full story, please let me know).

Ah well, hopefully tomorrow my attempts to participate in corporate greed by banking and purchasing coke will not be thwarted.