Molly Goatwax

sleeping in

It feels odd, after cobbling together so many odd jobs, to wake up with a weekend to myself. I think I'll go to the thrift store for more jeans that I can wear to my new job. It's a blessing. I would have driven an hour to work in a cubicle at some odious company for half as much, wearing a monkey suit. After the thrift store, the studio.

This ain't Abbey Road

I regret enabling the cat in the cultivation of a new habit. Specifically, he has taken to standing on the wooden steps outside the bathroom window and caterwauling to be let in. Although I can hear him more clearly there than at either door, I am usually occupied or sopping wet when he senses my presence and demands immediate attention from outside. Nothing like a blast of icy air after a shower to wake one up!

a dust of snow makes babies of us all

Although I have been driving for a few years and my vehicle is sturdy, I still get nervous driving through the soup they call "Wintery Mix". The expressway gets all slidey and the air looks like a low hanging skim milk vapor. The dulling of color makes the lack of any depth perception even more challenging to the point of my eyes popping out my head as I sit on the edge of my seat trying to discern shapes, speeds and distances...MY EYES! ow! They need a soakin'. Meanwhile, now you know who the old geezer driving the speed limit in the slow lane is.

25 Things

I've been tagged for a meme and now that I have a job for real now, I can post this;

 

I haven't had a cigarette in 13 months.

I still want one.

I am very short.

I once bought an apartment building on a credit card.

I once lost my pants in the woods and begged a pair by the side of the road.

I wound up with some boy scout uniform shorts.

I was the main suspect in a diamond heist.

I didn't do it.

I rode on the back of a motorcycle to Florida in February.

I didn't feel right for days.

I once spent a winter afternoon sledding with a cat.

I lived for a winter in a house with three walls.

I learned to drive at age 39.

I am driving my third SAAB, my second convertible.

I knocked over a stone wall with the first one without a mark on the car.

I have enjoyed the heated seats in all of them.

I used to own a dive bar.

I can't tell good wine from bad.

I think it all tastes bad.

My reconstructive surgeon wanted to remove my third nipple.

I would not let him.

I wake up without an alarm clock no matter when I need to rise.

I once made a mobile of the human digestive system and hung it beside my cousin's hospital bed after he was stabbed in the gut.

I am usually pathologically honest but feel like cheating you out of the last item.

I am further cheating the system by not tagging 25 friends.

the ground shifts a yard underfoot

As the elderly lady I visit and I took our last hike down the long hall that always smells like macaroni, I wondered if she would remember my absence after a few days. I imagine that at the age of 94, she has forgotten more people than I have yet met, and that I will miss our visits more than she. I don't know. I did tell her that she will be seeing the other nurse assistant that visits all next week. Tommorrow I will be shooting newborn portraits for the last time in the forseeable future. I will miss those little screamers and wiggle-butts, too. But as I hang up my nurse's cap for a banker's green visor, I won't be missing those late and overdue bills that interrupted our sleep with worry...Monday I start crunching the numbers on secured investments in earnest. Again. 

Trifecta

Yesterday morning I thought the tire on my car's front passenger quarter looked a bit low, so I threw my little red air compressor in the back seat before I headed off to work. At the end of the day, I was in a hurry to see my accountant so I vowed to pump it up when I got home. After a few blocks, I heard a familiar "grummm" sound and it was getting louder. So! I pulled over to a safe spot by the side of the road and sure enough, the tire was flat. I plugged the compressor into the car's adapter and was pumping merrily away when, for some reason, the compressor's auto shut-off failed when the tire reached pressure and it exploded. The tire. Not the compressor. Luckily for me (besides that I was standing ten feet away), The Queen of Flat Tires is married to a knight who shined up his armor before he fetched me with his gallant station wagon. We dropped my car key in Ike's mail slot with a note on our way home and Ike towed my car to his shop this morning. I missed the call to pick up the car and couldn't have gone for it today anyway, but when I listened to the message Ike left on my voice mail, my jaw dropped. Besides replacing the exploded tire, he had to pull nails out of and patch both rear tires, which were almost flat, too. Where's my crown?

I'll get used to it

Wondering if the level of self involvement with a blog is any different than a page on a social utility site, I signed myself right up after years of swearing I'd never. Within 24 hours, 32 people I hadn't heard from since the ice age were e-mailing me, having nice chats and adding me to their networks. It feels almost like attending a time lapse cocktail party with ghosts. Huh.

Nothing more than a recommendation

You should really look at Cats That Look Like Hitler. Then, you should check out their hate mail.

Obamania

The younger daughter and I drove through the center of town on the way to de-install my show. The expressway and most of the streets downtown are closed. Rousted, the homeless were marching away from the plaza at which the president elect will speak this afternoon. It looked like every cop in the state has been assigned to keep them away, too. I'm glad we don't live in Washington anymore.

The spirits lift

And a sigh of relief escapes. Today I accepted an offer of full time employment. Where's that dusty hat rack gone? I have to polish up my banker's cap.